Colin Eisler

Colin Eisler is an art historian of Netherlandish painting and graphic works of art, and a Robert Lehman Professor of Fine Arts at New York University. He graduated from Yale University in 1952, and continued graduate study at Oxford University, 1952-53, before entering Harvard University. At Harvard he received his A.M. in 1954. While working on his doctorate, he was appointed instructor in art history at Yale and Curator in the art gallery's department of prints and drawings (1955-1957). He received his Ph.D. in 1957 from Harvard, where he was named Fellow at the Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton. He is the author of many books, including Paintings in The Hermitage.

Paintings in The Hermitage

In line with the same publisher's mammoth books on the Louvre (by Sir Lawrence Gowing) and the Musee d'Orsay (by Robert Rosenblum), Paintings in the Hermitage includes well over 600 color plates. In Leningrad, Colin Eisler is our cicerone. Faced with collections famously large and unwieldy, he opts for a thematic rather than a chronological approach.

(Stewart, Tabori, & Chang, June 1995)

Couples in Art

A valentine to lovers everywhere, this dazzling depiction of love though the ages is culled from the collection of one of the world's most famous museums, The Metropolitan Museum of Art.

Filled with beautiful artworks from every era, Couples in Art is inspired by the myriad images of lovers, spouses, and amorous couples found throughout the Metropolitan Museum of Art's encyclopedic collection. Five millenia and a dazzling array of artistic cultures are represented, from the ancient Egyptian and tribal to those of the Middle Ages and Renaissance, and Asian, Islamic, Hindu, Modern, and contemporary art. Readers will experience love in all its splendored forms: romantic, religious, warmly devoted, and erotic. An engrossing and unusual journey through art of all ages, this brilliant volume also makes a heartfelt gift.

(Prestel Publishing, September 2011)