Lincoln Kirstein

In addition to a well-known career as the co-founder and administrative head of "New York City Ballet" and its affiliated academy, the "School of American Ballet," Lincoln Kirstein pursued a prolific and creative life of scholarship and writing. He authored over 500 books, articles, and monographs on the arts as well as criticism, poetry, novels and a number of historical and autobiographical works. He served as editor of "Hound and Horn" until 1934. In 1940, Kirstein founded the "Dance Archives of the Museum of Modern Art" in New York City which, many years later, were to form the basis of the "Dance Collection" of the New York Public Library He founded "Dance Index" and was its editor from 1942-1948.

In 1941, at age 34, Lincoln Kirstein married Fidelma Cadmus, sister of the painter Paul Cadmus. During 1943, at age 36, Kirstein joined the United States Army and saw service in Europe as a courier, interpreter and was a chauffeur for five star General George Patton, Third Army Division Battalion. George Patton ordered and sent Lincoln to join, in Paris, France, as a team-member of the "Arts, Monuments and Archives Section" of the Third Army where his vast store of experience in art works, sculpture, painting and architectural historic knowledge was put to use tracking down works of art looted by the Nazis. General Patton recognized this facet of Kirstein's vast knowledge purposely sending Kirstein on his new leg of adventure at the near-end of the final battle staged with and against Adolf Hitler's Nazi Germany.

Lincoln Kirstein possessed a deeply held fascination with the art and culture of Japan, choosing to reside there for a number of months during several periods over the course of his life. In 1959, with help from Dag Hammarskjold, Kirstein invited "Gagaku," the Japanese Imperial Household musicians and dancers to America to perform during the "New York City Ballet" 1959-1960 season. As an impresario, Lincoln Kirstein arranged for an American tour of the Japanese "Grand Kabuki" in 1960. At the request of the 1962 Seattle World's Fair, he arranged a presentation of traditional Japanese ritual sports.

He was awarded the American National Medal of the Arts in 1985 by the National Endowment of the Arts in Washington D.C.