Rand Urban Carter

Rand Urban Carter, age 87, retired Associate Professor of Fine Arts at Hamilton College, passed away on Thursday, June 12, 2025, in the comfort of his home.

Rand Urban Carter was born in Corpus Christi, TX, on 17 September 1937, the son of Noah Dilford Carter and Lucy Violet Pennington Carter and the youngest of five children. He was named after his Godmother, the dancer and actress, Sally Rand. Urban was his chrismation name. Rand, early in life showed a great interest in music and architecture. At the age of six, he began the study of piano and later, took up the cello as well. His parents took him to his first live operatic performance in 1945, as well as to a vocal recital by Jarmila Novotna, experiences that made him a fervent opera lover for the rest of his life. He was a member of a children's theatre company and continued to perform on stage throughout his high school years. During these years, he was also a regular panelist on the radio shows, Teen Topics and Teen Tunes, later boasting, "I was a teenage disc jockey." He returned to the stage in 1970 to appear in the title role of Georg Büchner's Woyzecli in Montreal's Sandwich Theatre. After moving to Utica, he played various leading roles, most notably Elwood P. Dowd, in Harvey.

In 1955, he entered Columbia University where he continued his piano studies. His interest in the history of art was awakened and, after exhausting the undergraduate offerings, he persuaded Rudolf Wittkower to accept him into his graduate courses. He hosted a weekly radio program on WKCR called "Let's Talk Books" and broadcast reviews of stage plays, Broadway shows, opera and concerts, an assignment that gained him free admission to New York's hottest tickets. He later remarked, "It's amazing that I was able to graduate, but the stimulation kept me going."

He began his graduate studies in Art and Archaeology at Princeton University in 1959, where he studied with, among others, David Coffin, John Rupert Martin, Erwin Panofsky and Kurt Weitzmann. He was especially fond of George Rowley, then at the end of a distinguished career, and spent many a Saturday morning in Rowley's conservatory examining Renaissance drawings and Chinese rubbings and marveling at Rowley's connoisseurship. As there was no room in Princeton's Graduate College, he lived in the house of novelist, Caroline Gordon, which was filled on weekends with literary luminaries. "I sometimes felt I learnt more from my landlady than from my professors!"

During the summer of 1961, he worked in the Alan Gallery, on Madison Avenue in New York City, where he made the acquaintance of many of the leading figures of the art world.

After acquiring an M.F.A. at Princeton, he was awarded a Fulbright Scholarship to study at the Courtauld Institute of the University of London. His doctoral research was supervised by Sir John Summerson, Keeper of Soane's Museum, but he also enrolled in seminars with Niklaus Pevsner and Anthony Blunt. At first, intimidated by Blunt's extraordinary intellectual demands, he later came to have the highest regard for Blunt as a scholar and as a generous professional colleague. In 1966, he was awarded his doctorate from Princeton.

In 1962, he accepted the position of Assistant Professor of Fine Arts in the Royal Institution for the Advancement of Learning (McGill University) in Montreal, where he remained for eight years, winning election to the Faculty Senate. In 1970, he took a position as Associate Professor at Hamilton College, where he served a total of fifteen years as Chairman of the Art Department. He established a concentration in Art History and increased the number of historians from one to four.

Carter co-edited a facsimile edition of Karl Friedrich Schinkel's Sammlung architektonischer Entwurfe on the occasion of Schinkel's 200th birthday, in 1981, for which he supplied a biography of the Prussian architect. He provided chapters for several books and published numerous scholarly articles, reviews and exhibition catalogues, along with three guidebooks to the architecture and sculpture of Utica, NY. He lectured across North America, as well as the Dominican Republic, England, Denmark, Germany and Italy. In 2006, he was invited to speak at a conference on "The Venice Charter Revisited" at the Venice Biennale.

Carter served on the boards of several arts organizations, including the Players of Utica, the Utica Symphony, the Clinton Symphony and the Chamber Music Society of Utica. He served as President of Sculpture Space (Utica) and the Landmarks Society of Greater Utica. He chaired, for one year, Utica's Commission on Scenic and Historic Preservation.

Among his memberships are the Society of Architectural Historians, the Society of Sigma Phi and the Reform Club (London).

An avid traveler, Carter visited every continent except Australia. He especially enjoyed traveling in Egypt, which he considered his second home.

Rand spent most of his life as a Roman Catholic but found his true spiritual home in the Orthodox Church, where he served consecutively as Cantor, Reader, Subdeacon, Deacon and ultimately, Protodeacon at the Cathedral of the Most Holy Theotokos – Our Lady of Grace in Utica, NY, where he was a member for 27 years. Protodeacon Carter served as a member of the Cathedral's Board of Trustees, Chairman of the Cathedral's Historic Legacy Committee and was the Cathedral's Ad hoc Historian. He also served as President of the Metropolitan Council of the Italo-Greek Orthodox Archdiocese of the Americas and Canada and was a member of the Council until his death.

He was predeceased by his brother, James; and sisters, Elizabeth Elaine Carter and June Claire Carter Mason.

He is survived by his brother, Dilford Carter (Sigrid); his niece, Kathleen Hoffman; nephews, Dr. Campbell Carter (Kari), Scott Carter (Susanne), Jeff Carter Mason (Sue), John B. Mason, Kirk B. Mason (Lisa); grandniece, Michele Anderson; grandnephews, Mark Mason, Rand and John; as well as extended, family, friends and colleagues.

Honorary Pall Bearers: Pierre Beaudry, Thomas D. Coogan, Stephen Enea, JK Hage, III, Bruce Henry, Jeff Carter Mason, John Barb Mason, John Urban Mason, Kirk Bradley Mason, Rand P. Mason and Edward P. Turco.

Visitation will be held this Friday, June 20, from 11 a.m. until 12 Noon, in the Chapel at Hamilton College Campus, College Hill Rd., Clinton. Funeral services will commence at the conclusion of visitation, at 12 Noon, in the College Chapel, with the Most Rev. Archbishop Stephen J. Enea and the Rev. Lisa Pichinson Mason officiating. Burial will follow on the grounds of the Hamilton College Cemetery.

In lieu of flowers donations may be made to the Cathedral of the Most Holy Theotokos-Our Lady of Grace.

Funeral arrangements entrusted to Scala, Roefaro and Kabuki Funeral Home, Inc., 1122 Culver Ave., Utica. Online sympathy at www.scalaroefaro.com.