Arthur K. D. Healy
Arthur K. D. Healy American, 1902–1978
A.B. Princeton University
M.F.A. Princeton School of Architecture
Ecole des Beaux-Arts, Paris Artist in Residence
Middlebury College, 1943 Associate Professor of Fine Arts
1947 Chairman, Department of Fine Arts
1950 Professor of Art
1958–68 Selected Collections The Addison Gallery of American Art, Andover, Massachusetts Bennington Museum, Vermont Robert Hull Fleming Museum, University of Vermont, Burlington Harvard University Fogg Museum, Cambridge Middlebury College Museum of Art Museum of Fine Arts, Boston Museum of Fine Arts, Saint Petersburg, Florida New Britain Museum of American Art, New Britain, Connecticut
When he died in 1978, Arthur K. D. Healy had been the embodiment of the artist at Middlebury for over forty-five years. Chair of the Department of Fine Arts, which combined offerings in music, visual art, and dance through the 1950s, Healy became the catalyst for the gift to the College of the Christian A. Johnson Memorial Building. At its completion in 1968, the Johnson Building housed both the newly-formed and independent departments of art and music. Because art studios were provided, it was possible for the first time for students to pursue a major in studio art; the existence of gallery space made possible a retrospective of Healy’s paintings—the first art exhibition ever held at Middlebury.
Teaching courses called the History and Theory of Painting, Contemporary Art, and Practice in Painting (the first studio course at the College), Healy eventually added Renaissance Art, Modern Architecture, American Art, and the History and Theory of Eastern Art to his repertoire. Writing in The Middlebury College News Letter in 1947, one of Healy’s admirers, George W. Sullivan ’43, aptly described his teacher’s style: “In his painting, . . . Mr. Healy attempt[s] to strip landscape of its literary charm and to reduce the superficial aspects of nature to ‘bones of design.’ Once the design is caught, he then adds just enough of those appearances of reality he thinks might best express the mood of his picture.” –Emmie Donadio, 2000
