William Bryan Jordan Jr. (May 8, 1940 – January 22, 2018) was an American art historian who facilitated acquisitions, curated exhibitions, and authored publications on Spanish artists and still life paintings, particularly from the Golden Age.

[3] Under the supervision of the Spanish art historian José López-Rey [es], Jordan focused on Juan van der Hamen for his doctoral thesis.

[4] He spent eleven months evaluating archives in Spain,[i] and discovered new painting records and biographical details of van der Hamen.

[ii] Jordan compiled an illustrated catalog and a monograph on the painter in his two-volume 1967 dissertation, Juan van der Hamen y León.

[19] He oversaw contemporary art exhibitions Paintings and Drawings by Cy Twombly and Livres d'Artiste by Braque, Matisse, and Picasso from the Collection of the Bridwell Library at the same venue in 1980.

"[23] Jordan curated his first major exhibition at the museum with Craig Felton, professor of art at Smith College, Jusepe de Ribera, lo Spagnoletto, 1591–1652 in 1982.

[16] The exhibition and its catalog, which analyzed the early history of still life paintings and artists of the Spanish Golden Age, were noted by Jordan's contemporaries for being one of the earlier scholarly works in the study of the genre.

[31] Jordan served as an editor of A Prosperous Past: The Sumptuous Still Life in the Netherlands, 1600–1700, authored by Dutch biologist and art historian Sam Segal [nl].

[36] Jordan and Peter Cherry, lecturer at Trinity College Dublin, curated Spanish Still Life from Velázquez to Goya (1995) at the National Gallery in London, which became the museum's most attended exhibition of the time.

[37] Praised for its comprehensiveness, the catalog described the development of still life genre, paintings and artists during the Spanish Golden Age, its decline, and how works of Meléndez, Goya and the Royal Academy revived interest in the subject.

[38] Southern Methodist University awarded Jordan with a Doctor of Humane Letters, honoris causa on May 20, 1995, "for his contributions to the world of arts and for the enrichment he has brought to the campus and the city of Dallas.

"[39] In 1997, Jordan authored the catalog of An Eye on Nature: Spanish Still-Life Paintings from Sánchez Cotán to Goya, a Stair Sainty Matthiesen Gallery exhibition in New York City.

He evaluated details of the paintings and biographies of the artists featured in the exhibition, and expanded upon his ideas and analysis from Spanish Still Life from Velázquez to Goya.

[44] Jordan focused on van der Hamen's role in the court of Philip IV during the 1620s, discussed his place among significant Spanish Baroque painters, and emphasized on his versatility by assessing his portraits and history paintings alongside his acclaimed still life work.

[46] The work was well received by art historians, with praise for Jordan's depiction of van der Hamen's complete artistic output and impact on the Spanish Golden Age.

[48] In 2010, Jordan headed the search committee of the Chinati Foundation — where he had been a past president — to find a new director, leading to the appointment of Thomas Kellein.

[viii] In 1979, Jordan helped the Dallas Museum of Art acquire Gustave Courbet's Fox in the Snow (1860), a painting that was outside his area of expertise.

Jordan reasoned that the painting exhibited softer undertones of grapes and apples, similar to the work of Fernández, and in contrast with Espinosa's sharper treatment of the same fruits.

[59] While the assessment was positively received by American art historian Nina Ayala Mallory, the Prado Museum maintains the painting's original attribution to Espinosa.

[62] Jordan described The Bodegón Keeper (1610–25) as "one of the persistent problems of attribution", and suggested that the painting could be an early work of Antonio de Pereda in Spanish Still Life in the Golden Age, 1600–1650.

[66] In Spanish Still Life from Velázquez to Goya, Jordan coined the term "Pseudo-Hiepes" to describe a then-unknown artist, and attributed around 40 paintings to them due to similarities in their style to the works of Tomás Hiepes.

[67] Against a contemporary opinion that the painter was based in Italy, Jordan argued that Pseudo-Hiepes most likely belonged to Aragon, owing to the antiquated themes of paintings from that region.

[68] The assessments were validated when Pewter Dish with Melons, Grapes, Apricots and Plums (1675–1700), a signed painting by Bernardo Polo of Aragon, was discovered in 2009.

Jordan assessed the painting to be nearly identical in its facture and composition to the works of Pseudo-Hiepes, which also frequently contained elements unique to Pewter Dish with Melons, Grapes, Apricots and Plums.

Jordan believed that the painting was a work of Velázquez instead, done in preparation of The Expulsion of the Moriscos (1627); the latter is considered by historians to have been burned in the Royal Alcázar of Madrid fire of 1734.

[76] The National Gallery of Art received a bequest from Jordan and Brownlee containing works of Alberto Giacometti, Cy Twombly, Edgar Degas, Ellsworth Kelly, Eugène Delacroix, François-Marius Granet, František Kupka, Jacques-Louis David, John Cage, Odilon Redon, Pierre Bonnard, and Picasso in 2019.