Lynn Matteson

1939 - 2015

Lynn Robert Matteson

Lynn Robert Matteson, Ph.D., age 75, died at Serenity House hospice in Santa Barbara, CA.

Born in Phoenix, AZ on Sept. 7, 1939, Lynn was the only child of Alva Grenville Matteson (b. Kansas, 1900-d. Los Angeles, 1945) & Caroline Charlotte Espinoza Matteson Merrill (b. AZ, 1915–d. Concord, CA, 1999). While he was a toddler, Lynn's parents moved to Los Angeles, CA. After his father's premature death from lung disease, Lynn & his mother moved to Stockton, CA, then to the Mission District of San Francisco. Lynn attended Balboa High School, where Mike Terzian, a teacher who introduced him to art history, encouraged his potential. Lynn graduated as Valedictorian of his 1957 class, delivering his address from the stage of War Memorial Opera House. During this era he sang Gregorian chant in a church choir.

Lynn attained his degrees at UC Berkeley, earning a B.A. in History, followed by an M.A. and Ph.D. in Art History. Initially trained as a Modernist, Lynn changed his focus & spent most of his career teaching 18th & 19th c. European art. Lynn was a Chester Dale Fellow from the National Gallery of Art in Washington, D.C., the first recipient from the West Coast. This was significant as before his receipt of this grant, much of the Eastern art establishment disparaged the intellectual seriousness of scholars west of the Mississippi. The prestigious fellowship enabled Lynn to study various art collections in England for a 2-year period; he later returned to London for another year.

In 1965, Lynn was hired to teach Art History at UC Davis. Attracted to the fun-loving artists in the art department, he became friends w/ the pioneering studio art faculty now internationally recognized as some of the most important artists working in America during the 1960s. He regularly played tennis with Wayne Thiebaud, Robert Arneson & Roy De Forest, & was friendly w/ Manuel Neri & William T. Wiley. He became acquainted w/ many of their graduate students who went on to become famous in their own right, such as Deborah Butterfield, Bruce Nauman, David Gilhooly. During the UC Davis years, Lynn regularly appeared as an art critic on KQED-TV in San Francisco.

In 1980, Lynn was recruited by the University of Southern California, where he obtained tenure & remained Assoc. Professor of Art History for the remainder of his career. He published countless articles, including the entry on French painter Theodore Gericault in the International Dictionary of Art, as well as reviews of exhibitions ranging from British landscape painting to German Expressionist sculpture. Lynn had an almost photographic memory for images, which is how he discovered the Still Life painting of "Flowers and Fruit" by Paul Gauguin hanging in the Haggin Museum in Stockton, CA. Until Lynn's recognition of it, the painting had been listed as "lost–whereabouts unknown" in Gauguin's catalogue raisonné.

Lynn had a tremendous intellect but humble demeanor, & was one of the most popular lecturers on campus. In 1988, he was appointed Dean of the USC School of Fine Arts (SOFA), which at that time encompassed both art history & studio art (now separated into USC Dornsife & USC Roski School of Art & Design, respectively). He was given 1 year to make SOFA self-supporting; through budget cuts & creative fundraising, Lynn saved the school from closure, but at great cost to his personal health. After 5 years, he stepped down from the deanship & returned to his first love, lecturing.

After retirement from USC, Lynn continued to review new art books for "Choice," a professional publication for university librarians for which he published over 100 reviews. Lynn also recorded extensive interviews of art world notables for the Smithsonian Institution's Archives of American Art, the world's largest resource of the visual arts in America. His interviews with art dealer John Berggruen, sculptors John Buck & Deborah Butterfield, & painters Roy De Forest & Manuel Neri, are all available online at www.aaa.si.edu. Lynn was a eulogist at Roy De Forest's 2007 memorial, gracing the occasion w/ his eloquence.

Lynn's reputation as a foodie was established early, as he loved cooking. In Berkeley he lived downstairs from Alice Waters when she was starting her legendary restaurant Chez Panisse, & enjoyed eating leftovers she would bring to her neighbors. Although he liked to cook Italian & dabbled in Indian, he was famous for his expertise in Chinese cooking. He even cooked a Chinese banquet at his Santa Barbara home for Julia Child.

Lynn had a deep love of music, & was knowledgeable about classical music, opera, jazz, & mid-20th c. popular singers. He was a voracious reader w/ a wide range of interests, esp. the Cambridge Five, a group of Englishmen working as spies for the Soviet Union from the 1930s to 1950s that included art historian Anthony Blunt, who Lynn once met in person. Lynn was a longtime member of the Chelsea Arts Club in London, founded in 1890 by a group of artists that included American painter James McNeill Whistler.

In 1998 Lynn received a liver transplant, which literally restored him to life. He shared the same first name w/ his wife, writer Lynn P. Kirst, a 4th generation Californian whom he met when she was obtaining her degree in Art History at USC. They used their newfound time together to travel extensively all over the world. In recent years Lynn suffered several life-threatening health situations, but he always amazed everyone by his ability to recover & carry on. He wanted everyone to become an organ donor, so that others could receive the gift of life as he had. Thanks goes to the physicians, surgeons & nurses, both in L.A. & Santa Barbara, who kept Lynn alive over the years.

Among Lynn's many friends is documentary filmmaker Susan Jensen, who fortuitously filmed one of his art history lectures given in 2008 on the European Grand Tour. It can be seen on YouTube.

Lynn was preceded in death by his parents & half-sister, Margaret Matteson Gray (1925-2008) of Pawhuska, OK, an Osage princess who the product of his father's 1st marriage. His wife & soul mate of 31 years, Lynn P. Kirst of Montecito, CA, & his parents-in-law, Philip & Colleen Kirst, also of Montecito, survive him. Additionally, he is survived by his Bay Area cousins Caroline & Maria De La Rosa.

Services will be in Santa Barbara, where he lived the last many years of his life. Funeral Mass is at 11:00 a.m., Fri, May 8, 2015 at Our Lady of Mount Carmel (the Montecito church where he married his beloved Lynnski) located at 1300 E. Valley Rd. Graveside services are Sat, May 9 at noon in Santa Barbara Cemetery, 901 Channel Dr, Montecito. Memorial donations to Community Arts Music Association (CAMA), 2060 Alameda Padre Serra, Suite 20, Santa Barbara, CA 93103 (www.camasb.org).