EASTMAN, Alvan Clark. Munich 10.1.1894 — Cambridge, MA 9.9.1959. U.S. Art Historian. Son of Charles Rochester E. (1868–1918), a geologist and palaeontologist, and Caroline Amelia Clark, born in Germany where his father was studying. From 1923 Assistant in Oriental Division in Museum of Fine Art in Boston. In 1925-29 Curator, Oriental Art, Institute of Arts in Detroit. In 1940 A.B. and A.M. Harvard and A.M. New York University. In 1947-48 director of Public Museum in Evansville, Indiana, 1948-50 of Art Institute in Pasadena, California, from 1950 of Winnipeg Art Gallery, later also of Brooklyn Museum. Interested in Indian and Chinese art, and in the relation between literature and painting. Married Dorothy Rolfe (1894–1986).
Publications: Review of Brown’s Manuscript illustration of the Uttaradhyayana Sūtra, 1941, JAOS 62, 1942, 77-80.
– “Iranian Influences in Śvetāmbara Jaina Painting in the Early Western Indian Style”, JAOS 63, 1943, 93-113; “An Illustrated Jain Manuscript Transitional to the Rajput Style”, JAOS 63, 1943, 285-288; a few further articles.
– “The Naiṣadhacarita as the Source Text of the Nala-Damayantī Drawings”, JAOS 70, 1950, 238-242.
– The Nala-Damayanti Drawings. 20+119 p. 47 pl. Boston 1959 (of Kangra school).
Sources: Dir. Am. Sch. 2nd ed. 1952; not in Who Was Who in Am.
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