Otto Kurz

Otto Kurz (born May 26, 1908 in Vienna , Austria-Hungary , † September 3, 1975 in London ) was an Austro-British art historian and orientalist.

Life and activity

Early years

Otto Kurz was the son of the doctor Maximilian Kurz (1871–1941) and his wife Anna, b. Almond (1883-1941). After attending a humanistic grammar school in Vienna, he studied art history and classical archeology at the University of Vienna from 1927 to 1931 . His teachers there included Julius von Schlosser , Hans Tietze and Wilhelm Reich . In 1931 he received his doctorate with a thesis on the early works of Guido Reni , supervised by Schlosser . In 1933 he passed the state examination of the Austrian Institute for Historical Research .

From 1931 to 1932 Kurz worked at the Austrian Institute for Historical Research in Vienna, where he was among other things the assistant to Ernst Kris . In 1932 he became an employee of the Warburg Library of Cultural Studies in Hamburg. In 1934, Kurz moved with the Warburg library to London as the Nazis came to power.

UK career

Kurz worked for Fritz Saxl in London . He also accompanied Denis Mahon on his research trips to Italy and in 1940 worked on the ancient finds of the French expedition to Bewam in Afghanistan. In 1944 Kurz was appointed second and in 1949 first librarian at the Warburg Institute , which was now affiliated with the University of London . In 1962 he was elected to the British Academy as a Fellow .

1965 was short at the University of London professor of the afterlife of antiquity with special focus on the Middle East ( Professor of the History of the Classical tradition with special reference to the Near East ). From 1970 to 1971, Kurz was visiting professor at Oxford University. From 1964 and 1973 he also gave lectures as a guest lecturer at the Hebrew University in Jerusalem . There he also contributed significantly to the expansion of the Islamic Collection of the LA Mayer Memorial Institute in Jerusalem, which has since been considered one of the best libraries for Islamic art and archeology in the world.

Kurz planned to move permanently to Jerusalem in the mid-1970s, but this did not happen due to his sudden death.

Kurz's research focus was Italian art literature and painting of the Baroque , especially the Bolognese School. In addition, he dealt intensively with German painters of the Middle Ages and with topics from the Middle East, such as Coptic art and Islamic art. In this way he deepened the knowledge of specialist science about Guido Reni and Fra Filippo Lippi , but also about Albrecht Dürer . In addition, he dealt with questions of cultural history and cultural contact, in particular the relationship between Orient and Occident.

family

Otto Kurz had been married to Hilde Schüller (1910–1981), a daughter of the economist Richard Schüller , who supported him in his research, since 1937 . Both had a daughter Erica (* 1940). After a brain operation, she was paralyzed on one side since 1957 and has been cared for by him at home ever since.

Fonts

Monographs

• with Ernst Kris : The legend of the artist. A historical attempt. Krystall-Verlag, Vienna 1934 (reprints 1980 and 1995).
• Fakes. A Handbook for Collectors and Students . London 1948 (reprinted 1967).
• Bolognese Drawings of the 17th and 18th Centuries in the Collection of Her Majesty the Queen at Windsor Castle . London 1955.
• European Clocks and Watches in the Near East (= Studies of the Warburg Institute 34). London 1975.
• The Decorative Arts of Europe and the Islamic East. Selected Studies (= Studies in the History of European Art 1). London 1977.
• Selected Studies . London 1982.

editor

• with Ernst Gombrich and Julius Held: Essay in Honor of Hans Tietze 1880–1954 . Paris 1958.
• Leo Aryeh Mayer: Bibliography of Jewish Art . Jerusalem 1967.
• with Richard Ettinghausen: Leo Aryeh Mayer: Mamluk Playing Cards . Leiden 1971.

Essays

• Shakespeare and the Shaven Hercules , in: Burlington Magazine 87, 1945, pp. 175-176.
• Filippino Lippi's 'Worship of the Apis' , in: Burlington Magazine 89, 1947, pp. 145-147.
• A Sculptor of the Danube School , in: Burlington Magazine 91, 1949, pp. 217-218.
• 'Gli amori de' Carracci 'Four forgotten Painting by Agostino Caracci , in: Journal of the Warburg and Courtauld Institutes 14, 1951, pp. 221-223.
• Metz Unmuss , in: Journal for Swiss Archeology and Art History , 14, 1953, pp. 86–88.
• 'Huius Nympha Loci' A Pseudo-Classical Inscription and a Drawing by Dürer , in: Journal of the Warburg and Courtauld Institutes 16, 1953, pp. 171-177.
• Bégram et l'occident gréco-romain. In: Joseph Hackin : Nouvelles Recherches Archéologiques á Bégram (= Mémoires de la Délégation archéologique française en Afghanistan 11). 1954, pp. 91-150.
• "A Coptic Miniature at Leiden", in: "Nederlands Kunsthistorisch Jaarboek" 5, 1954, pp. 265-270.
• "Engravings on Silver by Annibale Carracci", in: Burlington Magazine 97, 1955, pp. 282-287.
• "A Group of Florentine Drawings for an Altar", in: Journal of the Warburg and Courtauld Institutes 18, 1955, pp. 35-53.
• Julius von Schlosser. Personalitá, Meotod, Lavoro , in: Critica d'arte Nuova 2, 1955, pp. 402-419.
• "In Memoriam Hans Tietze", in: Arte Veneta 9, 1955, pp. 238-239.
• "Falsi affreschi medioevali in Germania", in: Sele Arte 4, 1955, H 21, pp. 37-41.
• "A Fishing Party at the Court of William VI, Count of Holland, Zeeland, and Haisnault. Noted on a Drawing in the Louvre", in: Oud Holland 71, 1956, pp. 117-131.
• "The Present State of the Berlin museums", in: Burlington Magazine 98, 1956, pp. 235-238.
• "Rowland Locky", in: Burlington Magazine 99, 1957, pp. 13-16.
• "Van Dyck and Reni", in: Festschrift D. Roggen , 1957, pp. 179-182.
• "Sannazaro and Mantegna", in: Festschrift Riccardo Filangieri , 1959, Vol. 2, pp. 277-283.
• "Barocco. Storia di Una Parola", in: Lettere Italiane 12, 1960, pp. 414-444.
• "Dürer, Leonardo and the Invention of the Ellipsograph", in: Raccolta Vinciana 18, 1960, pp. 15-25.
• "Forgeries of Marginal Drawings in the Style of Leonardo da Vinci", in: Raccolta Vinciana 18, 1960, pp. 27-44.
• "The 'Bonus Eventus Relief' in the British Museum", in: Journal of the Warburg and Courtauld Institutes 25, 1962, pp. 335-337.
• "An Early Copy of the Battle of Anghiari", in: Raccolta Vinciana 19, 1963, pp. 129-135.
• "Varnishes, Tinted Varnishs and Patina", in: Burlington Magazine 104, 1962, pp. 56-59.
• "Barocco. Storia di un Concetto", in: Barocco Europeo e Barocco Veneziano , Florence 1963, pp. 15-33.
• "Timo the Painter", in: Burlington Magazine 105, 1963, pp. 94-97.
• "Three Armenian Miniatures in the Fitzwilliam Museum, Cambridge", in: Festschrift Eugéne Tisserant , 1964, Vol. 2, pp. 271-279.
• "La storiografia artistica del '600 in Europa", in: Il Mito del Classicismo nel' 600 , Messina 1964, pp. 47-60.
• "A Copy after the Master ES on a Jewish Bookbinding", in: Record of the Art Museum Princeton University 24, 1965, pp. 3-11.
• "Artistic relations between Prague and Persia at the time of Emperor Rudolf II and contributions to the history of his collections", in: Umeni 14, 1966, pp. 461–489.
• "Four Tapestries after Hieronymus Bosch", in: Journal of the Warburg and Courtauld Institutes 30, 1967, pp. 150-162.
• "A Volume of Mughal Drawings and Miniatures", in: Journal of the Warburg and Courtauld Institutes 30, 1967, pp. 251-271.
• "Hagenauer, Posch, and Mozart", in: Burlington Magazine 110, 1968, pp. 325-328.
• "A gold Helmet Made in Venice for Sultan Sulayman the Magnificent", in: Gazette des Beaux-Arts 74, 1969, pp. 249-258.
• "A Mexican Amulet against Kidney Stones", in: Festschrift Walter Pagel , 1972, pp. 81-85.
• "The Date of the Alexandrian World Chronicle", in: Festschrift Otto Pächt 70th Birthday , 1973, pp. 17-22.
• with Hilde Kurz: The Turkish Dresses in the Costume Book of Rubens , in: Nederlands Kunsthistorisch Jaarboek 23, 1973, pp. 275–290 ( digitized version ).
• "Folding Chairs and Koran Stands", in: Islamic Art in the Metropolitan Museum of Art , New York 1973, pp. 299-314.
• "Libri cum characteribus ex nulla materia compositis", in: Israel Oriental Studies 2, 1973, pp. 240-247.
• "Early Art Forgeries from the Renaissance to the 18th Century", in: Journal of the Royal Society of Arts 121, 1973, pp. 74-90.
• "Deus Alea Ludens", in: Filosofia 24, 1973, pp. 3-12.
• "Lion Masks with Rings in the West and in the East", in: Scripta Hierosolymitana 24, 1973, pp. 22-41.
• "Pictorial Records of Favart's Comedy 'Les Trois Sultanes'", in: Festschrift Charles Sterling 1975, pp. 311-317.
• "The Strange History of the Alhambra Vase", in: Al-Andalus 40, 1975, pp. 205-212.

literature

• Werner Röder; Herbert A. Strauss (Ed.): Biographisches Handbuch der Deutschensprachigen Emigration nach 1933 / International Biographical Dictionary of Central European Emigrés 1933-1945 , Vol. II, 1. KG Saur, Munich 1983, ISBN 3-598-10089-2 , p 675.
• Ernst H. Gombrich : Otto Kurz , in: ders., Tributes. Interpreters of our Cultural Tradition , Oxford 1984, pp. 235-349.
• 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. KG Saur, Munich 1999, ISBN 3-598-11339-0 , pp. 400-403.
• Anna Nyburg: 'Your big letter was an event': the private and professional correspondence of the refugee art historians Hilde and Otto Kurz . In: Andrea Hammel / Anthony Grenville (eds.): Refugee Archives. Theory and Practice . Rodopi, Amsterdam 2007, pp. 123-139.
• EH Gombrich: Otto Kurz, 1908–1975 . In: Proceedings of the British Academy . tape 65 , 1980, pp. 719-735 ( thebritishacademy.ac.uk [PDF]).