Malcolm Bell III

1941 - 2024

Malcolm Bell III, emeritus professor at the University of Virginia, died Sunday, January 7, 2024, after a brief illness in Rome, Italy, a city in which he had lived off and on for over fifty years. He was born June 1, 1941, to Muriel Barrow Bell and Malcolm Bell, Jr. in Savannah, Georgia. A graduate of Savannah High School, he attended Princeton University, earning an AB cum laude in English in 1963. After a year at the University of North Carolina to prepare for a transition to classical art and archaeology, he returned to Princeton for a PhD in that field. As a Fulbright Scholar and recipient of the Rome Prize, he pursued his doctoral research in Italy for three years, the first two in Rome as a Fellow at the American Academy, the third in Syracuse, Sicily. In the fall of 1971, he joined the McIntire Department of Art at UVa, which remained his academic home for almost four decades. Thanks to the generous support of the University, the National Endowment for the Humanities, and the John Simon Guggenheim Foundation, he was able to take three separate sabbatical years for research, between 1975 and 1990, which he spent with his family in Rome. In the 1990s, leaves of absence enabled him to accept appointments at two institutions—first, at the American Academy in Rome as Professor-in-Charge of the School of Classical Studies; then later, as Mellon Professor at the Center for Advanced Study in the Visual Arts at the National Gallery, in Washington, D.C.

He first gained practical experience during college, when for three summers he joined an archaeological expedition at Aphrodisias in Turkey. Further training occurred during graduate school, first at Morgantina, an ancient Greek city in central Sicily, and then at the Latin colony of Cosa on the coast of Tuscany. In the late 1970s, Mac himself became field director of the Morgantina excavations. The author of many articles that appeared in scholarly journals as well as books, he published two volumes in the series Morgantina Studies: Volume I, The Terracottas and Volume VII, The City Plan and the Political Agora.

Clandestine digging was long a problem at Morgantina, as at other archaeological sites. As VP for Professional Responsibilities at the Archaeological Institute of America (AIA), Mac participated in international campaigns to halt trafficking in illegally excavated antiquities and to encourage museums to repatriate such works of art to their countries of origin. For this work, as well as for his leadership at Morgantina, he was awarded the AIA Gold Medal, in 2016. The museum that holds the finds from Morgantina is in the nearby town of Aidone, where Mac spent the summer months for fifty years, formed long-lasting friendships, and was made an honorary citizen.

Exploring the outdoors and camping were formative childhood experiences, both near Savannah and in western North Carolina, where for many summers he attended Camp Sequoyah. He attained the rank of Eagle Scout, and made a memorable canoe trip from north Georgia down the length of the Savannah River with three friends, at the end of high school. His old canoe hangs from the ceiling of his study in Charlottesville.

While home in Savannah for spring vacation of his senior year in college, he met his future wife, Ruth (Ruthie) Marshall, in the Telfair art museum. They were married five years later in the garden at Wormsloe, the home of his maternal grandmother, on the Isle of Hope. Shortly after, they set out for Sicily, for the summer season of digging at Morgantina, and then to Rome for the academic year, thus beginning their first sojourn in Italy. In Charlottesville, where both their children were born and raised, Mac was an advocate for historic preservation, having absorbed the importance of protecting a city's architectural heritage while growing up in Savannah.

To visit museums and archaeological sites, he traveled extensively with his wife in Italy, Sicily, Turkey, Greece--the classical Greek world--and beyond, through the rest of Europe. In addition to art and architecture, he found great interest and pleasure in literature and in music. When his children were young, he read countless books aloud, told stories, hunted with them through snowy fields for the perfect Christmas tree, coached a soccer team, attended years of their games and music recitals, led family hikes in North Carolina and adventures in Sicily, memorably including a climb to the summit of Mt. Etna. He also supported his children's adult endeavors and cherished them to the end of his life.

He is survived by his wife of 55 years, Ruth; by his son, Raphael Bell, his partner, Aki Sauliere, and their son, Tomo; by his daughter, Margaret (Maggie) Bell, and her son, Laurens; all of whom mourn, remember, and miss him, beloved husband, father, and grandfather, taken away too soon. Craig Barrow Bell, Mac's brother, and Craig's husband, Giles Laroche, also survive to remember him, as do many cousins and extended Savannah family, and his wife's six siblings and their families.

A service was held in the chapel of the Protestant Cemetery in Rome on Monday, January 22 for family and friends in Italy to bid a final farewell before his departure from the city. His ashes will be returned to Charlottesville, where a memorial gathering will take place on February 27, 2:30 p.m. at the Unitarian Universalist church, 717 Rugby Road, Charlottesville.

The family thanks these two institutions for their moving tributes, which those interested are invited to read: the American Academy in Rome (https://www.aarome.org/news/features/remembering-malcolm-bell-iii) and the Archaeological Institute of America (https://www.archaeological.org/in-memoriam-malcolm-mac-bell-iii/).