Scribner, Charles, III 1951–

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Scribner, Charles, III 1951–

PERSONAL: Born May 24, 1951, in Washington, DC; son of Charles (a book publisher) and Joan (a figure skater) Scribner; married Ritchie Harrison Markoe (an artist and teacher), August 4, 1979; children: Charles IV, Christopher Markoe. Education: Princeton University, A.B., M.F.A., 1975, Ph.D., 1977. Religion: Roman Catholic. Hobbies and other interests: Opera, classical music, theology, English and American literature.

ADDRESSES: Home—New York, NY. Office—Macmillan Publishing Co., 866 Third Ave., New York, NY 10022.

CAREER: Publisher, editor, writer, art historian, and educator. Charles Scribner's Sons, New York City, editor, 1975–78, director of subsidiary rights, 1978–82, publisher of paperback division, 1982–83, executive vice-president, 1983–84; Macmillan Publishing Co., New York City, vice-president for special projects, 1984–2004. Princeton University, instructor, 1976–77, member of advisory council of university library, 1980–90, and department of art and archaeology, 1983–; member of board of trustees of Princeton University Press, 1983–90; trustee, Homeland Foundation, 1985–.

MEMBER: Authors Guild, Phi Beta Kappa, Ivy Club, Racquet and Tennis Club, Piping Rock Club.

WRITINGS:

The Triumph of the Eucharist: Tapestries Designed by Rubens, UMI Research Press (Ann Arbor, MI), 1982.

Peter Paul Rubens, H.N. Abrams (New York, NY), 1989.

Gianlorenzo Bernini, H.N. Abrams (New York, NY), 1991.

The Shadow of God: A Journey through Memory, Art, and Faith (memoir), Doubleday (New York, NY), 2006.

Also author of introduction to reprinted editions of F. Scott Fitzgerald's The Great Gatsby and Tender Is the Night. Contributor to Art, Creativity, and the Sacred, Diane Apostolos-Cappadona, Crossroad Publishing, 1984, and The Incarnate Imagination: Essays in Theology, the Arts, and Social Sciences in Honor of Andrew Greeley, edited by Ingrid H. Shafer, Popular Press, 1988. Contributor of articles and reviews to art journals, including Art Bulletin and Burlington.

SIDELIGHTS: As a result of his interest in art, Charles Scribner III has written about both art and artists in the books The Triumph of the Eucharist: Tapestries Designed by Rubens, Peter Paul Rubens, and Gianlorenzo Bernini. Scribner provides a view of his own life in The Shadow of God: A Journey through Memory, Art, and Faith. Written in the form of a journal, Scribner writes about his youth as part of the privileged Scribner publishing family and the spiritual journey that led to his conversion to Roman Catholicism. In addition, he provides insights into his views on literature, art, and music and their relationship to a spiritual life and a belief in God. Franco Mormando, writing in the Catholic weekly magazine America, noted that the author "comes across as a thoroughly likeable, kind, decent human being, a loving son, father and husband as well as a loyal, caring friend." Mormando added: "He is also a good storyteller: one should be so lucky as to be seated next to him at a long, formal dinner." A Kirkus Reviews contributor commented that the memoir includes "many knowledgeable comments about art, music and publishing intertwined with religious commentary."

Scribner once told CA: "I fell into publishing as an act of birth—into a highly unoriginal family of five generations of book publishers. I have happily stayed through the choice: it is one of the few professions that may legitimately embrace a wide spectrum of intellectual and cultural pursuits.

"As an art historian, I continue to focus my research, writing, and lecturing on the Baroque—the art of the seventeenth to eighteenth centuries—for similar reasons. The age of Galilei Galileo and Sir Isaac Newton, as well as of Peter Paul Rubens, Rembrandt van Rijn, and Giovanni Bernini, the Baroque encompassed the rise of the modern nation-states, of opera, of science, and of an artistic impulse and aesthetic that strove to reconcile and unify naturalism with classicism, mysticism with realism, and different media (painting, sculpture, and architecture). An expansive world view was combined with an unabashed appeal to the emotions and a probing of psychological depths. At the same time, artists, as well as writers and philosophers, breathed new life into the dual western heritage of Christian spirituality and Graeco-Roman classicism. A triumph of synthesis and wholeness, Baroque art provides an effective antidote to the fragmentation of our own times."