Jonathan died Jan. 17, 2022, at his home in Princeton.
Born July 15, 1939, in Springfield, Mass., he graduated from Dartmouth in 1960 and earned a Ph.D. in art history in 1964 from Princeton. He taught in Princeton’s Department of Art and Archaeology from 1965 to 1973.
Jonathan was recruited by New York University to be director (1973-78) of the Institute of Fine Arts, NYU’s graduate center for the study of art history and fine-arts conservation. He remained at the institute as the Caroll and Milton Petrie Professor of Fine Arts until retiring in 2017.
He was a pioneering art historian who brought the study of Spanish and Viceregal Mexican art to wide public and academic attention, and many of his advanced students have had prestigious careers as academics, museum curators and directors.
Jonathan’s books and exhibition catalogues on the greatest figures of Spain’s “Golden Age,” such as El Greco, Diego Velázquez, Francisco de Zurbarán, Jusepe de Ribera, and Bartolomé Esteban Murillo, earned him praise at home and abroad. His survey Painting in Spain 1500-1700 remains the standard volume on the subject.
Jonathan is survived by his wife, Sandra; children Claire ’94 s’94, Michael ’98, and Daniel; and four grandchildren.