Elisabeth Reiff

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Elisabeth Reiff (born April 16, 1911 in Mainz , † August 2, 1993 ) was a German art historian . From 1948 to 1976 she was in charge of the Rheinische Bildarchiv .

Life

Elisabeth Reiff was born in Mainz as the daughter of Luise Reiff (née Israel) and her husband Clemens, a judge-martial . She grew up in Mainz and Oppenheim , where she attended school from 1918. After the family had moved to Cologne in 1921/1922, they graduated from high school at the Empress Augusta School there in 1931 . She matriculated at the University of Cologne , changed places of study several times in the following years (Berlin, Munich) and traveled to Italy. In Frankfurt, from 1935, she studied art history , archeology and German studies under Albert Erich Brinckmann, among others, and received her doctorate there in 1936/1937 with a thesis on anachronistic elements in German architecture from around 1650 to around 1680.

After starting a traineeship at the Schnütgen- und Kunstgewerbemuseum in the summer of 1938, she was busy with the first outsourcing work of the two museums at the start of the war , before taking up a position as a research assistant at the Art History Institute of the University of Tübingen in 1941 . In 1943, a service contract brought her to Strasbourg , from where she fled to southern Germany in November 1944 from the advancing US troops . An attempt to find her way through to her doctoral supervisor in Frankfurt in February 1945 failed.

She did not return to Cologne until November 1946 and from mid-1947 worked initially with the returned holdings from the Schnütgen Museum in Alfter Castle , before taking up a position at the Kunstgewerbemuseum, where she also took stock of the war - partly by herself - outsourced collection objects was busy.

In August or September 1948, Elisabeth Reiff took over the management of the Rheinisches Bildarchiv from Joseph Klersch , which she literally set up in the ruins of the " Haus der Rheinische Heimat " in Cologne- Deutz , until it moved to the armory in 1956 together with the Cologne City Museum . She began her career with the 50,000 glass negatives and 60,000 photo prints preserved during the war . Under her leadership, Cologne, which had been extensively destroyed, was first documented, and from 1947 onwards she had the Cologne art exhibitions "photographed through". In addition to her own holdings, she was able to consolidate the photo collections distributed in the various institutions in her archive - such as the holdings of the state and city curators and the photos of the cathedral building administration. At the end of her career, the Rhenish Image Archive looked after around 250,000 photos. Special restoration concepts and techniques, which she had developed and applied for old and endangered negatives in the archive in her own workshop, were adopted by Foto Marburg , among others .

Elisabeth Reiff died in 1993.

publication

  • Elisabeth Reiff: Anachronistic elements in German architecture from around 1650 to around 1680 . Emsdetten (Westf.) 1937 ( d-nb.info [accessed on July 29, 2020]).

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ a b c d e f g h i Paul von Naredi-Rainer, Horst Johannes Tümmers: To the death of Elisabeth Reiff . In: Museum Service Cologne (Hrsg.): Cologne Museum Bulletin. Reports and research from the museums of the city of Cologne . tape 3 , 1993, ISSN  0933-257X , pp. 36–38 (The biographical details were compiled by Naredi-Rainer from Reiff's personal records, which were in the author's possession.).
  2. ↑ a b Chronicle of the Rheinisches Bildarchiv Cologne. Retrieved July 29, 2020 .
  3. ^ Elisabeth Reiff: Anachronistic elements in German architecture from the period from approx. 1650 to approx. 1680 . Dissertation. Emsdetten (Westf.) 1937 ( Google Books (Snippet) - CV, no page number).
  4. ^ Elisabeth Reiff: Anachronistic elements in German architecture from the period from approx. 1650 to approx. 1680 . Emsdetten (Westf.) 1937 ( dnb.de [accessed on July 29, 2020]).
  5. ^ The museums of the city of Cologne . In: Wallraf-Richartz-Jahrbuch . tape 15 , 1953, ISSN  0083-7105 , pp. 241-246 , JSTOR : 44653632 .
  6. ^ Photographs for Cologne and the world · Photographs for Cologne and the world. Retrieved August 8, 2020 .
personal data
SURNAME Reiff, Elisabeth
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German art historian
DATE OF BIRTH April 16, 1911
PLACE OF BIRTH Mainz
DATE OF DEATH 2nd August 1993