Thomas Boase was born in
Dundee,
Scotland, to Charles Millet Boase (d. 1921), operator of a bleaching mill at
Claverhouse, outside Dundee, of which the Boase family were part-owners,[4] and his wife Anne.[5] Boase was educated at a day preparatory school and then at
Rugby School in
England (1912–17).
Oxford
He won a scholarship to Oxford for an essay on Lorenzo de' Medici.[6] Boase studied
Modern History at
Magdalen College, Oxford, from 1919 to 1921. At Oxford he studied under the historian Francis Fortescue Urquhart (1868–1934).[7] Boase was a Fellow and Tutor at
Hertford College from 1922 to 1937.
From 1947 to 1968, Boase was
President of Magdalen College. In 1948, he contributed to the Samuel Courtauld Memorial Exhibition at Tate Britain.[11] He was a Trustee of the
National Gallery (1947–53) and the
British Museum (1950–69). Boase was involved in a 'scandal' while Chairman of the Trustees of the National Gallery in 1952.[12] He served as Vice-Chancellor of Oxford University from 1958 to 1960. Boase became a Fellow of the
British Academy in 1961. He was
Slade Professor of Fine Art at Oxford for 1963–64.[13] In 1967, he was elected a member of the
American Philosophical Society.[14] He was also a member of the Advisory Council of the
Victoria and Albert Museum (1947–70).
Death
His obituary for The British Academy was written by
J.J.G.Alexander, another Conway Library photographer.
Partial Bibliography
Boniface VIII, Series: Makers of the Middle Ages, Constable, 1933.
St. Francis of Assisi, Series: Great Lives (74), Duckworth, 1936.
English Romanesque Illuminations, Oxford University Press, 1951.
The Oxford History of English Art : Vol III. English Art, 1100–1216, Oxford University Press, 1953.[15]
English Illumination of the Thirteenth and Fourteenth Centuries, Bodleian Library, Oxford, 1954.
The York Psalter in the Library of the Hunterian Museum, Glasgow, Faber & Faber Ltd, 1962.
Macklin and Bowyer, Warburg Institute, 1963.
Castles and Churches of the Crusading Kingdom, Oxford University Press, 1967.
St Francis of Assisi, Thames & Hudson, 1968.
Kingdoms and Strongholds of the Crusaders, Thames and Hudson, 1971.
Death in the Middle Ages: Mortality, Judgment and Remembrance, Thames and Hudson, 1972.
Nebuchadnezzar: 34 paintings and 18 drawings, (with Arthur Boyd), Thames and Hudson, 1972.
^admin (21 February 2018).
"Boase, T. S. R."Bazin, Germain. Histoire de l'histoire de l'art: de Vasari à nos jours. Paris: Albin Michel, 1986, p. 510; Stoye, John. Dictionary of National Biography; Alexander, Jonathan J. G. "Thomas Sherrer Ross Boase, 1898–1974." Proceedings of the British Academy 101 (1998): 353–362; Boase, Thomas S. R. [unpublished memoir], Magdalen College, Oxford University archives; Folda, Jaroslav "Introduction." Art of the Crusaders in the Holy Land. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1995, pp. 12–14; Carter, Miranda. Anthony Blunt: His Lives. New York: Farrar, Straus, Giroux, 2001, pp. 216, 219–220; Zarnecki, George. "T. S. R. Boase." Burlington Magazine 117, no. 873 (December 1975): 809; "Dr. T. S. R. Boase, Former President of Magdalen College, Oxford." The Times (London) 15 April 1974, p. 8; [a particularly warm addendum] Blunt, Anthony. "Dr. T. S. R. Boase." The Times (London) 20 April 1974, p. 14. Retrieved 16 November 2020.
^admin (21 February 2018).
"Boase, T. S. R."Bazin, Germain. Histoire de l'histoire de l'art: de Vasari à nos jours. Paris: Albin Michel, 1986, p. 510; Stoye, John. Dictionary of National Biography; Alexander, Jonathan J. G. "Thomas Sherrer Ross Boase, 1898–1974." Proceedings of the British Academy 101 (1998): 353–362; Boase, Thomas S. R. [unpublished memoir], Magdalen College, Oxford University archives; Folda, Jaroslav "Introduction." Art of the Crusaders in the Holy Land. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1995, pp. 12–14; Carter, Miranda. Anthony Blunt: His Lives. New York: Farrar, Straus, Giroux, 2001, pp. 216, 219–220; Zarnecki, George. "T. S. R. Boase." Burlington Magazine 117, no. 873 (December 1975): 809; "Dr. T. S. R. Boase, Former President of Magdalen College, Oxford." The Times (London) 15 April 1974, p. 8; [a particularly warm addendum] Blunt, Anthony. "Dr. T. S. R. Boase." The Times (London) 20 April 1974, p. 14. Retrieved 16 November 2020.
^"History". The Courtauld Institute of Art. Retrieved 16 November 2020.