Lives of Consequence
Joseph Rishel '62
President’s Medal Recipient
Curator Emeritus, Philadelphia Museum of Art
Before Joseph Rishel became renowned as a legend by colleagues and connoisseurs in the art world, he was a star student at Hobart College — earning a history degree with Honors and serving as a member of the HWS team that became undefeated champions of the G.E. College Bowl in 1961.
An enduring love of art and a lifetime of scholarship, including a Ph.D. from the University of Chicago, led to a long and storied career as a museum curator, allowing Rishel to fulfill his mission of sharing his passion with as many people as possible.
First serving as assistant curator of European art at the Art Institute of Chicago, where he met his wife Anne d’Harnoncourt, Rishel took a position at the Philadelphia Museum of Art in 1971. He remained there for the duration of his career, serving as the curator of the John G. Johnson Collection, European painting before 1900 and the Rodin Museum. d’Harnoncourt served as director of the museum until her death in 2008; Rishel retired as the Gisela and Dennis Alter Senior Curator in 2016, at which time he was named curator emeritus until his death in November 2020.
The Philadelphia Inquirer notes that Rishel “brought unbounded energy to the cataloguing and reinstallation of collections, to the development of the collection through generous gifts, and to the encouragement and education of generations of emerging curators.” Rishel was responsible for many groundbreaking exhibits, including several dedicated to the life and work of Paul Cezanne. Other exhibits included Second Empire: Art in France under Napoleon III, Sir Edwin Landseer, Art in Rome in the 18th Century and The Arts in Latin America, 1492-1820. “The Philadelphia Museum's collections gave him a rich basis on which to develop such exhibitions, and Joe's contributions to the cultural and economic life of the city of Philadelphia were significant,” writes Stephan Salisbury for the Inquirer.
Museum notables from across the country and around the world “acknowledged how instrumental [Rishel] had been in inspiring or launching their careers,” according to the Inquirer. “He was a great team builder. He wanted to bring everybody along together,” said Elizabeth Cropper, dean of the National Gallery of Art’s Center for Advanced Study in the Visual Arts. Peter Sutton, former director of the Bruce Museum in Greenwich, Conn., shared that Rishel “took a lot of us under his wing for a while and taught us how to be a curator. I owe a huge debt to Joe. He was the model curator.” Jennifer Thompson, who succeeded Rishel upon his retirement, noted that “he absolutely loved working with other people and really thrived on having that exchange of ideas.”
Rishel was the recipient of several awards, including the Fleisher Art Memorial Founder’s Award for his efforts in making Philadelphia an art mecca, an American Academy of Arts & Sciences Fellowship and France’s prestigious Chevalier dans l'Ordre des Arts et des Lettres. He served as the Samuel H. Kress Professor at the Center for Advanced Study in the Visual Arts at the National Gallery of Art, was listed in 1990’s Who’s Who in America and was a member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences and the American Philosophical Society.
On the Hobart and William Smith campus, Rishel was active in fencing, marching band, The Herald, Schola Cantorum and Echo and Pine. He was a student adviser, served on the Board of Control and earned Dean’s List. In 2011, he was awarded the President’s Medal by President Emeritus Mark D. Gearan L.H.D. ’17, P’21, at which time it was noted that “perhaps his greatest accomplishment has been his ability to unselfishly share his expertise and love of art, inspiring future generations of artists and patrons.”