Remembering David Bindman

We are saddened by the passing of David Bindman, 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, earlier this summer.

David was a distinguished scholar, writer, and mentor, as well as a longtime collaborator with the Yale Center for British Art. He published extensively over the past six decades, writing about William Blake—the subject of his doctoral dissertation—William Hogarth, and Louis Francois Roubiliac. He also advanced the discourse on race and representation as co-editor with Henry Louis Gates, Jr., of The Image of the Black in Western Art (Harvard University Press).

“David Bindman was one of the leading historians of British art of his generation and he leaves a huge legacy in the form of numerous books and exhibitions catalogues as testament to his immense contribution to the field,” shared Brian Allen, former director of the YCBA’s London-based partner institution, the Paul Mellon Center for Studies in British Art. “I will always treasure David’s remarkable gift for friendship, his gentle humor, and his ‘Gillray-like’ eye for the absurd.”

David authored, edited, and contributed to several YCBA publications and exhibition catalogues, including Enlightened Princesses: Caroline, Augusta, Charlotte, and the Shaping of the Modern World and The History of British Art (2017); Endless Forms: Charles Darwin, Natural Science and the Visual Arts (2009); The History of British Art, 1600– 1870 (2009); and William Hodges 1744 – 97: The Art of Exploration (2004). He curated William Blake: His Art and Times (1982), the YCBA’s first major exhibition to showcase the artist, and authored the accompanying catalog. A later exhibition at the museum, “Among the Whores and Thieves”: The Beggar’s Opera (1997) developed out of a graduate seminar he taught at Yale.

“David was always exploring new big ideas and tiny-art historical byways, with infectious enthusiasm and great good humor,” noted Scott Wilcox, former Curator of Prints and Drawings at the YCBA, who edited the accompanying catalog for the exhibition with David. “Whenever we would meet, he would have some drawing he had recently discovered, whose authorship we would try to puzzle out together.”

As a teacher, David influenced many students who went on to establish their own distinguished careers. “In the mid-1970's, David’s classes on Hogarth, Blake, and British sculpture were the best kind of introduction to British art. Classes with slides from which he taught fluently for two hours with no notes, were followed in alternate weeks by presentations by the students in front of the objects a variety of museums, galleries, student rooms and churches across London,” recalled his former PhD student Kim Sloan, who later became curator of British drawings and watercolors at the British Museum, and a regular Visiting Scholar at the YCBA. “[His] constant refrain was that British art could not be studied in a vacuum and that knowledge of the literature, politics, social, and cultural economic history of the period were essential.”

David will be remembered for his thoughtful scholarship, inspirational teachings, and lasting impact on British art history, as well as his enthusiasm, dedication, and good nature. He will be deeply missed by all who worked with and learned from him.