In Memoriam | David Bindman (1940–2025)
Posted recently (3 June) by the Paul Mellon Centre:
David Bindman (1940–2025)
by Sarah Victoria Turner
We are saddened to hear that David Bindman (1940–2025) Emeritus Professor of the History of Art at University College London and Fellow of the Hutchins Center for African and African American Research, Harvard University, has passed away after a short illness.
David has been an immensely influential figure in British art over the last sixty years, writing on Blake (the subject of his first published article in 1966), Hogarth, Roubiliac, the French Revolution and caricature, and race and representation. His book Blake as an Artist (1977) endures as a key text, while his Hogarth for the World in Art series (1981) remains a standard introduction to the artist. His publications for the Paul Mellon Centre (PMC) include Karl Friedrich Schinkel ‘The English Journey’ (with Gottfried Reimann, 1993) and the multiple-award-winning Roubiliac and the Eighteenth-Century Monument (with Malcolm Baker, 1995). He was a founding figure in the multi-volume project Image of the Black in Western Art (2006 to date) and co-editor of thirteen volumes in the series. . .
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It was David who encouraged me, as only black History of Art Student in 1990-3 to pursue a career in Museum Education as an Art Historian specialising in the Image of the Black in Western European Art.
He was fiercely loyal to his students, even after graduating. He was so optimistic with that boundless puppy energy & nervous giggle. He was not a snob and clearly not racist; and so modest about his impressive academic achievements.
Regardless of what personal crises I had going on in my life, David met me for lunch, annually, until recently for lunch at his favourite Chinese restaurant alongside The British Library where I then worked.
Last time we met was at an International Museum Conference in Florence. Typically, David, he said, we must meet and that we did.
Like many, I’m indebted to David. I’ll miss that mischievous twinkle in his eyes, his warm embrace & that nervous boyish giggle & irreverent sense of humour!
Rovianne Matovu
Thanks so much for sharing these memories. -Craig