Franklin Toker (Photo provided by Ellen Toker)
Franklin Toker, a towering University of Pittsburgh professor whose passion for art and architecture illuminated conversations with friends as well as paved the way for a litany of critically acclaimed books, died April 19 following a battle with a rare form of dementia. He passed away 10 days shy of his 77th birthday.
Born in Montreal in 1944 and educated at McGill University, Oberlin College and Harvard University, Toker first made a name for himself in the international art community in the 1960s, when he directed the excavation of an architectural find under the Cathedral of Santa Maria del Fiore in Florence. Critics hailed two published volumes of his “Florence Duomo Project,” though Toker did not live to complete the final two installments. In Florence, Toker also met his future wife, Ellen, then a Middlebury College master’s student.