Charles Herbert Moore

Charles Herbert Moore (April 10, 1840 – February 15, 1930) was an American university professor, painter, and architectural historian, known as the first director of Harvard University's Fogg Art Museum. Initially he was one of many followers of the works of John Ruskin, and was known as an American Pre-Raphaelite. But later he would abandon Ruskin to follow the teachings of the French architect Viollet le Duc.

In 1871, Moore left painting to begin teaching at Harvard, where he led its new art department. There, Moore was among the first art historians at an academic institution in the United States. After retirement, Moore moved to Hampshire, England where he wrote many books on medieval and Renaissance architecture. He died in Hampshire in 1930.

Early life

Charles Moore was born on April 10, 1840, on Bleecker Street in New York City. His parents, Charles Moore and Jane Maria Berendtson had Puritanical roots. Both were religious; his father was a Quaker and his mother a Swedenborgian, something she led her son to find interest in. He became the first of three brothers and six sisters, and was educated in New York City public schools. He did not attend college.

Career

Moore began learning landscape painting in the 1850s at the Thirteenth Street School, and with Benjamin H. Coe in 1853 in New York City. Moore began exhibiting at the National Academy of Design in 1858, and was elected as an associate of the organization in 1862. He began to read the works of John Ruskin and began renting space at the Tenth Street Studio Building in 1859. That year, he also made his first known trip to the Catskill Mountains, and exhibited In the Catskills at the academy the following year. In 1861, Moore gave up the New York City studio and moved to Catskill, New York, and rented a studio from Theodore Cole, son of artist Thomas Cole. At this time, he was considered a minor member of the Hudson River School art movement.