Otto von Simson

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Angels making music by Rubens around 1628

Otto von Simson (born July 17, 1912 in Berlin ; † May 24, 1993 there ) was a German art historian .

Life

Simson came from one of the most respected families in the German Empire . His great-grandfather Eduard von Simson (1810–1899) was President of the Frankfurt National Assembly in 1848 and President of the Reichstag from 1871 ; Simson, like his sister Vita Petersen (1915-2011), grew up in the villa of his grandfather Franz Oppenheim (1852-1929) in Berlin-Wannsee, built by Alfred Messel and equipped with an extensive art collection by French Impressionists, as the child of the diplomat Ernst von Simson (1876– 1941) and his wife Martha Oppenheim (1882–1971). After graduating from high school at Arndtgymnasium in Berlin-Dahlem , Simson studied art history with Wilhelm Pinder in Munich from 1932 , where he received his doctorate in 1936 with his work on the worldly apotheosis in the baroque, especially on the Medici gallery of P. P. Rubens .

Since Simson, who had been baptized as a Protestant and converted to Catholicism, had Jewish ancestors, he fled from Nazi persecution in 1939 after working as an editor for the magazine Hochland and emigrated to the United States . There he was first professor of history and art history at Marymount College in Tarrytown, New York . In 1943 he moved to St. Mary's College in Notre Dame, Indiana . From 1945 he was a member of the Art Department and the Committee on Social Thought of the University of Chicago , first as Assistant Professor, from 1947 as Associate Professor. In 1951 he was appointed (full) professor there.

After his remigration to the Federal Republic of Germany in 1957, Simson worked for the Foreign Office as a delegate at UNESCO and was a member of the Executive Board there until 1964. From 1959 to 1965 he also worked as a visiting professor in Bonn . As a full professor of modern art history, he was appointed to the Free University of Berlin in 1964, where he was also director of the Art History Institute until his retirement in 1979. In 1968, under the influence of the “ideological terror of radical left groups” in the FU, he played a key role in building the emergency community for a free university . Several emigrants who had returned were affected, such as Richard Löwenthal , Ernst Fraenkel and Ernst E. Hirsch , who had left their university as Jews in 1933 and had to flee. They were reminded of the experiences after 1933. 1969 was v. Simson member of the Monday Club . Between 1971 and 1973 he was visiting professor at Brown University and Harvard . For UNESCO he also remained active in various contexts and campaigned for the preservation of cultural monuments. He was elected a member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences in 1973.

Simson pursued a wide range of art historical interests. He dealt with the iconology of medieval architecture, with the connection between art and liturgy, with Peter Paul Rubens and with German painting of the 19th century. The Gothic Cathedral from 1956 is considered his main work .

Since 1978 he was with the widowed Marie-Anne Campbell Geddes geb. Former Countess zu Salm-Reifferscheidt-Krautheim and Dyck (1933–2015) married.

Works

  • On the genealogy of secular apotheosis in the baroque, especially the Medici gallery of PP Rubens . Heitz, Leipzig 1936.
  • Sacred fortress. Byzantine art and statecraft in Ravenna. Chicago University Press, Chicago 1948.
  • The gothic cathedral. Contributions to their creation and importance. Translated from English by Elfriede R. Knauer, Wissenschaftliche Buchgesellschaft Darmstadt, 1968 (American original edition: The Gothic Cathedral. Origins of Gothic Architecture and the Medieval Concept of Order. Bollingen Foundation Inc. New York, NY First edition, 1956. Second edition, 1962, revisited, with Additions).
  • The high Middle Ages . Propylaen, Berlin 1972 (Propylaen art history, vol. 6).
  • The look inside. Four contributions to 19th century German painting. [CD Friedrich, Spitzweg, L. Richter, Leibl]. Hentrich, Berlin 1986, ISBN 3-926175-02-8 .
  • About the power of the image in the Middle Ages. Collected essays on the art of the Middle Ages . Mann, Berlin 1993, ISBN 3-7861-1681-4 .
  • Peter Paul Rubens (1577-1640). Humanist, painter and diplomat . Von Zabern, Mainz 1996.

Honors

literature

  • Lucius Grisebach , Konrad Renger (ed.): Festschrift for Otto von Simson for his 65th birthday . Propylaen-Verlag, Frankfurt am Main u. a. 1977 (therein, pp. 579-582, also a bibliography of Samson's writings).
  • Article in: 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. 643-649.
  • Article in: Werner Röder, Herbert A. Strauss (Hrsg.): Biographisches Handbuch der Deutschensprachigen Emigration nach 1933 . Vol. 2: The Arts, Sciences and Literature (L-Z) . Saur, Munich a. a. 1983.
  • Otto von Simson (1912-1993) . In: Yearbook for the history of Central and Eastern Germany. Journal for Comparative and Prussian Regional History , Vol. 42, 1994, pp. 529f.
  • Otto von Simson . In: Der Spiegel . No. 22 , 1993, pp. 260 ( online obituary).

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Obituary notice Marie-Anne von Simson , FAZ , January 2, 2016
  2. ↑ userpage.fu-berlin.de
  3. ^ Otto-von-Simson-Strasse. In: Street name lexicon of the Luisenstädtischer Bildungsverein (near  Kaupert )
personal data
SURNAME Simson, Otto von
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Simson, Otto Georg von; Simson, Otto George von
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German art historian
DATE OF BIRTH July 17, 1912
PLACE OF BIRTH Berlin
DATE OF DEATH May 24, 1993
Place of death Berlin