Peter Murray

Peter John Murray (London, 1920 – 1992, Farnborough, Warwickshire) was a Professor of History of Art at Birkbeck College, London, from 1967, succeeding Nikolaus Pevsner. He retired in 1980 and was succeeded in turn by John Steer.

Together with his wife Linda Murray (née Bramley, 1913–2004), Peter Murray wrote primers about Italian Renaissance art which have been used by generations of students. Linda Murray also wrote several books on her own, and completed their collaboration The Oxford Companion To Christian Art And Architecture (1996) after her husband died.

Selected publications

• Wölfflin, Heinrich. Classic art: An introduction to the Italian Renaissance. London: Phaidon, 1952. (Translated with Linda Murray)
• An index of attributions made in Tuscan sources before Vasari. Florence: L.S. Olschki, 1959.
• Penguin dictionary of art and artists. Penguin, 1959.
• The art of the renaissance. London: Thames & Hudson, 1963. (with Linda Murray) ISBN 9780500200087
• A history of English architecture. Part II. New York: Arco Pub. Co. 1963.
• The architecture of the Italian Renaissance. London: Batsford,1963.
• The High Renaissance and Mannerism. London: Thames & Hudson, 1967. (with Linda Murray)
• Burckhardt, Jacob. The architecture of the Italian Renaissance. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1985. (Revised and edited)