Russell Sturgis

The articles written by Sturgis provided an early glimpse of his critical interest in art and architecture, made amply clear in his later writings.

Also in 1868, Sturgis published his Manual of the Jarves Collection of Early American Pictures in the Yale School of Fine Arts.

When the Metropolitan Museum of Art was established in 1870, Sturgis was a trustee and a member of the executive committee until 1876, also serving as corresponding secretary from 1870 to 1873.

[5] During the Exposition Universelle of 1878, Sturgis spent some months in France, and upon his return accepted the chair of architecture and the arts of design at the College of the City of New York.

He was the co-author, with Charles Eliot Norton, of a Catalogue of Ancient and Modern Engravings, Woodcuts and Illustrated Books, Parts of the Collections of C.E.

For a short time after his return he was secretary of the New York Municipal Civil Service Board, but resigned out of dislike for the political complications involved in the position.

[7] On December 30, 1886, Sturgis and his eldest son, Appleton, represented the family at the funeral of his wife's uncle, Ashbel H. Barney, retired president (1869–70) of Wells Fargo & Company.

A disciple of John Ruskin, Sturgis intensely disliked the trend toward neoclassic eclecticism at the end of the 19th century and hailed Louis H. Sullivan's work as the most significant that was being done in America.