Famous but Unknown: An Introduction to J. Howard Miller

Abstract

Colin Eisler observed in 1987 that postwar art scholarship had increasingly begun to distance itself from the biographical details of artists. In the typical study, he wrote, “The Life is gotten over just as hastily as possible before turning to The Work.” In Eisler’s view, this development was unfortunate, for “if an artist’s work is worthy of scrutiny, the more we know the artist the better.” Perhaps no art historian has taken Eisler’s guidance more to heart than Martin Kemp. His Leonardo embraced the virtues of outright biography so avidly that it became an