Irving Lavin (14 December 1927 – 3 February 2019[1]) was an art historian of Late Antique, Medieval, Renaissance, Baroque, and Modern painting, sculpture, and architecture.

At the Institute of Fine Arts, New York University, he studied with, and was the assistant to, Walter Friedländer, Richard Offner, and Erwin Panofsky.

[7][8] These revelations were the first of many such Bernini discoveries made throughout Lavin's career, the last of which is a black and white marble sculpture of the famous Roman lawyer Prospero Farinacci, published in spring 2018.

As a founding committee member, he played a major role in the creation of three new research institutes in North America: the Getty Research Institute, Los Angeles; the Center for Advanced Study in the Visual Arts, the National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C.; and the Canadian Centre for Architecture, Montreal, Canada.

[1] Lavin’s deep knowledge of Italian art and culture was the result of over fifty years of study, particularly in Rome, where he embraced the city, created enduring academic colleagues and friends, and encouraged Italian art history to expand from its traditional emphasis on national and stylistic concerns into a broader world of intellectual creativity.

For this gift, the city offered him many honors, including the Tercentennial Medal, commemorating the death of Bernini (1980), the Premio Daria Borghese (1981), and appointed him Honorary Member of the Corporation of Sculptors and Marble Workers of Rome, as well as Membro Straniero della Accademia Nazionale dei Lincei.

Lavin’s publications show his wide-ranging intellectual interests: from late antique architecture (Triclinia)[3] to North African, particularly Tunisian, floor mosaics,[10] the Renaissance (Donatell), Michelangelo, Pontormo, and Giovanna Giambologna),[11][12] the Baroque (Caravaggio and Gian Lorenzo Bernini),[13][14] to the twentieth century, with essays on Pablo Picasso[15] and Jackson Pollock.

Some of his many noteworthy students include now close colleagues Jack Freiberg, David Levine, Nicola Courtright, Gail Feigenbaum, and Charles Scribner III.