Hanns Swarzenski

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Hanns Peter Theophil Swarzenski (born August 30, 1903 in Charlottenburg (near Berlin ), † June 22, 1985 in Wilzhofen ( Bavaria )) was a German-American art historian and expert on the art of the Middle Ages .

life and work

Hanns (Peter) Swarzenski was born as the son of the art historian Georg Swarzenski and his wife Ella Perec-Wilcynska. He grew up in Frankfurt am Main , where his father was the director of the Städel Art Institute . He studied with Walter Friedlaender in Freiburg and in Berlin with Adolph Goldschmidt , with whom his father had also studied. In 1927 he received his doctorate at the University of Bonn under Paul Clemen with a dissertation on German book illumination of the Middle Ages. From 1927 to 1928 he completed a graduate year at the Fogg Museum at Harvard . After a two-year scholarship at the Art History Institute in Florence , he worked at various museums in Berlin. In 1936 his main work appeared on the Latin illuminated manuscripts of the XIII. Century .

In 1938 he emigrated to the United States . There he was research assistant with Erwin Panofsky at the Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton until 1946 . In 1942, when the United States entered the war, Swarzensky was no longer allowed to enter the university campus as an enemy alien - like other European scientists. In 1943 he accepted a position in the sculpture department of the National Gallery of Art in Washington, DC , which he lost in 1946 because of his protest against the planned transfer of parts of the Berlin Gemäldegalerie to the USA. In 1948 he was employed in the painting department of the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston , the museum where his father worked. In 1957 he took over his father's position as custodian and at the same time headed the museum's arts and crafts department. Through his close acquaintance with Max Beckmann , Alexander Calder and Henry Moore , he was able to convey some important works to the department for contemporary sculpture. In 1955 he became associate editor of The Art Bulletin, published by the College Art Association . In 1959 he was elected a member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences .

Hanns Swarzenski was married to actress Brigitte Horney since 1953 . After his retirement in 1973 he lived in Boston and with his wife in the Hollerberg house in Wilzhofen, where he died in 1985. The Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York annually awards a Hanns Swarzenski and Brigitte Horney-Swarzenski research grant to young art historians.

Fonts

  • Contributions to the Lower Rhine illumination in the transition from the Romanesque to the Gothic style , Bonn 1927
  • Pre-Gothic miniatures: the first centuries of German painting , Langewiesche publishing house , Königstein im Taunus 1927, 2nd edition 1931
  • The Latin illuminated manuscripts of the XIII. Century in the countries on the Rhine, Main and Danube , 2 volumes, Deutscher Verein für Kunstwissenschaft, Berlin 1936
  • The Berthold missal : The Pierpont Morgan library Ms. 710 and the scriptorium of Weingarten Abbey . The Pierpont Morgan Library, New York 1943
  • Monuments of Romanesque Art, the Art of Church Treasures in North-Western Europe , University of Chicago Press, Chicago 1954

literature

  • Karen Michels: Transplanted Art History: German-Language Art History in American Exile , Akademie Verlag, Berlin 1999, ISBN 978-3-05-003276-4
  • Ulrike Wendland: Biographical handbook of German-speaking art historians in exile. Life and work of the scientists persecuted and expelled under National Socialism. Part 2: L – Z. Saur, Munich 1999, ISBN 3-598-11339-0 , pp. 683-689.

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Website of the Metropolitan Museum of Art
personal data
SURNAME Swarzenski, Hanns
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Swarzenski, Hanns Peter; Swarzenski, Hanns Peter Theophil
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German art historian
DATE OF BIRTH August 30, 1903
PLACE OF BIRTH Berlin-Charlottenburg
DATE OF DEATH June 22, 1985
Place of death Wilzhofen