Professor Seymour Slive (September 15, 1920 – June 14, 2014) taught at Harvard for thirty-seven years, chaired the Department of Fine Arts from 1968 to 1971, and directed the Fogg Museum from 1974 to 1982. He is most known for his work  on the great Haarlem portrait painter Frans Hals. His three-volume study of the artist (Phaidon 1970–74) was awarded the Charles Rufus Morey Prize by the College Art Association in 1972. He also organized four seperate exhibitions on Hals and van Ruisdael during his academic career.

He received his BA in 1943 and PhD in 1952, both from the University of Chicago. Slive was appointed to his first teaching position at Oberlin College in 1950, but soon moved on to Pomona College, where he became an assistant professor of art and chair of department from 1952 to 1954. While there, he published his first book, "Rembrandt and His Critics, 1630–1730." In 1954, he joined Harvard University, where he became a full professor seven years later in 1961. He was appointed chair of the Department of Fine Arts in 1968, remaining in the post until 1971. He lectured as the Slade Professor of Fine Art at Oxford University during the 1972/1973 academic year. In 1973, Slive was appointed Gleason Professor of Fine Arts and later concurrently became Director of the University's Harvard Art Museums in 1975. He retired emeritus from Harvard in 1991 as the Elizabeth and John Moore Cabot Founding Director of the Harvard University Art Museums. A Festschrift was compiled and presented in his honor in 1995.

In 2014, Slive was bestowed the honorary degree of Doctor of Arts from Harvard University for his contributions to the world of fine art. He received many other honors during his lifetime: Officer of the House of Orange-Nassau (1962); two Guggenheim Fellowships; Fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences and of the Dutch Society of Sciences; member of the Board of Directors of the Burlington Magazine Foundation; Trustee of the Guggenheim Museum (1978–2008) and the Norton Simon Museum; member of the Consultative Committees of the J. Paul Getty Study Center (1984–91) and Museum (1992–96); and Slade Professor of Fine Arts at Oxford (1972–73).