Charles Parkhurst Jr.
Born: 1913 in Columbus, Ohio
Died: June 25, 2008 in Amherst, Massachusetts
Family: Wife: Elizabeth Huntington Rusling (married 1938, divorced). Rima Zevan Julyan (married 1962, divorced). Carol Clark (married 1986).
Children: Andrew; Christopher (died, 2003); Bruce Parkhurst, a daughter. Brooke Woodbridge Parkhurst, a daughter, and three stepchildren, Candace, David and Mark, from his second marriage; and four grandchildren.
Athletic highlights
Oberlin High School
1929: 4th place Class B state meet, 220-yard low hurdles
1930: Class B state champion, 880-yard relay with LeRoy Fields, Sam Barnes and Ray Gordon (1:36.5)
1930: Class B state runner-up, 120-yard high hurdles
1930: Class B state team runner-up
1931: Class B state champion, 120-yard high hurdles (16.9)
1931: Class B state runner-up, 880-yard relay with Leroy Fields, Sam Barnes and Greg Gordon
1931: Class B state team runner-up
Williams College
1932-35: Ran three years for the Ephs varsity track team.
Military highlights
1943-45, U.S. Naval Reserve: active duty in Europe and Asia as Gunnery Officer
1945-46, U.S. Army: Monuments, Fine Arts and Archives Section of the Allied Military Government in U.S. Zones of occupied Germany, otherwise known as the Monuments Men.
Approved by President Franklin Roosevelt and widely known as the Roberts Commission, attracted an international group of young museum directors and curators, art professors and architects. Their mission was to identify art works and buildings in need of protection and to ferret out caches of stolen art.
Beginning in the last year of the war, the group found and returned more than five million artifacts and art works to their rightful owners. Parkhurst and team of more than 30 investigators operating from the former national headquarters of the Nazi Party in Munich, ultimately identified 1,056 repositories of looted art.
Professional highlights
1946-49: Assistant curator at the Albright Art Gallery in Buffalo, NY
1949-62: Head of Oberlin College’s department of art and professor of the history and appreciation of art. Director of Allen Memorial Art Museum.
1962-70: Director of Baltimore Museum of Art
1971-83: Assistant director and chief curator, National Gallery of Art
1983-87: Co-director, Williams College Museum of Art
1984-90: Adjunct faculty, Williams College graduate program in history of art
1991-92: Interim director and chief curator, Smith College Museum of Art
Education
1931: Oberlin High School
1935: Williams College, bachelor degree of arts
1937: Oberlin College, masters of arts
1941: Princeton University, masters of fine arts