James Parker

James Parker (January 22, 1924 – June 20, 2001) was an American art historian. He served for nearly three decades as a curator at The Metropolitan Museum of Art. Early life James Parker was born in Boston, Massachusetts, on January 22, 1924, to Elizabeth Gray of Boston and Cortlandt Parker of Newark, New Jersey. His father, Cortlandt Parker, was a major general in the United States Army and his paternal grandfather, James Parker, served as a general as well. His maternal grandfather, Morris Gray, had served as president of the Boston Museum of Fine Arts from 1914 to 1924. Due to his father's military career, his formative years were spent in many places, including Vermont, England, Hawaii, and Massachusetts. He graduated from St. Mark’s School in Southborough, Massachusetts, in 1942. He enrolled at Harvard College in 1942 to study modern European history and left in 1943 to serve in the United States Army. He was in the 150th Field Artillery Regiment, 38th Infantry Division of the Indiana Army National Guard and served in the Pacific War of World War II. He was honorably discharged in December 1945 after twenty-two months of service, where he became a technician fifth grade. He returned to Harvard College in February 1946 and graduated with a degree in modern European history in 1948. Career Parker began his career as a specialist in European decorative arts at The Metropolitan Museum of Art in 1951, was appointed assistant curator in 1954, associate curator in 1962 and curator in 1968. He was appointed Curator Emeritus in 1993, upon his retirement. Over the course of his career he developed a specialization in French and English furniture. He was once described by a colleague as a “curator’s curator,” who quietly inspired his associates as his duties developed and expanded over the course of his four-decade career. Heeding the advice of the Metropolitan’s director, Francis Henry Taylor, Parker traveled abroad in 1948 to gain experience by working as an apprentice in museums across Europe. He divided the next two years interning at the Musée des Arts Décoratifs, Paris, The Louvre, Paris, and the Victoria and Albert Museum, London. In 1950, he briefly assisted at Wiesbaden Collecting Point, one of the World War II restitution archival depots for recovered art objects established in Germany by the Monuments, Fine Arts, and Archives program.