The Kelemen Journals: Incidents of Discovery of Art in the Americas, 1932-64 - Tapa dura

The journals of Elisabeth and Pal Kelemen, pioneers in the field of art history, documenting their travels to MesoAmerican sites. Includes more than 100 black and white photos taken by Elisabeth Kelemen.

Kelemen, a citizen of the United States, was born in Budapest, Hungary in 1894, and studied art-history at the universities of Budapest, Munich, and Paris. After four years as an officer in World War I, he continued his work, changing gradually from his original subject, "Impressionism before the Nineteenth Century," to the sources and various manifestations of early Christian art. He worked in the museums of Budapest, Vienna, Berlin, Florence, and London, and made research trips all over Europe. He spent considerable time in Spain. His earlier publications were mostly in Hungarian--one of them an essay on sculpture, following an interview with Auguste Rodin in Meudon Val Fleury in 1911, when he was a young student at the Sorbonne. His marriage to an American in Florence, Italy led to his first to the United States. Here he realized the great artistic values of the pre-Columbian civilization, so meagerly treated from an esthetic standpoint. In 1932-33, guided by professor Alfred M. Tozzer at Harvard University, he aquired the anthropological background of his particular field.

After a twenty-five-year career in journalism, Mary E. Miller left the world of magazine and newspaper writing to enter Washington Theological Union in Washington, D.C., where she earned an M.A. in pastoral studies. Miller is now a spiritual director and retreat leader who lives in Surfside Beach, South Carolina.