E.A. Carmean, Jr.

 Washington, DC, Oct. 14—E.A. Carmean, Jr. a museum curator and director described by the New York Times in 1988 as  “one of the most respected museum men in America,” and who later had a second career in the Church, died at his home in Washington D.C. on Oct. 12 his family announced today. The cause was cancer.

Mr. Carmean, who was known throughout his life by his first two initials, was born on Jan. 25, 1945 in Springfield Illinois, the son of E.A. Carmean, Sr. a telephone executive and Helen Marker Carmean. He received a B.A. in Art History, Philosophy and Theology from MacMurray College in Jacksonville, Illinois, in 1967 and did graduate work at the University of Illinois from 1967 to1970. In 1983 he was awarded an honorary doctorate in Fine Arts from MacMurray College. The recipient of Guggenheim and National Endowment for the Arts fellowships, he taught art history at George Washington University; Rice University; the Fort Berthold Indian Reservation, North Dakota and the University of Illinois.

In 1971 he joined the Houston Museum of Fine Arts as a Curator of Twentieth Century Art working under director Philippe de Montebello, who would go on to head the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York. Among the exhibitions he organized and wrote the catalogs for was “The Collages of Robert Motherwell” (1972). 

In 1974 he was hired by National Gallery of Art Director J. Carter Brown to serve as the museum’s Founding Curator of 20th Century Art. There he worked with patron and board president Paul Mellon, Mr. Brown and architect I.M. Pei to realize the Gallery’s plans for the East Building. This included commissioning major public works from modern masters Alexander Calder, Anthony Caro, Joan Miro, Henry Moore, and Robert Motherwell. 

The East Building opened in June 1978 with “American Art at Mid-Century: The Subjects of the Artist” an exhibition about Abstract Expressionism organized by Mr. Carmean for which he also wrote the catalog. It is best remembered for its display of 13 sculptures from David Smith's “Voltri” series, placed on steps and platforms reminiscent of the Roman amphitheater at Spoleto, Italy, where his welded sculptures had been created and shown in 1962. 

Among the other important exhibitions Mr. Carmean organized and wrote catalogs for at the National Gallery of Art were “Braque: The Papiers Collés” (1982), and “David Smith” (1982). 

One of his innovations at the National Gallery of Art was the series of focus exhibitions, which examined a single work from the permanent collection in detail. These included “Mondrian: The Diamond Compositions” (1979), “Picasso: The Saltimbanques” (1980) and “Bellows: The Boxing Pictures” (1983). 

During his tenure he secured a number of important acquisitions, the greatest of which was Jackson Pollock’s “Number 1, 1950 (Lavender Mist)” (1950), a classic example of the Abstract Expressionist painter’s revolutionary “drip” style. This was a particularly impressive achievement since by that time most of the key artworks of the first half of the twentieth century had been acquired by other institutions or collectors. 

In 1984 he was appointed director of the Modern Art Museum of Fort Worth, Texas where he, organized and wrote the catalog for “Helen Frankenthaler: A Paintings Retrospective” (1989). From 1992 to 1997 he served as director of the Memphis Brooks Museum of Art in Memphis, Tenn. 

Responding to a call to the church he had felt for many years, from 1997 to 2001 he attended Memphis Theological Seminary, later joining the clergy staff of St. George’s Episcopal Church, Germantown, Tenn., with Rev. Gary Sturni (with whom he worked on a children’s book “Saint Guinefort”). In 2005 West Tennessee Episcopal Bishop Don Johnson made him Lay Canon for Art and Architecture in the Diocese with a license to preach.

Mr. Carmean had a gift of language that allowed him to communicate art’s richness and complexity to a general audience with warmth, clarity and insight. Over the course of his career he published over 200 essays, reviews, and exhibition catalogues in 8 languages. He co-directed, narrated and appeared in five films, including “David Smith,” (1982) for which he won an Emmy Award for Direction of a Documentary. Since 2011, he had been a regular contributor to the Wall Street Journal’s Arts in Review and Books sections, writing on both religion and art, as well as to other publications. “Looking at Art: Some Sacred, Some Profane,” a selection of his essays, reviews, and sermon texts is being prepared for publication. He held a U.S. Patent for a box design. 

He is survived by his wife Kathryn, an organization development practitioner and credentialed leadership coach with the Aerospace Corporation, their daughter Elizabeth Carmean Adams and her husband Wayne Adams, and two grandchildren Abigail and John Adams, of North Potomac, Maryland.

In lieu of flowers, the family asks that memorial contributions be made to: Christ Church Episcopal Georgetown (31st and O Streets, Washington, DC 20008).

 Link to Washington Post article:   https://www.washingtonpost.com/local/obituaries/ea-carmean-jr-national-gallerys-founding-curator-of-20th-century-art-dies-at-74/2019/10/17/457e251c-eef8-11e9-8693-f487e46784aa_story.html