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In Memoriam

David Herndon Wright

Professor of Roman and Medieval Art, Emeritus

UC Berkeley
1929-2018
David Herndon Wright, a specialist on early Christian art, passed away on June 12, 2018. He was 88. A Bostonian by birth (July 11, 1929), he was educated at the Phillips Exeter Academy (New Hampshire, 1946) and Harvard University, where he obtained his B.A. (1950, cum laude), M.A. (in fine arts, 1951), and Ph.D. (1957). Between the last two degrees, he spent two years abroad: the first at the University of Munich (1951-1952), studying archaeology and art history, and the second, as a Fulbright Fellow at the Warburg Institute (University of London, 1953-1954), where he was supervised by a giant of an earlier generation, Hugo Buchthal. His first teaching appointment was as a lecturer in art at the University of California, Los Angeles (1961-1962). He taught at the University of California, Berkeley, for 46 years (1963-2009). His research focused on early Christian manuscripts, coins, and sculptures. He was the recipient of fellowships at the Institute for Advanced Study, Dumbarton Oaks, the American Academy in Rome, and had been elected to the Association Internationale des Critiques d’Art, the Society of Antiquaries, and the Comité International de Paléographie Latine. He was widely known for his remarkable archive of photographs, taken by him personally, featuring early Christian, Byzantine, and medieval art objects. It may be hard for a younger generation of scholars to fathom what love, tenacity, and labor it took to create such a collection before the Digital Age, and what an important research tool it was — one that David Wright frequently shared with others. The Oakland Hills firestorm of 1991 destroyed both this collection and his beautiful home, but he managed to rebuild both. During his last years of teaching, his repertoire of courses included film and the architectural plan of the UC Berkeley campus — a testament to his broad interests. 

He is survived by his wife Georgia, an art historian, his daughter Beth, a free-lance editor, and his sister Janet Jones.

Maria Mavroudi
2019