Craig Harbison, retired professor of art history at the University of Massachusetts, Amherst, died unexpectedly of cardiac arrest May 17, 2018, at the age of 74.
Harbison graduated with a degree in art history from Oberlin College in 1966. He earned a Ph.D. in art from Princeton in 1972, studied with Erwin Panofsky, and specialized in 15th- and 16th-century Dutch and Flemish painting.
He began teaching in 1970 at the University of California, Davis, and then taught from 1972 to 1974 at Oberlin. Harbison joined the University of Massachusetts, Amherst, in 1974, teaching in the art history department until he retired in 2003. A popular teacher, his books included The Mirror of the Artist: Northern Renaissance Art in the Historical Context.
Harbison had a deep lifelong passion for — and an encyclopedic knowledge of — live and recorded opera. With his own unique eye, he curated his home as if it were a museum.
He is survived by two children; three grandsons; and his former wife, Sherrill, to whom he was married from 1966 to 2003.
Graduate memorials are prepared by the APGA.