Full Name: Knapp, Fritz
Gender: male
Date Born: 1870
Date Died: 1938
Place Born: Halle, Saxony-Anhalt, Germany
Place Died: Würzburg, Bavaria, Germany
Home Country/ies: Germany
Subject Area(s): Renaissance
Institution(s): Universität Greifswald
Overview
Renaissance scholar. Knapp was the son Wilhelm Georg Knapp (1840-1908), a publisher. His father published Knapp’s first publications in Halle. He studied philosophy in Marburg and Halle from 1890, switching to art history at Bonn under Carl Nicolaus Heinrich Justi. He continued studies at Berlin, Munich and Basel. He received Ph.D., in 1896 from Basle under Heinrich Wölfflin. Between 1897 and 1904 he worked as an assistant in the (Berlin Museum Service) principally at the Picture Gallery and at the Nationalgalerie under its director, Wilhelm Bode. Together with Bode the two published Meisterwerke der Malerei. Alte Meister in 1900. His habilitation was granted in 1905, also under Wölfflin, who had by then moved to Berlin. Knapp briefly taught as associate professor at the University of Greifswald in 1906 before joining the University of Würzburg as a professor of art history in 1907. He remained the remainder of his career. Knapp was elevated to full professorship in 1921. Knapp built a summer house in Würzburg in 1932 designed by Franz Kleinsteuber in a Neue Sachlichkeit style. The following year at Hitler’s accession to the Chancellorship of Germany, he joined the Nazi party (NSDAP) in 1933.
Knapp’s specialty was Italian and German Renaissance/Baroque although he lectured on modern art and the middle ages.
Selected Bibliography
Fra Bartolommeo della Porta und die schule von San Marco. Halle: Wilhelm Knapp, 1903 https://babel.hathitrust.org/cgi/pt?id=mdp.39015017072680;view=1up;seq=15
Sources
Die Geschichte des Instituts für Kunstgeschichte der Universität Würzburg (http://www.kunstgeschichte.uni-wuerzburg.de/institut/geschichte-des-instituts/)
Contributors: Lee Sorensen