Michael Kitson

Michael William Lely Kitson (30 January 1926 – 7 August 1998) was a British art historian who became an international authority on the work of the painter Claude Lorrain.

Michael Kitson was born on 30 January, 1926, the son of the Reverend Bernard Meredith Kitson, a Church of England clergyman, and his wife Helen May Lely.

The novelist Anthony Trollope and the painter Sir Peter Lely were among his ancestors.

He was educated at Gresham's School and King's College, Cambridge, where he read English (1944–45 and 1948–50), and at the Courtauld Institute of Art (1950–1952).

His three years at King's College, Cambridge, were interrupted in 1945 when he was commissioned into the Royal Engineers and attached to security intelligence Middle East, based in Egypt.

He left the army in 1948 and returned to Cambridge.

On 8 July 1950, Kitson married Annabella, the daughter of John Leslie Cloudsley.

They had two sons.

In 1952, he joined the Slade School of Fine Art at University College, London, as an assistant lecturer in the history of art.

His teaching career took in the Slade School of Fine Art and Courtauld Institute in London; he was at the latter from 1955 to 1985, ending as Professor of the History of Art from 1978 and deputy director from 1980.

He then moved to be Director of Studies at the Paul Mellon Centre for Studies in British Art in London.

He moved on to the Courtauld Institute, London, as a lecturer from 1955 to 1967 and as a reader from 1967 to 1978.

In 1969, he organized the first major exhibition ever dedicated to Lorrain at the Laing Art Gallery in Newcastle-upon-Tyne, followed by the Hayward Gallery, London.

Kitson became an international authority on Claude Lorrain and organized the first Lorrain exhibition at the Hayward Gallery, London, in 1969.

He became Professor of the History of Art there in 1978 and was deputy director of the institute from 1980 to 1985.

In 1978 he catalogued the Liber Veritatis, Lorrain's own drawings of his paintings, for the British Museum and later wrote the article on Lorrain for the Macmillan Dictionary of Art (1996).

In the 1980s Kitson became the partner of Judith Colton, an American art scholar.

In 1985, Kitson became Director of Studies at the Paul Mellon Centre for Studies in British Art, London, a British educational charity with close links to Yale University.

After his death in Islington, London, on 7 August 1998, a memorial service was held at St Clement Danes on 23 October 1998, with an address by Neil MacGregor, Director of the National Gallery.

He shared an interest in 17th-century French painting with Anthony Blunt and later wrote the article on Blunt for the Oxford Dictionary of National Biography.