During Maxwell’s deanship at Princeton, Anthony Vidler, a professor at Cooper Union in New York City and professor of architecture at Princeton from 1965-93, said that Maxwell “established the school as a principal center of design research, history and theory.” His personal warmth and his love of the arts shaped his character in and out of the classroom: Vidler said he was a “friend to faculty and students alike, an accomplished watercolor painter, and celebrated for his exuberant after-dinner, impromptu piano recitals — ragtime, traditional jazz and music-hall songs were his specialty.” https://www.princeton.edu/news/2020/01/16/robert-maxwell-former-princeton-dean-architecture-humanist-perspective-dies-97