Obituaries : Frederick Hartt; Art Historian, Authority on Michelangelo’s Work

Renaissance scholar and art historian Frederick Hartt has died at a Washington hospital of a heart ailment. He was 77.

Hartt, who died Thursday, was chairman of the art department at the University of Virginia from 1967 to 1976 and art department chairman at the University of Pennsylvania from 1960 to 1965.

He also worked at galleries at Yale University and Smith College and was a lecturer on fine arts at New York University’s Washington Square College. He was on the art history faculty at Washington University in St. Louis and was a visiting scholar at Harvard University, Franklin and Marshall College and at Baylor University.

But Hartt also was known as an author, having written 13 books on art history. At the time of his death, he was working on three books on Michelangelo. He spent much of his life studying the Renaissance master and had already written five books on the subject.

One of Hartt’s most recent accomplishments was writing the text for a $1,000, lavishly illustrated book on the restored Sistine Chapel ceiling, featuring photographs of Michelangelo’s frescoes.

A consultant for the J. Paul Getty Center for the History of Art and Culture, Hartt also served on the boards of directors of the College Art Assn. of America and the American Committee for the Restoration of Art.