Mr. Rishel joined the Art Museum as a curator of European art in 1971 and was followed the next year by his new bride, Anne d’Harnoncourt, hired as a curator of 20th-century art. Before long, the couple — she: tall, commanding, detail-oriented; he: not nearly as tall, gregarious, a welcoming polymath — became the face of the PMA. She served as museum director until her death in 2008 and he handled pre-20th century European art, often zeroing in on overlooked fields and subjects.
Joseph J. Rishel, Philadelphia Museum of Art’s curator of European art, dies at 80
