Soldier, father, professor and ultimately mentor, Kenneth Lindsay died on March 2, 2009 at Wilson Memorial Hospital. He was 89.
Lindsay received the University Medal in 2007 for his accomplishments as a World War II “monument man,” but Lindsay would later claim he was “simply doing his job.”
According to William Voelkle, class of 1961, “Fortunately, for this institution, [his] work did not end there, for [he] brought back the valuable hands-on experience of art which fueled [his] enthusiasm in sharing those treasures with [his] students.”
Lindsay’s most well-known accomplishment was as a “monument man” involved in the restoration of artifacts and paintings stolen by the Nazis in Wiesbaden, Germany. He had previously been a cryptographer.
“From ‘45 to ‘46, he had the job of receiving all the stolen works of Hitler … It was such a marvelous honor for them … 27 Rembrandts,” said Christine Lindsay, his widow. “After they received these thousands Hitler had stole … they were sent as an exhibition in 1946.”
Lindsay was the last of four professors — Ed Ferber, Charles Eldred, Ed Wilson and Kenneth Lindsay — to pass away. Together the four constituted the “Golden Age of the Department.”
He chaired BU’s art department for 17 years, retiring from full-time service in 1989. He last served as the professor of an introduction to art course, ushering in a new generation through his unique method of teaching.
“Just everything about his classes, he was always super prepared,” said Diane Lesko, class of 1982. “His delivery was all very unique. He was really a great teacher … Anybody who went there got an incredible education.”
Lesko received her bachelor’s and master’s degrees, as well as her Ph.D., from SUNY Binghamton. According to Lesko, Lindsay created the Ph.D. program for art history at the school.
The war veteran came to Harpur College in 1951 when the school operated mostly out of community buildings. At the time, the art history class operated out of a carriage house in the public library.
Lindsay’s lectures were “awe inspiring. I think, for me at least, when he spoke of the hidden symbolism and meaning,” Voelkle said. “There was this whole cultural element.”
Although Lindsay led a warm and approachable life, his family and friends said, he did not gain mass recognition until his World War II work was chronicled in the 2006 “The Rape of Europa.” Directed by Richard Berge, the film was nominated for an Academy Award, but did not win.
“Professor Lindsay’s work went beyond the foundations to set in place the very structure of art history teaching at Binghamton, as the department grew to encompass a highly visible graduate program and, in 1976, what was the first and, for a long time, the only doctoral degree in art history in the entire SUNY system,” John Tagg, current chair of the art history department, said. “The reputation of the program today still stands on the strength of superstructure engineered under Professor Lindsay’s leadership.”
Rita Marie Kepner, now a sculptor and disaster responder for the Federal Emergency Management Agency, knew Lindsay since he was her neighbor at seven years old. She transferred from Elmira College to Harpur College and found herself under the tutelage of the late professor. She attributes her decision to travel to Europe to Lindsay.
“He treated everyone with this kind of encourage. He told me, ‘You should take that pilgrimage to see and find every Michaelangelo sculpture on the planet.’ I was able to become intimate with them,” she said. “To this day, there are only two sculptures I have not seen.”
Lindsay produced a catalog on the American painter John Vanderlyn. He was also a founder of BU’s art gallery.
“He went on and on till the very end in terms of scholarship. He was 89 when he died and his mind was still as sharp as a tack,” Lesko said.
Although the influential mentor would eventually send scores of graduates to uncover the art world for themselves, art was not Lindsay’s first choice in a career.
“My husband switched from chemistry to art history because he loved the colors of the chemicals,” Christine Lindsay said. They had married in 1947, just a year after Lindsay’s return from World War II.
Former student Kepner said, “They were always meant for each other, the music and the art.”
Self-proclaimed “traditional graduate of ‘61,” Voelkle said, “He influenced my decision to change from math.”
Lindsay also started the first erotic art class at Harpur College.
Christine Lindsay recounted how a student, Father Richard Conyers, had felt justified in taking the course.
“He taught a Catholic priest,” she said. “He claimed that he was best able to understand the art since in the confessionals, there was a lot of graffiti.”
Among Lindsay’s accomplishments as a scholar was his dissertation on the Russian painter Ted Kandinsky, a previously unknown artist. Lindsay was the premier scholar on Kandinsky’s work. Upon observing a series of Kandinsky’s paintings from museums all over the United States, Lindsay discovered they were representations of Kandinsky’s “Four Seasons.”
Many of his students have had the chance to visit the Lindsay estate.
From the beautiful rock garden and intricate trails, to the meandering brook just fencing in the property, Lindsay still survives in his art, students, family and home.
Upon questioning the strange markings on the cabinets, Christine Lindsay said, “Ken said one day, ‘There’s just too much blue!’ The very next time we had a party, he claimed, ‘Why don’t we just scribble something on them?’ An Indian student living with us at the time grabbed three cabinet doors and painted them.”
His daughter, Jennifer Lindsay-Tevelow, has fond memories of her father.
“He was the greatest father ever. He was the best conversationalist, and he was always reading or working on something,” she said. “When my son was 10 years old, they did a jigsaw puzzle of Proverbs, my father figured out all the iconography in it and published a paper on it.”
According to his wife, the late professor was still organizing an art event before he passed away. The event, entitled “Binghamton Collects,” will now be held as a tribute to Lindsay on April 30 at Anthony Brunelli Fine Arts.
Though his home by the brook is no longer teeming with inquisitive students, Lindsay is still survived by the students he collected and scattered like a thousand ships.