User:Simonferenc/Karl R. Lunde

Karl R. Lunde (November 1, 1931 - December 27, 2009) was an American Author, Art Historian, Art Gallery director in New York City and teacher of Art History at Columbia University and William Paterson University.

Family
Mr. Lunde was the second son of Immigrants from Norway, Karl and Elisa Lunde, who had emigrated to America from Norway in the 1920s. He was Born in Staten Island, Richmond, New York on Nov. 1, 1931.

Education
In 1952 Mr. Lunde received his Bachelor of Arts degree from Columbia University and followed that up with an Master of Arts in 1954, in the field of Art History. In 1970, Mr. Lunde received his Ph.D. in art history from Columbia University. His dissertation on Johan Christian Dahl was the first English language study of this influential 19th-century Norwegian landscape painter.

Life's Work
During the years 1957 to 1970, he was an instructor in the School of General Studies at Columbia University. From 1956 to 1965 Mr. Lunde also directed The Contemporaries, an art gallery on Madison Avenue in New York City devoted to modern painting and sculpture. While there, he was among the first to encourage the collecting and appreciation of modern fine prints and to introduce Americans to the work of Fernando Botero, Jose de Creeft, Antonio Music, and Ricardo Martinez. He was an early champion of several young American artists, now much celebrated, including Robert Kipniss, Richard Anuszkiewicz, and Lorrie Goulet. From 1957 to 1970, he was an instructor in the School of General Studies at Columbia University.

In 1970, he became a Professor of Art History at William Paterson University in New Jersey, where he taught until his retirement in 1996. Over the years, Mr. Lunde developed a wide-ranging repertoire of courses, including classes on American painting and sculpture, Asian art, Prehistoric art, and European neo-Classicism and Romanticism. A mesmerizing lecturer, Mr. Lunde received a university award for teaching excellence. By utilizing his own collection of over 30,000 personally annotated color slides, in combination with his enthusiastic knowledge of the subject, he taught his students how to not only know the basic facts but to also be able to look for the symbolism behind it. His slide collection was later donated to Columbia University's Art Library.