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Michael C. FitzGerald

American art historian, academic

Correspondence, annotated notebooks and portrait silhouettes prepared for research
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Record originEnglish Wikipedia
Text licenseCC BY-SA 4.0
Source revisionAug 31, 2026
Entity authorityQ6829017
Source-derived summary

Michael C. FitzGerald (born 1953) is a professor of fine arts and director of the program in art history at Trinity College, Hartford, Connecticut, United States. After his BA in 1976 from Stanford University, FitzGerald obtained both his MBA and PhD degrees from Columbia University in 1986 and 1987 respectively. He has worked for Christie's New York City Art Auction House and for several museums including New York City's Museum of Modern Art and the Whitney Museum of American Art.

FitzGerald has written four books, starting with his 1995 Making Modernism: Picasso and the Creation of a Market for Twentieth-Century Art. He has received grants from the National Endowment for the Arts, the National Endowment for the Humanities and Terra Foundation for American Art.

Although known principally as a scholar on Pablo Picasso, FitzGerald's interests have varied into the role of photography in preserving the record of art history, as in his March 13, 2009, article in the Wall Street Journal on the 19th century Finnish-Swedish scientist Gustaf Nordenskiöld's work with the cliff dwellings of Mesa Verde, Colorado. His articles for the Wall Street Journal include a study of the Inanke prehistoric cave paintings in Matobo National Park in Zimbabwe.

Editorial summary

This brief starts where responsible research should: with the source description of “Michael C. FitzGerald” as american art historian, academic. Everything that follows is an evidence route, not borrowed authority.

Editorial reviewStrongest as a route into the people, institutions and dated events that shaped the subject’s public record. The current lead gives the account dated anchors—1953, 1976, 1986, 1987—that can be checked directly. The linked authority record independently contributes the date 1953-01-01. The account is most persuasive where Michael, FitzGerald and American can be independently traced.
Editorial analysis

Why this record matters

The subject matters to the people & ideas register because the source frames it as american art historian, academic. Its deeper value depends on whether names, dates, institutions and citations support that framing.

Evidence profile

The entry’s evidential value lies in the named roles, institutions and publications that can be tested against primary documentation. The source revision retrieved here is dated Aug 31, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q6829017. VIAF identifies the subject as 310581237. 2 of 3 selected statements include explicit references; 0 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1953, 1976, 1986 and 1987.

Critical limits

Later biographies can compress uncertainty and repeat inherited reputations, so apparently settled claims may still require comparison. The source lead contains qualifying language; that uncertainty should survive quotation, summary and reuse. Authority statements aid reconciliation but still require their own references, qualifiers and ranks to be checked.

How to read it

Read biographical claims against dates, named institutions and the cited references. Distinguish a subject’s later reputation from evidence produced during their lifetime.

Best used for
  • Establishing names and roles
  • Building a first chronology
  • Locating cited institutions
Verify next

Personal papers, civil or court records, institutional files and the scholarship cited by the source.

Three-step research path

  1. Establish the record: confirm the title “Michael C. FitzGerald”, its source revision and the description used here.
  2. Expand the search: follow Michael C. FitzGerald primary sources, Michael C. FitzGerald archive and Michael research across catalogues and specialist indexes.
  3. Test the account: compare the strongest cited source with the responsible institution’s current record and note any disagreement.

Questions for further research

  1. Which source most directly establishes the central claim about “Michael C. FitzGerald”?
  2. Which primary records establish identity, chronology and institutional ties?
  3. How has the subject’s reputation changed across later accounts?
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Source & attribution

This entry incorporates text from Michael C. FitzGerald” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.