John Howett, found purpose to life in art

Soon after he was discharged from military service in 1946, Dr. John Howett arrived in Paris with the brutality of battlefields fresh in his memory.

He discovered a city surviving on little more than wartime rations but thriving on creative energy.

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Dr. John Howett joined the fledgling art history department at Emory University in 1966. He entered art school after experiencing the creative energy of postwar Paris in 1946.

“He met interesting writers there and especially people interested in painting,” said his wife of 52 years, Catherine Howett of Atlanta. “He was somewhat awestruck by all of that, and it had a life-changing effect on him, because when he got back from that trip, he enrolled in art school.”

For the rest of his life, the study of art offered Dr. Howett a simple escape into pure visual pleasure and a doorway into a deeper way of knowing. It served as both a spiritual balm and an endless source of intellectual stimulation during his 30-year career as a professor of art history at Emory University.

John Spurgeon Howett, 82, of Atlanta died of a cerebral hemorrhage April 8 at Emory University Hospital. The body was cremated.

The memorial service is 3 p.m. Wednesday at Emory University’s Cannon Chapel. The funeral Mass is 2 p.m. Saturday at Cannon Chapel. A.S. Turner and Sons is in charge of arrangements.

While working on a bachelor of fine arts degree at John Herron Art Institute, Dr. Howett converted to Roman Catholicism and then spent a year at the Abbey of Gethsemani in Trappist, Ky.

“He was searching for some meaning and purpose in his life,” his wife said.

He discovered it had been there all along in his love of art. From that point forward, he was determined to share that love with others.

He earned his master’s and doctoral degrees at the University of Chicago, taught and served as a curator at the University of Notre Dame, and joined Emory’s then-fledgling art history department in 1966.

Dr. Howett helped spearhead the department’s growth, build its works-on-paper collection and guide the development of the Michael C. Carlos Museum, where a gallery is named in his honor.

He played an instrumental role in the selection of Michael Graves as the museum’s architect and in the integration of art and art history into the Emory curriculum, said Dr. Robert Paul of Stone Mountain, dean of the Emory College of Arts and Sciences.

At the same time, “he provided Emory an important leadership role in critiquing the hypocrisy of society” during the civil rights and anti-war movements, Dr. Paul said.

“He was a very gentle, humble, good-hearted guy with a deep sense of ethical integrity that was immediately obvious to people,” Dr. Paul said.

Dr. Howett focused mainly on early Italian Renaissance artists and was attracted to the mystical and spiritual nature of that period.

“But his interest in contemporary art was no less passionate than his interest in Renaissance art,” his wife said.

For decades, Dr. Howett served on the boards of the High Museum of Art, Nexus Contemporary Arts Center, Art Papers, the Arts Festival of Atlanta and other local entities. His goal, his wife said, was to foster a love of art and a concern for others wherever he could.

“John had known suffering in his life,” she said, “and he wanted other people to discover the joys and satisfactions that he had found in the arts and in intellectual life and in his family life and his religious life.”

“He felt so grateful that he had found those things,” she said, “and he wanted others to know that, too.”

Survivors also include daughters Meghan Howett Magruder of Atlanta, Maeve Howett of Decatur, Catherine Howett Smith of Decatur, and Ciannat Howett Marose of Atlanta; six grandchildren; and one step-grandson.