It is with deep sadness that we report the passing of Cornelius C. Vermeule, 82, who we lost on Thanksgiving Day in Cambridge, MA.
Cornelius was born August 10, 1925, in New Jersey. From 1953 to 1955 he taught fine arts at the University of Michigan. From there he moved to Bryn Mawr College as Professor of archaeology until 1957 when he was appointed curator of classical collections for the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston. He married a Bryn Mawr student, Emily Dickinson Townsend Vermeule that same year. While at the Museum, he also lectured at Smith College.
Cornelius assumed the directorship of the Museum of Fine Arts in the 1970s. His term as curator was marked by purchase of two large vases portraying the fall of Troy and the death of Agamemnon, a Roman portrait of an old man, and a Minoan gold double ax. He trained several curators including Marion True formerly of the J. Paul Getty Museum and Carlos Picon of the Metropolitan.
"During his forty years as Curator of Classical Art at the MFA, no one did more to promote appreciation of Classical culture than he, or did so in such a lively and engaging way,” said J. Michael Padgett, Curator of Ancient Art at Princeton University Art Museum who worked under Cornelius at the MFA from 1986-1990.
Even in retirement, Cornelius remained extremely active as an author of a detailed series of articles in ancient numismatics for The Celator and occasional articles for Minerva. But for those who knew him, some of his most popular writings were the postcard notes he was fond of sending to friends, former colleagues and ex-students.
Over the years, I received a number of such postcards, each documenting his generous blend of encyclopedic expertise and irrepressible humor and wit. Once, in an exchange of letters we were having regarding an important object we had just acquired, I made a number of observations about the Prima Porta Augustus statue in the Vatican and drew parallels to our acquisition. In his next postcard, Cornelius humbly joked that I knew a lot more about the Prima Porta than he did, then proceeded to make several insightful comments that could only come from someone of his intellect and span of knowledge. I kept this postcard and every postcard from Cornelius.
Read the obituary in the Boston Globe.