Otto Pächt

Otto Pächt (born September 7, 1902 in Vienna , Austria-Hungary ; died April 17, 1988 in Vienna) was an Austrian art historian .

Life

Otto Pächt was born in Vienna as the son of a Jewish textile manufacturer. After the annexation of Austria in 1938, the father was imprisoned and expropriated; he fled to England with his wife. Pächt studied art history in Vienna and Berlin with Max Dvorak , Julius von Schlosser , Karl Maria Swoboda and Adolph Goldschmidt . He also heard lectures from Max Weber and Wilhelm Pinder . In 1925 he received his doctorate with a dissertation on the relationship between image and reproach in the medieval development of the representation of history . As a result, alongside Hans Sedlmayr, he was one of the founders of art-historical structuralism and an outstanding representative of the so-called “New Vienna School of Art History ”.

Otto Pächt's tomb in the Neustift cemetery

Pächt completed his habilitation in Heidelberg in 1932 and received the Venia legendi in December. After the transfer of power to the National Socialists in 1933, he was unable to give the inaugural lecture . In 1936 he emigrated to England. In Oxford he cataloged the manuscript collection of the Bodleian Library and taught the history of medieval art at the university as a lecturer. In 1956/57 he taught in Princeton in the USA, and in 1960 as a visiting professor in New York . In 1958, as part of the reparations in Baden-Württemberg, he was appointed retired professor. In 1963 he was appointed full professor of art history at the University of Vienna and in 1967 at the Academy of Sciences . After his retirement in 1972, he edited the catalog of illuminated manuscripts of the Austrian National Library . Since 1956 he was a member ( fellow ) of the British Academy .

In his scientific research and teaching activities, Pächt devoted himself primarily to medieval book illumination and European art of the 15th century. He was friends with Robert Musil and Oskar Kokoschka , among others .

Awards

• 1976: Wilhelm Hartel Prize
• 1985: Austrian Decoration of Honor for Science and Art

Publications (selection)

• Austrian Gothic panel painting. Augsburg-Vienna 1929
• Early Italian nature studies and the early calendar landscape. In: Journal of the Warburg and Courtauld Institutes. Volume 13, 1950, pp. 13-47.
• Methodical to art historical practice. Selected writings . Munich 1977, 2nd improved edition Munich 1986
• Illumination of the Middle Ages. An introduction . Munich 1984, 3rd edition 1989

posthumously

• Van Eyck: The founders of old Dutch painting. Edited by Maria Schmidt-Dengler. Introduction Artur Rosenauer . Munich 1989
• Rembrandt. Ed. Edwin Lachnit . Introduction Artur Rosenauer Munich 1991, 2nd edition 2005
• Old Dutch painting. From Rogier van der Weyden to Gerard David . Edited by Monika Rosenauer. Munich: Prestel, 1994

literature

• In memoriam Otto Pächt . In: Kunsthistoriker , 3/4, 1988, pp. 4–16 (with bibliography)
• Otto Pächt. In the beginning there was the eye . In: Martina Sitt (ed.): Art historian on his own behalf . Berlin 1990, pp. 25-62
• Martina Sitt:  Pächt, Otto. In: New German Biography (NDB). Volume 19, Duncker & Humblot, Berlin 1999, ISBN 3-428-00200-8 , pp. 752-754 ( digitized version ).
• Ulrike Wendland: Biographical handbook of German-speaking art historians in exile. Life and work of the scientists persecuted and expelled under National Socialism. Saur, Munich 1999, ISBN 3-598-11339-0 , pp. 470-479.
• Jonathan JG Alexander: Otto Pächt, 1902–1988 . In: Proceedings of the British Academy . tape 80 , 1992, pp. 453-472 ( thebritishacademy.ac.uk ).

Web links

• Literature by and about Otto Pächt in the catalog of the German National Library
• Otto Pächt Archive

Individual evidence

1. ^ Deceased Fellows. British Academy, accessed July 14, 2020 .