Ninth Generation (Continued)
Ninth Generation (Continued)
Family of Katherine Mary Le Pla (380) & William Ramsden Brealey
In 1943 Jean Venetia married Reginald John Alcock in London, City of London, England, United Kingdom. Born on 25 Jul 1917 in Stoke-upon-Trent, Staffordshire, England.10 Reginald John died in Cirencester, Gloucestershire, England, United Kingdom, in Jan 2000; he was 82. Occupation: Dentist.
marriage: London City R.D., Jun 1943 quarter, v. 1c, p. 25
marriage: London City R.D., Jun 1943 quarter, v. 1c, p. 25
645. John Malcolm Brealey (Katherine Mary Le Pla8, Sam7, Samuel6, Matthew5, Samuel4, Samuel3, Jean2, Jacques1). Born on 25 Jan 1925 in Hammersmith, County of London, England, United Kingdom.10 John Malcolm died in Manhattan, New York City, New York Co., New York, U.S.A., on 19 Dec 2002; he was 77. Occupation: Art Conservateur.
John Brealey, Conservator Of Art for the Met, Dies at 77
John M. Brealey, the chairman of paintings conservation at the Metropolitan Museum of Art from 1975 to 1989, died in New York Hospital on Thursday [19 December 2002] of complications from the amputation of a leg after a stroke.
He also had been an adjunct professor at the Institute of Fine Arts at New York University, a member of the advisory council of the Hamilton Kerr Institute at the University of Cambridge in England, consultant to the Yale Center for British Art in New Haven, Connecticut and consultant and restorer to the Frick Collection in New York City.
John Brealey was widely regarded as not only one of the most accomplished of living picture restorers, but as someone who was memorably forthright in conversation.
He was born in London, England in January 1925, the son of W. R. Brealey, the portrait painter, and was at home in studios from early on. He attended Mill Hill School in London. During the Second World War, he enlisted in the Royal Air Force and was assigned to flight control in the Far East.
After an examination in Bombay revealed a medical condition that would disqualify him from active duty, he persuaded his superiors to transfer him to the air force's educational branch, for which he lectured on the history of modern art to provide enlightenment at air force bases in India. He once ruefully realized that he had been lecturing to a polite regiment that spoke no English.
After the war he entered the contentious world of top-level picture restoring. His approach was not to clean, with its overtones of soap and water, but ''to make it possible for the painting to live its life without interference.'' Self-trained, he never earned a degree or a certificate. Operating where scholarship, criticism and restoration interact, his object was to help the painters of the past communicate with the painters of the present.
By 1951, he had the confidence of every possible client in Britain and elsewhere. But in 1975 he agreed to join the staff of the Metropolitan Museum in New York, where he worked as a restorer as well as a teacher and an inspired talker in his annual five-day seminars, which were major events.
While at the Met, requests for his assistance came from all over. One that he could not refuse arrived in 1984, from the Prado in Madrid, where Velázquez's ''Meninas'' badly needed work. Though at first deeply resented in Madrid because he was a foreigner being brought in to clean one of the crown jewels of Spanish art, Mr. Brealey became a national hero. ''People would actually kiss me in the street,'' he would say later. Before long he was invited back to the Prado for a year on special leave from the Met to help reorganize the Prado's conservation department.
Visitors to his studio at the Met came to see what he was up to. But they also came to hear him talk, which he loved to do, and he gave full value.
John Brealey was married in 1951 to Hella Regina Kupfer, who died in 1991. He is survived by their son, David Nicholas; another son, Lawrence, died in the early 1980's.
After his stroke, Mr. Brealey lost the ability to speak. For a master of the spoken word and the vivid conversational exchange, this was a final indignity, and he never again set foot in his studio. (New York Yimes, 25 December 2002)
John Brealey, Conservator Of Art for the Met, Dies at 77
John M. Brealey, the chairman of paintings conservation at the Metropolitan Museum of Art from 1975 to 1989, died in New York Hospital on Thursday [19 December 2002] of complications from the amputation of a leg after a stroke.
He also had been an adjunct professor at the Institute of Fine Arts at New York University, a member of the advisory council of the Hamilton Kerr Institute at the University of Cambridge in England, consultant to the Yale Center for British Art in New Haven, Connecticut and consultant and restorer to the Frick Collection in New York City.
John Brealey was widely regarded as not only one of the most accomplished of living picture restorers, but as someone who was memorably forthright in conversation.
He was born in London, England in January 1925, the son of W. R. Brealey, the portrait painter, and was at home in studios from early on. He attended Mill Hill School in London. During the Second World War, he enlisted in the Royal Air Force and was assigned to flight control in the Far East.
After an examination in Bombay revealed a medical condition that would disqualify him from active duty, he persuaded his superiors to transfer him to the air force's educational branch, for which he lectured on the history of modern art to provide enlightenment at air force bases in India. He once ruefully realized that he had been lecturing to a polite regiment that spoke no English.
After the war he entered the contentious world of top-level picture restoring. His approach was not to clean, with its overtones of soap and water, but ''to make it possible for the painting to live its life without interference.'' Self-trained, he never earned a degree or a certificate. Operating where scholarship, criticism and restoration interact, his object was to help the painters of the past communicate with the painters of the present.
By 1951, he had the confidence of every possible client in Britain and elsewhere. But in 1975 he agreed to join the staff of the Metropolitan Museum in New York, where he worked as a restorer as well as a teacher and an inspired talker in his annual five-day seminars, which were major events.
While at the Met, requests for his assistance came from all over. One that he could not refuse arrived in 1984, from the Prado in Madrid, where Velázquez's ''Meninas'' badly needed work. Though at first deeply resented in Madrid because he was a foreigner being brought in to clean one of the crown jewels of Spanish art, Mr. Brealey became a national hero. ''People would actually kiss me in the street,'' he would say later. Before long he was invited back to the Prado for a year on special leave from the Met to help reorganize the Prado's conservation department.
Visitors to his studio at the Met came to see what he was up to. But they also came to hear him talk, which he loved to do, and he gave full value.
John Brealey was married in 1951 to Hella Regina Kupfer, who died in 1991. He is survived by their son, David Nicholas; another son, Lawrence, died in the early 1980's.
After his stroke, Mr. Brealey lost the ability to speak. For a master of the spoken word and the vivid conversational exchange, this was a final indignity, and he never again set foot in his studio. (New York Yimes, 25 December 2002)
In 1951 John Malcolm married Hella Regina Kupfer in Hampstead, County of London, England, United Kingdom. Born on 30 Oct 1917 in German Empire. Hella Regina died in Westminster, Greater London, England, United Kingdom, on 17 May 1991; she was 73.4
marriage: Hampstead R.D., Jun 1951 quarter, v. 5c, p. 1449
marriage: Hampstead R.D., Jun 1951 quarter, v. 5c, p. 1449