William E. Parker, emeritus professor of art, died Aug. 6, 2009 in Gainesville, Fla. He was 77.

Parker was a professor of art and the history of photography in the School of Fine Arts from 1969 to 1994. He also served as the first coordinator of the Master of Fine Arts program.

An outstanding visual arts educator, Parker worked at Pratt Institute, Parsons School of Design, and Rhode Island School of Design before joining the UConn faculty.

Parker’s writings on 19th- and 20th-century photography appeared in numerous periodicals, and he edited many books on the history of photography. He was a lifetime member of the National Society for Photographic Education.

He also was a pioneer in the interpretive analysis of photographic and intermedia imagery from Jungian perspectives.

His personal art, combining painting and photography, has been represented in many national and international exhibitions. He received two individual artist grants from the National Endowment for the Arts. In addition to many individual holdings (including the Homer Babbidge Library), his work appears in such collections as the George Eastman House International Museum of Photography and Film, the J. Paul Getty Museum, the Museum of Photographic Arts in San Diego, the Los Angeles County Museum of Art, and the Philadelphia Museum of Art.