Dewey Mosby, director emeritus of Colgate’s Picker Art Gallery, died yesterday, August 1, of pulmonary issues at Bassett Hospital in Cooperstown, N.Y., at the age of 70.
An art historian, Mosby’s life included many firsts among black Americans, including being the first to receive a PhD in art history from Harvard University and the first to be curator of European art at a major American museum, the Detroit Institute of Art. He joined the Colgate staff in 1981.
“Dewey’s professionalism and passion for the visual arts transformed the Picker Art Gallery and steadily raised the profile of the arts at Colgate,” said Linck Johnson, Charles A. Dana Professor of English and former director of the arts and humanities division. “Our reputation was further enhanced by his stellar scholarship and the exhibitions he organized at prominent institutions.”
Dewey Mosby was a specialist in 19th- and 20th-century French art.
A specialist in 19th- and 20th-century French art, Mosby was also an expert on Henry Ossawa Tanner, who was one of the best-known painters in both America and France at the turn of the 20th century, and the leading African-American artist of the period.
Mosby’s books on Tanner include Henry Ossawa Tanner and Across Continents and Cultures: The Life and Works of Henry Ossawa Tanner, 1859-1937. He organized exhibitions celebrating Tanner’s art for the Philadelphia Museum and the Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art. The author of many articles, catalogue entries, and reviews, he was a frequent lecturer nationally and internationally.
The recipient of numerous awards, Mosby was twice decorated by the Order of Arts and Letters of France and held the title of Officier. He was awarded an NEA Fellowship for Museum Professionals and a five-year Grand Prize fellowship by the committee on general scholarships of Harvard University.
Among other recognition, he was listed in Who’s Who Among Black Americans, Who’s Who in American Art, Community Leaders and Noteworthy Americans, Living Legends in Black, Men of Achievement, and the Dictionary of International Biography.
Among the exhibitions Mosby arranged and organized at the Picker Art Gallery were The Fodor Collection: 19th-Century French Drawings and Watercolors from Amsterdam Historisch Museum; Impressionist and Post-Impressionist Works from a British Collection; Abstraction, Non-Objectivity, and Realism: 20th-Century Painting from the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum; Dutch Painting in the Age of Rembrandt from the Metropolitan Museum of Art; Alex Katz — Process and Development: Small Paintings from the Collection of Paul J. Schupf ’58; and Colgate Collects, a show drawn from the private collections of alumni and friends. Since retiring from Colgate in 2004, Mosby had continued his work as an independent scholar.
Earlier in his career, Mosby taught in the Department of Art and Art History at SUNY Buffalo, and at Harvard University’s Summer School. In addition, he was a teaching assistant at UCLA and served as assistant curator at the J. Paul Getty Museum.
A 1963 graduate of Lamar University in Beaumont, Texas, Mosby earned his MA at UCLA and his PhD at Harvard — all in art history. He also held a certificate for the Course in Effective Management from Cornell University’s School of Industrial and Labor Relations. Drafted into the army, he spent 1966 through 1968 at Fort Jackson in South Carolina.
Survivors include his wife, the arts journalist Rebekah Presson Mosby, and two children, Christophe and Veronique, from his first marriage to the former Evelyne Van Nes. A funeral will take place on Saturday, August 11 at St. Terese Catholic Church in Orange, Texas, at 10 a.m.