The Bee Hunter

George Harold Edgell (March 4, 1887 - June 29, 1954) was a world expert on Sienese paintings and a distinguished architectural historian.

Born in St. Louis, Missouri, the son of George Stephen Edgell and Isabella Wallace Corbin Edgell, Dr. Edgell graduated from Harvard College in 1909 and received the first Ph.D. in Fine Arts ever given by Harvard University in 1913. That same year, Dr. Edgell gave the first course on Central Italian Painters ever to be offered in an American University, and in various later years he was Exchange Professor at the University of Paris and Visiting Professor to the American Academy at Rome. He became Director of the Boston Museum of Fine Arts in 1935 and was a former Dean of Harvard University’s Faculty of Architecture. He was awarded an Honorary Doctor of Arts degree by Harvard University in 1948.

Dr. Edgell passed away in Newport, New Hampshire in 1954, aged 67.