Eve Borsook Obituary

Eve Borsook was a Canadian-born American art historian, teacher and author, with specialization in murals (both wall paintings and mosaics).

She was born on October 3, 1929 and died on August 31, 2022 at age 92. She was 2 months away from celebrating her 93rd birthday.

During Borsook’s early days of research in Italy, she made some long-term contacts which would shape her future career.

Particularly, she worked with a group of mural conservators in Florence led by Leonetto Tintori (1908-2000), and this relationship was to continue for more than thirty years, resulting in a number of publications.

Much of Borsook’s later work took place at the Villa I Tatti (the Harvard University Center for Italian Renaissance Studies) and she was appointed research associate there (1981-1989), then senior research associate (2003-2015), and was later senior research associate emeritus.

She also taught as a visiting professor at the New York University Institute of Fine Arts, as well as other institutes in the USA, Italy and Australia.

She declined a Samuel H. Kress Professorship at the National Gallery of Art in Washington DC as the fellowship would have involved a year’s absence from her work in Italy.

Photographs contributed by Borsook to the Conway Library are currently being digitised by the Courtauld Institute of Art as part of the Courtauld Connects project.

In 1999 more than 20 art historians provided essays for the publication of a book titled Mosaics of friendship: studies in art and history for Eve Borsook as a 70th birthday tribute to Borsook.

Borsook’s other interests include the history of glass in relation to mosaics, 16th century Florentine ceremonial decoration, and Italian cloister art.