O'GORMAN, James F(rancis) 1933-

PERSONAL: Born September 19, 1933, in St. Louis, MO; son of Paul J. and Dorothy (Hogan) O'Gorman; married Jean Baer, 1957 (marriage ended); children: four (one deceased); married Susan Danly, 1998. Education: Washington University (St. Louis, MO), B.Arch., 1956; University of Illinois, M.Arch., 1961; Harvard University, Ph.D., 1966.

ADDRESSES: Home—81 Nash Rd., Windham, ME 04062. E-mail—jogorman@wellesley.edu.

CAREER: Writer, lecturer, and consultant. University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, assistant professor of fine arts, 1966-71; visiting lecturer at Boston University, Boston, MA, Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), Cambridge, MA, and Tufts University, Medford, MA, part-time, 1971-75; Wellesley College, Wellesley, MA, Grace Slack McNeil professor emeritus of the history of American Art, 1975-2004; visiting professor at Williams College, Columbia University, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, and the University of Delaware.

MEMBER: Society of Architectural Historians (director, 1967; president, 1970-72), College Art Association of America, Renaissance Society of America, Mediaeval Academy of America, American Antiquarian Society, Philadelphia Athenaeum (life fellow and director emeritus), Victorian Society in America (member of board of advisors).

AWARDS, HONORS: Historical Collections Prize, Essex Institute of Salem, MA, 1981, for "Twentieth Century Gothick: The Hammond Castle Museum in Gloucester and Its Antecedents"; Distinguished Alumnus Award, Washington University School of Architecture, 1994; Philip Johnson Award, 1996, for The Perspective of Anglo-American Architecture; Henry Russell Hitchcock Prize, Victorian Society in America, and annual book award, Society for the Preservation of New England Antiquities, both 1998, both for Living Architecture: A Biography of H. H. Richardson.

WRITINGS:

NONFICTION

(Editor and translator) Paul Frankl, Principles of Architectural History, MIT Press (Cambridge, MA), 1968.

The Architecture of the Monastic Library in Italy: 1300-1600, New York University Press (New York, NY), 1972.

The Architecture of Frank Furness, Philadelphia Museum of Art (Philadelphia, PA), 1973.

Portrait of a Place: Some American Landscape Painters in Gloucester, Gloucester 350th Anniversary Committee (Gloucester, MA), 1973.

H. H. Richardson and His Offıce, a Centennial of His Move to Boston, 1874: Selected Drawings, Houghton Library, Harvard University (Cambridge, MA), 1974.

A Billings Bookshelf: An Annotated Bibliography of Works Illustrated by Hammatt Billings (1818-1874), Wellesley College (Wellesley, MA), 1983.

(Editor) Cervin Robinson: Photographs, 1958-1983, Wellesley College Museum (Wellesley, MA), 1983.

(With others) Drawing toward Building: Philadelphia Architectural Graphics, 1732-1986, University of Pennsylvania Press (Philadelphia, PA), 1986.

H. H. Richardson: Architectural Forms for an American Society, University of Chicago Press (Chicago, IL), 1987.

(Editor) Aspects of American Printmaking, 1800-1950, Syracuse University Press (Syracuse, NY), 1988.

On the Boards: Drawings by Nineteenth-Century Boston Architects, University of Pennsylvania Press (Philadelphia, PA), 1989.

Three American Architects: Richardson, Sullivan, and Wright, 1865-1915, University of Chicago Press (Chicago, IL), 1991.

The Perspective of Anglo-American Architecture: Notes on Some Graphic Attempts at Three-dimensional Representation in the Colonies and Early Republic, Athenaeum of Philadelphia (Philadelphia, PA), 1995.

Living Architecture: A Biography of H. H. Richardson, Simon & Schuster (New York, NY), 1997.

ABC of Architecture, University of Pennsylvania Press (Philadelphia, PA), 1998.

Accomplished in All Departments of Art: Hammatt Billings of Boston, 1818-1874, University of Massachusetts Press (Amherst, MA), 1998.

(With Peter J. Fergusson and John Rhodes) The Landscape and Architecture of Wellesley College, Wellesley College (Wellesley, MA), 2001.

(Editor, with Kenneth Hafertepe) American Achitects and Their Books to 1848, University of Massachusetts Press (Amherst, MA), 2001.

Connecticut Valley Vernacular: The Vanishing Landscape and Architecture of the New England Tobacco Fields, University of Pennsylvania Press (Philadelphia, PA), 2002.

(Editor) The Makers of Trinity Church in the City of Boston, University of Massachusetts Press (Amherst, MA), 2004.

Former editor of journal of Society of Architectural Historians, and of Nineteenth Century.

SIDELIGHTS: James F. O'Gorman is an American writer and educator known for his scholarly works on architectural and art history. The Grace Slack McNeil professor emeritus of the History of American Art at Wellesley College, O'Gorman is known primarily for academic works focusing on New England buildings, including his extensive work on Henry Hobson Richardson, a nineteenth-century American architect who designed Boston's famous Trinity Church. Reviewing Living Architecture: A Biography of H. H. Richardson, a Publishers Weekly critic stated that O'Gorman's "personal fascination with his subject allows him to slide quickly from formal analysis to personal detail without ever leaving the rich atmosphere." According to J. Duncan Berry in New Criterion, the author's "contributions to the improved understanding of Richardson over the years have been legion, and, in the leisurely pace at which he plies his narrative, O'Gorman gracefully displays his truly remarkable command of his subject matter's potential nuances."

In 1997, O'Gorman published ABC of Architecture, a nontechnical introduction to architectural topics, written for the layperson. The work, according to a Publishers Weekly critic, "introduces the reader to the complex juggling act required of architects to produce works in our oldest art form." O'Gorman "explains so clearly how buildings work that his reader ends up understanding not only the built world but much of the jargon in other architecture books," commented D. J. R. Bruckner in the New York Times Book Review. O'Gorman's "mastery of the subject shows in his straightforward, lucid prose," found the critic for Publishers Weekly. Bruckner concluded: "ABC of Architecture, a model of brevity and clarity, may be the best-written work on the subject in English for lay people. . . . He calls his little book a 'primer' and a 'modest grammar.' Many readers will call it a life's companion."

BIOGRAPHICAL AND CRITICAL SOURCES:

PERIODICALS

American Historical Review, December, 1999, Robert Muccigrosso, review of Accomplished in All Departments of Art, p. 1658.

Boston Magazine, February, 1998, Richard Smith, review of Living Architecture: A Biography of H. H. Richardson, p. 125.

Library Journal, December, 1997, Peter S. Kaufman, review of Living Architecture, p. 98.

New Criterion, April, 1998, J. Duncan Berry, review of Living Architecture, p. 67.

New York Times Book Review, November 9, 1997, D. J. R. Bruckner, review of ABC of Architecture; October 25, 1998, Suzanne Stephens, review of Accomplished in All Departments of Art.

Publishers Weekly, October 20, 1997, review of ABC of Architecture, p. 60; October 20, 1997, review of Living Architecture, p. 61.

ONLINE

Wellesley College Web site, http://www.wellesley.edu/ (August 10, 2004).