College Gets Large Donation of Art Books

Dr. Earl Rosenthal, a professor emeritus of the history of art at the University of Chicago who died last year, donated more than 250 books to Westmont, some to be kept in the college’s rare book collection. Susan Savage, chair of Westmont’s art department, befriended Rosenthal during his retirement years in Santa Barbara. She says some duplicate and specialized books have been shipped to UC Santa Barbara and UCLA.

Rosenthal was a renowned authority of Spanish renaissance art and architecture. He wrote many articles and several books on the topic, including the much-cited article, “The Diffusion of the Renaissance Style in Western European Art,” written in 1978 for Sixteenth Century Journal. Rosenthal’s major works are “The Cathedral of Granada: A Study in the Spanish Renaissance,” published by Princeton University Press in 1961 and “The Palace of Charles V in Granada,” which was published by Princeton University Press in 1985. His donated collection also includes a complete set of books by 19th century author Anna Murphy Jameson on Christian art and imagery, which Cheri Larsen Hoeckley, Westmont associate professor of English, is using for research.