Ernst Kitzinger

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Ernst Kitzinger, 1988

Ernst Kitzinger (born December 12, 1912 in Munich , † January 22, 2003 in Poughkeepsie , USA) was a German-American art historian . His focus was Byzantine and early medieval art.

Life

The son of Jewish parents - his father Wilhelm Nathan Kitzinger was a well-known Munich lawyer, his mother the social activist Elisabeth Kitzinger , daughter of the numismatist Eugen Merzbacher - passed the Abitur exams at Munich's Maximiliansgymnasium in 1931 , with Anton Fingerle and Randolph von Breidbach-Bürresheim , among others . He then studied art history from 1931 to 1934 with Wilhelm Pinder at the University of Munich . His doctoral thesis was a study of 7th and 8th century Roman painting . Because of the beginning of the persecution of the Jews , Kitzinger left Germany in 1934 . He came to London via Rome in 1935 and found employment at the British Museum . During this time he studied the art of the Anglo-Saxons . In 1937 he visited Egypt and Turkey in order to deepen his knowledge of the late art of antiquity and that of the early Middle Ages. In 1940 his first book, Early Medieval Art at the British Museum, was published.

As a German, Kitzinger was forced to leave England in the same year. He was interned in Australia for nine months. During this time he was in correspondence with his cousin Richard Krautheimer , who had lived in the USA since late 1935 and taught at Vassar College in Poughkeepsie since 1937 . In 1941 the Warburg Institute succeeded in obtaining his release. Kitzinger went to the United States, where he found a job at the Dumbarton Oaks Research Center for Byzantine Studies in Washington, DC . During his first time in Dumbarton Oaks, he studied the Byzantine monuments of the Balkans. In 1955 Kitzinger became "Director of Studies" at Dumbarton Oaks. In 1967 he left the institute to take up the chair of Arthur Kingsley Porter University professor at Harvard University , which he held until his retirement in 1979. In 1961 Kitzinger was elected to the American Academy of Arts and Sciences and in 1967 to the American Philosophical Society . Since 1969 he has been a corresponding member of the British Academy and since 1970 of the Bavarian Academy of Sciences .

Act

Kitzinger's studies of Byzantine and early medieval art were reflected in numerous publications:

His studies at Dumbarton Oaks on the Byzantine monuments of the Balkans resulted in a publication on the monuments of Stobi . Then Kitzinger dealt with the mosaics of Norman Sicily , which he described in the six-volume work I mosaici del periodo normanno in Sicilia .

Under his leadership, Dumbarton Oaks developed into an internationally recognized institution, as evidenced by the annual Dumbarton Oaks Papers . In addition to teaching and supervising doctoral students , Kitzinger continued his studies at Harvard . The books Byzantine art in the making and The art of Byzantium and the medieval West are the results of these studies.

Even after his retirement he continued his studies. For example, the treatise on the mosaics of Norman Sicily was not completed until 1992.

Kitzinger was awarded the Pour le Mérite Order for Science and Art (1982) and the Austrian Decoration for Science and Art (1990).

literature

  • Werner Röder, Herbert A. Strauss (eds.): Biographisches Handbuch der Deutschensprachigen Emigration nach 1933 / International Biographical Dictionary of Central European Emigrés 1933-1945 , Vol. 2, 1. Saur, Munich 1983 ISBN 3-598-10089-2 , P. 623.
  • Ulrike Wendland: Biographical handbook of German-speaking art historians in exile. Life and work of the scientists persecuted and expelled under National Socialism. Part 1: A – K. Saur, Munich 1999, ISBN 3-598-11339-0 , pp. 365-371.

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Siblings: [1] Eugen (* 1906), [2] Margarete [Gretel] (1908–1943); studied economics at the LMU Munich; works as a social worker for a Jewish aid organization in Munich; 1938 emigrated to Palestine; 1943 married the rabbi Dr. Robert Raphael Geis (1906–1972); [3] Richard (1911-1989); 1929 Abitur at the Maximiliansgymnasium Munich; studied law and political science at the LMU Munich; 1933 doctorate and emigration to South Africa
  2. ^ Annual report on the K. Maximilians-Gymnasium in Munich for the school year 1930/31
  3. ^ Member History: Ernst Kitzinger. American Philosophical Society, accessed October 26, 2018 .
  4. ^ Deceased Fellows. British Academy, accessed June 18, 2020 .
  5. ^ Ernst Kitzinger obituary by Willibald Sauerländer at the Bavarian Academy of Sciences (PDF file).
personal data
SURNAME Kitzinger, Ernst
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German-American art historian, particularly Byzantine and medieval art
DATE OF BIRTH December 12, 1912
PLACE OF BIRTH Munich
DATE OF DEATH January 22, 2003
Place of death Poughkeepsie