Robert Freyhan

Robert Freyhan (born October 29, 1901 in Berlin ; died September 6, 1982 in London ) was a German art historian .

Life

Robert Freyhan was a son of the Sanitätsrat Theodor Freyhan (1865–1930) and his wife Elsbeth, geb. Haber.

He attended the Mommsen and Fichtegymnasium in Berlin and finally graduated from the Sophiengymnasium in 1919. Freyhan then studied art history , philosophy , Romance studies and archeology in Marburg , Munich and Berlin from 1920 to 1924 . Richard Hamann , Heinrich Wölfflin , Paul Frankl and Adolph Goldschmidt were among his teachers there . He completed his training in 1924 at the University of Marburg with a dissertation on the illustrations for the Kassel Willehalm Code.

From 1925 to 1928 Freyhan was a scholarship holder, later assistant at the Bibliotheca Hertziana in Rome. At that time he was working on Ernst Steinmann's Michelangelo bibliography .

From 1930 to 1930 Freyhan worked as Richard Hamann's assistant at the Prussian Research Institute for Art History in Marburg. During this time he worked on institute publications and was co-editor of the Marburg Yearbook for Art History .

Freyhan's negative attitude towards National Socialism, as well as critical remarks on the occasion of the fire in the Reichstag in February 1933, led members of the NSDAP in Marburg to pressure the research institute to remove it from its service. In order not to endanger his mentor Hamann, Freyhan decided to leave the institute voluntarily. This decision was made when he was officially dismissed soon afterwards on May 1, 1933, in accordance with Section 3 of the Law for the Restoration of the Professional Civil Service, according to which he was considered a Jew.

From June 1933 Freyhan stayed in London, where he was able to give a series of lectures with Constable from the Courtauld Institute . His living conditions were extremely difficult until 1935. Thanks to Constable, he received intermittent financial support from the Society for Protection of Science and Learning (SPSL).

In 1935 Freyhan began work on a manuscript on English apocalypse manuscripts. As a result, conflicts arose with Constable and the Courtauld Institute. In 1936/1937 he received financial support from the SPSL, which supported him in his search for a job outside of England.

In 1938 Freyhan finally ended his work for the Courtauld Institute because his courses were judged to be too idiosyncratic in terms of content and method. In 1938/1939 he again received financial support from the SPSL to complete his book on English apocalypse manuscripts.

On the occasion of the outbreak of World War II, Freyhan signed up for the British Army. In this he was - typical for non-British in the army - used in the Pioneer Corps. He later moved to the Army Education Corps as an instructor sergeant.

After his emigration, the National Socialist police officers classified Freyhan as an enemy of the state: In the spring of 1940, the Reich Main Security Office in Berlin put him on the special wanted list GB , a list of people whom the Nazi surveillance apparatus regarded as particularly dangerous or important, which is why they should be in the case of one successful invasion and occupation of the British Isles by the Wehrmacht should be located and arrested by the special SS commandos following the occupation troops with special priority.

After the war, Freyhan lived on a farm in Uckfield in East Sussex , when his scientific specialties were medieval painting and manuscripts from Northern Europe (especially from the 13th and 14th centuries) and Anglo-Saxon book illumination .

Fonts (selection)

• The illustrations for the Kassel Willehalm Code. An example of English influence in Rhenish painting of the 14th century , Frankfurt 1927. (Dissertation from 1924)
• Editing of the document attachment by Ernst Eteinmann / Rudolf Wittkower (eds.): Michelangelo Bibliographie 1510-1926 , (= Roman research of the Biblotheca Hertziana), Leipzig 1927.
• English Influences on Parisian Painting. In: Burl Mag 54, 1929, p. 320.
• An English illuminator in Paris at the beginning of the 14th century. In: Marburger Jahrbuch 6 1931, pp. 153–161.
• Religious art from Hesse and Nassau , 3 vols. Marburg 1932. (with H Deckert and Steinbart)
• The Evolution of the Caritas Figure in the 13th and 14th Centuries. In: Journal of the Warburg and Courtauld Institutes 11, 1948, pp. 68-86.
• Joachism and the English Apocalypse. In: Journal of the Warburg and Courtauld Institutes 18 , 1955, pp. 211-244.
• The Place of the Stole and Maniples in Anglo-Saxon Art of the 10th Century. In: The Relics of Saint Cuthbert , Durham Cathedral 1956.

literature

• 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. 160f.