Bernard Berenson

Bernard Berenson (1865-1959), American art critic and writer, regarded during his lifetime as the world's foremost expert on Italian Renaissance art. He was often employed by prominent art collectors, galleries, and museums to evaluate prospective acquisitions.

Born in a Jewish village near Vilnius, Lithuania, Berenson was taken as a child by his parents to Boston. After attending Boston and Harvard universities, he studied art history in Europe on a fellowship. In 1900 he married and settled at Settignano, near Florence, in the Villa I Tatti (willed at his death to Harvard as an art research center). His first book, Venetian Painters of the Renaissance (1894), was followed by others on the painters of Florence and central and northern Italy. In about 1906 he became consultant to the English art dealer Lord Joseph Duveen. This association and others, which utilized his skill in authenticating paintings, brought him substantial earnings. Although most famed for his expertise in Italian Renaissance art, he was one of the first to recognize the significance of such modern French artists as Pierre Auguste Renoir and Paul Cézanne. A prolific writer on art, Berenson was also the author of Sketch for a Self-Portrait (1949) and Rumor and Reflection (1952). Sunset and Twilight, a collection of his diaries (1947-58), was published in 1963.