John Golding (art historian)

Harold John Golding (10 September 1929 – 9 April 2012) was a British artist, art scholar, and curator. Born in East Sussex, Golding spent most of his childhood in Mexico, where both his parents were settled. There, he met several artistic and cultural figures, including Leonora Carrington, Diego Rivera, Juan O'Gorman and José Orozco, who influenced his later artistic practice. He was sent to board at Ridley College in St. Catharines, Canada, and – despite wishing to train as an artist – subsequently read art and archaeology at the University of Toronto. While at Toronto he made frequent visits to the Museum of Modern Art in New York City, and on the encouragement of his professor, Peter H. Brieger, he moved in 1951 to the Courtauld Institute of Art in London for postgraduate study.

Golding became interested in Cubism after attending an exhibition on it in 1953, and wrote his doctoral thesis on the early history of the movement. This was completed in 1957, and developed into a book, Cubism: A History and an Analysis, 1907–1914, first published in 1959. Golding's work argued that Cubism should be understood as a realist movement, and that Georges Braque should be considered its co-founder alongside Pablo Picasso. He taught at the Courtauld between 1959 and 1981, when he moved to the Royal College of Art.