WOLLHEIM, Richard Arthur 1923-2003

OBITUARY NOTICE—See index for CA sketch: Born May 5, 1923, in London, England; died of heart failure, November 4, 2003, in London, England. Philosopher, educator, and author. A longtime professor at University College, Cambridge, who later taught in the United States, Wollheim was famous for employing his knowledge of psychology to interpret art in new and insightful ways. After serving in the British Army during World War II, he completed his master's at Balliol College, Oxford, in 1948. The next year, he joined the University of London's faculty, becoming Grote Professor of Philosophy of Mind and Logic in 1963 and remaining there for a total of thirty-three years. In 1982, he moved to the United States, teaching at Columbia University for two years before accepting a post at the University of California campus at Berkeley. For several years, between 1989 and 1996, he taught at both the Berkeley and Davis campuses before returning full-time to Berkeley. He served as the chair of the philosophy department there for the last four years before his 2002 retirement. Though interested in a wide range of subjects related to philosophy, Wollheim gained most renown for his theories regarding the interpretation of art and was also noted for coining the term "Minimalism." Wollheim maintained that art could best be viewed by "seeing in" to every aspect of the piece, including trying to interpret how the art was originally conceived and created and within what type of environment and context. His ideas about art are discussed in his On Art and the Mind (1973), Painting As an Art: The A. W. Mellon Lectures in the Fine Arts (1987), and, more recently, Richard Wollheim on the Art of Painting: Art As Representation and Expression (2001). Besides his studies on art, though, Wollheim was also well known for his biography Sigmund Freud (1971), as well as a critically acclaimed novel, A Family Romance (1969). The recipient of the 1993 Award for Services to Psychoanalysis from the International Psychoanalytic Society, Wollheim was the author of over a dozen books in all, including Art and Its Objects: An Introduction to Aesthetics (1968; 2nd edition, 1980), The Good Self and the Bad Self (1976), and Formalism and Its Kinds (1995).

OBITUARIES AND OTHER SOURCES:

PERIODICALS

Chicago Tribune, November 10, 2003, Section 1, p. 13.

Los Angeles Times, November 9, 2003, p. B18.

New York Times, November 8, 2003, p. A25.

Washington Post, November 9, 2003, p. C11.