Subject Area(s): German (culture, style, period), German Renaissance-Baroque styles, Netherlandish, Northern Renaissance, painting (visual works), and Renaissance
Overview
Cranach scholar and early 19th-century writing on German renaissance art. Heller was the first to publish, albeit in excerpt, the biographical writing of Johannes Neudörfer on Nuremberg artists, Nachrichten von Künstlern und Werkleuten of 1547. He was a later contributor to the Le Peintre-graveur of Adam von Bartsch.
Selected Bibliography
Lucas Cranach’s Leben und Werke. Bamberg: C.F. Kunz, 1821; and Jäck, Joachim Heinrich. Beiträge zur Kunst- und Literatur-Geschichte. Nuremberg: Riegel und Wiesner, 1822; Das leben und die werke Albrecht Dürer’s. Leipzig: F.A. Brockhaus, 1831; Züsatze zu Adam Bartsch’s Le peintre-graveur. Nuremberg: Lotzbeck, 1854.
Citation
"Heller, Joseph." Dictionary of Art Historians (website). https://arthistorians.info/hellerj/.
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Cranach scholar and early 19th-century writing on German renaissance art. Heller was the first to publish, albeit in excerpt, the biographical writing of Johannes Neudörfer on Nuremberg artists, Nachrichten von Künstl
Subject Area(s): Baroque, Dutch (culture or style), Flemish (culture or style), Northern European, and painting (visual works)
Career(s): educators
Overview
Rubens and Rembrandt scholar; professor, Barnard College. He was born in Mosbach, Baden, Germany near Heidelberg. Held’s father was Adolf Held (1873-1919), employed as a merchant; his mother was Nannette Seligmann (1872-1926). He attended realprogymnasium in Mosbach and Gymnasium Heidelberg in that city, receiving his abitur in 1923. He entered the University of Heidelberg in 1923, studying also at Wilhelm Humbolt University, Berlin, 1923-24, 1927-28 and Vienna, 1925-26, 1929. His faculty included Adolph Goldschmidt, Julius Alwin von Schlosser, Oskar Fischel and Frederick Antal. He received his Ph.D. from the University of Freiburg in 1930 under Hans Jantzen writing on a topic of Dürer. He worked as an assistant to Antal, 1930-1931 and an unpaid assistant in the Berlin Museum in various departments, including the library, prints department (under Elfried Bock, and the Gemäldegalerie under Max J. Friedländer. He was dismissed from the Museum because of his Jewish heritage in 1933 and fled to the United States the following year. He returned briefly, a risky venture, to persuade his future wife to join him in the United States. In 1936 he married her, Ingrid-Märta Nordin-Petterssen (1905-1986), a Swedish citizen and art restorer. Beginning in 1935, Held lectured in art history at New York University until 1937 when he moved to Barnard College, the woman’s college of Columbia University, in 1937. He was appointed assistant professor in 1944. He remain at Barnard, advancing to associate professor in 1950, the full professor 1954. During the 1950’s he was asked by Luis Ferre, the Governor of Puerto Rico, to advise the new museum in Ponce, on baroque purchases. Held was able to assemble masterworks–including works of the 19th century such as Lord Leighton’s Flaming June–making it the most important Caribbean art collection. Held maintained a strong student following at Barnard. His 1968 book Rembrandt Studies–written during the height of the student revolt when the very functions and goals of traditional scholarship” were being questioned asserted the importance of art history. The following year Rembrandt’s Aristotle and other Rembrandt Studies appeared, which included some of his most famous essays. In 1970 he published an article in the Burlington Magazine pointing out that five of the nine ceiling paintings by Rubens in the Banqueting House in Whitehall had been installed incorrectly. Their reinstallation by 180 degrees vindicated his scholarship. He retired from Barnard in 1971, teaching as visiting professor at Williams College 1972-1981 and at William’s Clark Art Institute. At age 75 he issued what many considered his landmark study, his two-volume Oil Sketches of Peter Paul Rubens (1980). Held donated over 200 works of his collection of more than 1000 master drawings to the National Gallery of Art in Washgington, D. C., in 1984. In 1988 he was instrumental in creating a memorial to the Kristallnacht razing of his boyhood synagogue in Mosbach. He died at his farm in Bennington, Vermont, at age 97. A 2006 session of the College Art Association was held entitled, “Revisiting Julius S. Held.” Held’s daughter, Anna Held Audette (b. 1938) was also a professor of art. His students included John Walsh, Jr., David Rosand, and Anne W. Lowenthal. Held’s classical educational background allowed him to broaden the material considered for art history. His article on “Rembrandt’s Aristotle Contemplating the Bust of Homer,” for example, incorporated the psychology of blindness for an artist (Rembrandt’s father had been blind), in addition to the traditional story-line of the portrait. Held maintained the primacy of connoisseurship as one of the important tools of the art historian, at a time when the discipline was heavily favoring iconography and other more “empirical” methods of study. He shunned the Rembrandt Research Project, the group of scholars who attempted to determine the autograph Rembrandts in their catalogue raisonné. He disagreed with them publicly on the demotion of Rembrandt’s The Polish Rider as not by Rembrandt’s hand.
Selected Bibliography
[dissertation:] Dürers Wirkung auf die niederländische Kunst seiner Zeit. Heidelberg, 1930, published 1931, s’Gravenhage; and Donald Posner. 17th and 18th Century Art: Baroque Painting, Sculpture, Architecture. New York: H. N. Abrams 1971; Alteration and Mutilation of Works of Art. Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 1963; Dürers Wirkung auf die Niederländische Kunst seiner Zeit. Haag: M. Nijhoff, 1931; Rembrandt Studies. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1991; Rembrandt’s Aristotle and Other Rembrandt Studies. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1969. Peter Paul Rubens. New York: H. N. Abrams, 1953; “Rembrandt’s Juno.” Apollo 105 (June 1977): 478-85; “On the Date and Function of Some Allegorical Sketches by Rubens.” Journal of the Warburg and Courtauld Institutes 38 (1975): 218-33; “Notes on Jacob Jordaens.” Oud Holland 80 no. 2 (1965): 112-22; “Debunking Rembrandt’s Legend: New York’s Great Loan Show at Wildenstein’s.” Art News 48 (February 1950): 20-4 ff.; “Reflections on Seventeenth Century Dutch Painting.” Parnassus 11 (February 1939): 16-8.0.Metzler
Sources
Wendland, Ulrike. Biographisches Handbuch deutschsprachiger Kunsthistoriker im Exil: Leben und Werk der unter dem Nationalsozialismus verfolgten und vertriebenen Wissenschaftler. Munich: Saur, 1999, vol. 1, pp. 284-9; Liedtke, Walter. “The Study of Dutch Art in America.” Artibus et Historiae 21, no. 41 (2000): 207-220; Art Historian Julius Held. [transcript] Julius Held. Interviews with Art Historians, 1991-2002. Getty Research Institute, Malibu, CA; [entire issue] Oud Holland 120 no. 3/4 (2007); [obituary:] Timesonline (London), January 22, 2003.
Citation
"Held, Julius S.." Dictionary of Art Historians (website). https://arthistorians.info/heldj/.
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Rubens and Rembrandt scholar; professor, Barnard College. He was born in Mosbach, Baden, Germany near Heidelberg. Held’s father was Adolf Held (1873-1919), employed as a merchant; his mother was Nannette Seligmann (1872-1926). He attended realprog
Second to the Secretary of the German Archaeological Institute in Rome 1865-1887, afterwards a private art dealer implicated in forgies and researcher in Rome. Helbig was the son of a Gymnasium (humanities high school) teacher in Dresden. He studied at Göttingen and then at Bonn where he was a student of classicist Friedrich Ritschl (1806-1876) and Otto Jahn. In 1862 he was awarded a scholarship to the DAI (Deutsches Archäologisches Institut or German Archaeological Institute) in Rome; he remained in that city the rest of his life. The Institut was then headed by Wilhelm Henzen (1816-1887) and Enrico Brunn as Secretary (assistant director). Association with the prestigeous DAI included evening social functions with actors, writer and artists to which Helbig was drawn. He formed a relationship with the talented but unscrupulous restorer and gem cutter Fancesco Martinetti (1833-1895). That same year, 1862, Helbig advised Martinetti on incising mythological scenes on some cista, bronze boxes found in the Praenestine digs, making them much more valuable. Helbig’s 1863 work on Latin inscriptions from the Etruscan digs in Palestrina were incorporated into Ritschl’s subsequent study. He succeeded Brunn as Secretary in 1865 when Brunn left for Munich, which Helbig held until 1887. He married a Russian princess, Principessa Nadejda [Nadine] Schakowskoy [or Schakowsky] (1847-1922) who further assured his entrance in the Roman social scene. In 1868 his Untersuchungen über die campanische Wandmalerei appeared in its first volume. In this and other works, Helbig traced the Hellenistic relationship to the wall painting at Pompeii. In 1871. Helbig participated in an elborate documentary deception of another cita, dictating information to Marinetti to send (back) to Helbing in a letter of documentation. It was sold to the British Museum. Meanwhile, Helbig’s genuine scholarship took off. He published Die Italiker in der Po-ebene, 1879, which supported and more widely established the “Pigorini hypothesis,” a theory that the north Italian terramara area as the incipience of prehistoric Italy. This caused a bitter feud with Edoardo Brizio over the origin of the Etruscans, both men asserting the pride of their respective nationalities. Helbig contended they were northern peoples and Brizio asserted their origin from the east. In 1884 Helbig published his Homerische Epos aus den Denkmälern erläutert, a work comparing the descriptions contained in Homer’s poem (then thought to be ninth century) with the recent Mycenaen shaft grave finds of Heinrich Schliemann. In 1887 he left the Institut to deal in antiquities. Helbig also acted as a procurer of antique art for various constituencies in Europe. His clients included Carl Jacobsen (1842-1914), founder of the Ny Carlsberg Glyptothek in Copenhagen, who christened the Etruscan object Helbig acquired for it the “Helbig Museum.” Martinetti outright forged the Praenestine Fibula, which Helbig subsequently documented as purportedly part of the Bernardini tomb. In 1891 Helbig published an extensive guide to the collections in Rome, the Führer durch die öffentlichen Sammlungen klassischer Altertümer in Rom. Helbig published several more editions of the book, a third, 1912-1913, published by the travel-guide magnet Karl Baedecker. He and his wife are buried at the Campo Cestio, Rome. The manual was updated 1963-1972 by members of the DAI. As a scholar, Helbig’s work remains important. His differentiation between Homeric times and classical Greece was one of the important reasons why the classicist Sir John L. Myres (1869-1954) could term Helbig’s Homerische Epos “the standard textbook,” though that status caused serious problems for archaeology in the immediate years afterward. Helbig’s conjectural Ionia as the place of Homer’s travels was subsequently discounted by the discoveries at Samos (1894), Miletos (1899) and Ephesos (1904).
Selected Bibliography
and Donner, Otto. Wandgemälde der vom Vesuv verschütteten Städte Campaniens. Leipzig: Breitkopf & Hartel, 1868; and Reisch, Emil. Führer durch die öffentlichen Sammlungen klassischer Altertümer in Rom. 2 vols. Leipzig: B.G. Teubner, 1891; Homerische Epos aus den Denkmälern erläutert. Leipzig: B. G. Teubner, 1884; Die Italiker in der Po-ebene. Leipzig: Breitkopf & Härtel, 1879; “Ein ägyptisches Grabgemälde und die mykenische Frage.” Sitzungsberichte der philosophisch-philoogische und der historische Classe der königlichen bayerishen Akademie der Wissenschaften 3, (1896): 539-538.
Sources
Archäologenbildnisse: Porträts und Kurzbiographien von Klassichen Archäologen deutscher Sprache. Reinhard Lullies, ed. Mainz am Rhein: Verlag Philipp von Zabern, 1988: 71-72; Encyclopedia of the History of Classical Archaeology. Nancy Thomson de Grummond, ed. Westport, CT: Greenwood Press, 1996, vol. 1, pp. 576-578; Helbig, Nadina Schakowskoy. Sketches from the Trastevere. Aberdeen: 1914; Myres, John L. Homer and his Critics. London: 1958, pp. 150-155.
Citation
"Helbig, Wolfgang." Dictionary of Art Historians (website). https://arthistorians.info/helbigw/.
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Second to the Secretary of the German Archaeological Institute in Rome 1865-1887, afterwards a private art dealer implicated in forgies and researcher in Rome. Helbig was the son of a Gymnasium (humanities high school) teacher in Dresden.
Subject Area(s): Gothic Revival and painting (visual works)
Overview
Neo-gothic revivalist; painter and art historian. Jules Helbig was the son of the banker Jean-Baptist Helbig (1781-1852) and Anne-Marie Lauteren (1790-?), both from Mainz, Germany. The young Helbig was born in Liège, Belgium, where his father had settled in 1804. After the death of his mother, Helbig grew up in the castle of Breuberg (Darmstadt-Hessen), where his uncle served as a steward. At age thirteen Helbig returned to his birthplace in Belgium. In the late 1830s he received his artistic education at the Liège Académie royale des Beaux-Arts, where he practiced in landscapes and portraits. Between 1840 and 1843 he continued his artistic training at the Kunstakademie of Düsseldorf, Germany, where he focused on historic and religious painting. In Belgium, an independent nation since 1830, growing interest in the national past led to a renewed interest in medieval art, including wall painting. At the same time, the study and preservation of medieval artworks became a source of inspiration for contemporary art in historic neo-stiles. Helbig, who as a painter participated in this movement, traveled to several cities in Germany, including Aachen, Cologne, Bonn and Frankfurt, to study the technique and the iconography of neo-gothic wall painting. His first project as a painter was the neo-gothic decoration of the Church of Our Lady in Sint-Truiden, Belgium. While working there he befriended, in 1858, the architect and designer Jean-Baptiste Bethune (1821-1894), which led to further collaboration on several projects. Helbig continued to create wall paintings in a number of churches in Liège and elsewhere in Belgium. He considered their religious content as a medium to promote a revival of Catholic doctrine. His rigid neo-gothic style, however, increasingly met with harsh criticism, especially from the Royal Commission for Monuments. In 1863 Helbig became a member of the Guild of Saint Thomas and Saint Lucas, an association for the study of ancient Christian art and for the promotion of its “true principles.” The guild was founded in that year by the revivalist art historian of the so-called Flemish Primitives, William Henry James Weale. Weale, in collaboration with Helbig, Bethune and other members of the guild, organized the acclaimed exhibition of medieval liturgical art in Mechelen, at the occasion of the 1864 Catholic Congress held in this city. More than 1000 objects were on display, including the treasure of the Basilica of Our Lady in Tongeren and parts of the thirteenth-century treasure of the goldsmith Hugo d’Oignies, which is kept in Namur. A section of contemporary liturgical art presented by Belgian, Dutch, German and English artists, mostly in neo-gothic style, completed the show. Helbig and Bethune, who in 1873 obtained the position of president of the Guild of Saint Thomas and Saint Lucas, became fierce propagators of the so-called Gothic Revival. A different aspect of Helbig’s career consists of his significant contributions to the history of art. In a series of extensive studies, published between 1873 and 1911, he explored Christian art in the Liège region and beyond, in the Meuse valley stretching from France to Belgium into the Netherlands. His 1873 monograph dealt with the history of painting in the Liège region, from the introduction of Christianity up to the Revolution in the eighteenth century, Histoire de la peinture au Pays de Liège depuis l’introduction du Christianisme jusqu’à la révolution Liégeoise et la réunion de la Principauté à la France. In 1880 Helbig and Bethune cofounded the Catholic Saint-Lucas School in Liège, as a reaction against traditional academic training. In 1883 Helbig became the director of the journal, Revue de l’art chrétien. His growing influence led to his election, in 1889, as a member of the Royal Commission for Monuments. Helbig published his documentation on sculpture and plastic arts of the larger Meuse region in his 1890 monograph, La sculpture et les arts plastiques au pays de Liège et sur les bords de la Meuse. In 1893 his biography of the Renaissance painter and architect Lambert Lombard followed, Lambert Lombard, peintre et architecte. Helbig was elected, in 1896, vice-president of the Guild of Saint Thomas and Saint Lucas, and, in 1897, vice president of the Royal Commission for Monuments. In 1903 a revised and augmented edition of his 1873 monograph appeared, La peinture au pays de Liège et sur les bords de la Meuse. His last study, L’art mosan depuis l’introduction du Christianisme jusqu’à la fin du XVIIIe siècle, was meant as a synthesis of his earlier research on the art of the Meuse valley, for which he now adopted the term “art mosan” (Mosan art). However, the study was unfinished when he died in 1906. Joseph Brassine, librarian at Liège University (1877-1955), prepared the first volume for publication in 1906. The chapter on thirteenth-century metalwork was completed by Marcel Laurent, professor of medieval art at Liège University. The second volume, which dealt with the sixteenth to the eighteenth century, also edited by Brassine, followed in 1911. The field of Mosan Art was further explored by Laurent, and by his pupil Joseph A. P. M. Ch. Borchgrave d’Altena among others.
Selected Bibliography
L’église de Notre Dame à Saint-Trond. Description des peintures murales et des autres objets d’art qui s’y trouvent, précédée d’une notice historique. Liège, 1865; Histoire de la peinture au Pays de Liège depuis l’introduction du Christianisme jusqu’à la révolution Liégeoise et la réunion de la Principauté à la France. Liège: Léon De Thier, 1873; La sculpture et les arts plastiques au pays de Liège et sur les bords de la Meuse. Bruges: Desclée de Brouwer, 1890; Lambert Lombard, peintre et architecte. Brussels: Impr. Veuve Julien Baertsoen, 1893; “Lairesse (Gérard)” Biographie Nationale, 11. Académie royale des Sciences, des Lettres et des Beaux-Arts de Belgique, Brussels, 1897; “Lombard (Lambert)” Biographie Nationale, 12. Académie royale des Sciences, des Lettres et des Beaux-Arts de Belgique, Brussels, 1897; “La peinture murale dans nos contrées” Bulletin de l’Académie royale d’archéologie de Belgique (1901): 62-73; La peinture au pays de Liège et sur les bords de la Meuse. Liège: Impr. Liégeoise, H. Poncelet, 1903; Le Baron Bethune. Fondateur des Ecoles Saint-Luc . Étude biographique. Bruges: Desclée de Brouwer, 1906; L’art mosan depuis l’introduction du Christianisme jusqu’à la fin du XVIIIe siècle. Publié conformément au désir de l’auteur par les soins de J. Brassine. Brussels: G. van Oest, 1906-1911.
Sources
De Seyn, Eug. Dictionnaire biographique des Sciences, des Lettres et des Arts en Belgique. 2, Brussels: Éditions L’avenir, 1936, p. 553; Lavalleye, Jacques. “Helbig (Jules) artiste peintre, archéologue (1821-1906) ” Biographie Nationale de Belgique 37 (1971-1972): 429-431; Bergmans, Anna, Deconinck, Els, and Smeyers, Maurits, and Vermeiren, Rie. Inventaris van de archivalia van Jules Helbig (1821-1906). KADOC inventarissen en repertoria 51. Louvain, 1996; Bergmans, Anna. “Der Maler Jules Helbig (1821-1906) ein Grenzgänger zwischen Rhein und Maas” in Cortjaens, Wolfgang, De Maeyer, Jan and Verschaffel, Tom (eds) Historism and Cultural Identity in the Rhine-Meuse Region. Tensions between Nationalism and Regionalism in the Nineteenth Century/Historismus und kulturelle Identität im Raum Rhein-Maas. Das 19. Jahrhundert im Spannungsfeld von Regionalismus und Nationalismus. (KADOC-Artes, 10), Louvain, 2008, p. 381-393; Cortjaens, Wolfgang. “Kirchenschätze des Rhein-Maas-Gebietes im 19. Jahrhundert. Historisierung und Präsentation mittelalterlicher Goldschmiedekunst im Kontext medialer Aneignung” Historism and Cultural Identity in the Rhine-Meuse Region, pp. 173-203; Benezit Dictionary of Artists 6 (2006): 1345; Rüter, Ulrich. De Gruyter Allgemeines Künstler Lexikon 71 (2011): 297-299; [obituaries:] Cloquet, L. “Jules Helbig” Revue de l’art chrétien 49 (1906): 73-75; “Jules Helbig” Revue de l’art chrétien 49 (1906): 213-216; “Nécrologie. M. Jules Helbig, fondateur et vice-président de la Gilde de Saint-Thomas et de Saint-Luc” Bulletin de la Gilde de Saint-Thomas et de Saint-Luc 19 (1906): 28-45 (includes bibliography).
Contributors: Monique Daniels
Citation
Monique Daniels. "Helbig, Jules." Dictionary of Art Historians (website). https://arthistorians.info/helbigj1821/.
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Neo-gothic revivalist; painter and art historian. Jules Helbig was the son of the banker Jean-Baptist Helbig (1781-1852) and Anne-Marie Lauteren (1790-?), both from Mainz, Germany. The young Helbig was born in Liège, Belgium, where his father had
Curator Koninklijke Musea voor Kunst en Geschiedenis/Musées Royaux d’Art et d’Histoire in Brussels (KMKG/MRAH). Jean Helbig was the son of Edmond Helbig (1854-1896) and Marguerite Van der Laat. He was a grandnephew of the painter and art historian Jules Helbig. After having attended high school in Antwerp, Jean Helbig obtained his BA in philology and literature at the University of Brussels. He served in the army during the First World War. He was a prize winning student of the Royal Academy of Fine Arts (Koninklijke Academie voor Schone Kunsten/Académie royale des Beaux-Arts) in Antwerp. In the 1920s he made drawings for windows in the Tournai studio of the glass painter Camille Wybo (1878-1937). He married Hélène Wante (1898-1991). In 1929 Helbig joined the Royal Museums of Art and History (KMKG/MRAH) in Brussels. He obtained his doctoral degree in art history and archeology from the University of Liège in 1938, with a dissertation on Flemish glass painting in the first half of the sixteenth century, L’école flamande de peinture sur verre pendant la première moitié du XVIe siècle. In that year, 1938, he became the head of the museum’s department of ceramics. With the outbreak of the Second World War immanent the treasures had to be moved in safety. All over Europe the protection of the artistic heritage became an urgent concern. In Belgium, the Koninklijke Commissie voor Monumenten en Landschappen issued directives for the safe-keeping and protection of art works, including stained glass windows. In 1939 Helbig made lists of the windows which either had to be taken out of their frames, or had to be reinforced. At that occasion the windows were photographed. Helbig’s continuing involvement led to the publication, in 1943, of the first volume of a complete index and documentation of monumental glass painting in Belgium, De Glasschilderkunst in België, Repertorium en Documenten. In addition to a complete list of existing and disappeared windows, it covers the history of monumental glass painting in Belgium from the twelfth up to the eighteenth century. In 1948 Helbig was appointed adjunct curator of the Royal Museums (KMKG/MRAH). He reorganized the Italian and Antwerp majolica gallery and he held an exhibition of Belgian ceramic art. He arranged the stained glass windows in a new display. In 1949 he held an exhibition of Islamic art, Art Musulman. The second volume of De Glasschilderkunst in België, coauthored with R. van Steenberghe de Dourmont, appeared in 1951. It continues and completes the index. A section of notices and commentaries highlights several aspects of the art of stained glass painting. This major two-volume work was an important contribution to the general inventory of art works in Belgium. In 1952 Helbig exhibited the museum’s collection of Delft faience. The first volume of the catalog, Faiences hollandaises, appeared in the same year, followed by the second in 1958. In 1952 Helbig became the head of the Dienst van het Repertorium van het Cultureel Bezit, housed in the museum. This service was established to register Belgium’s cultural property. Following the international 1954 Hague Convention for the Protection of the Cultural Property in the Event of Armed Conflict, Helbig also directed this service. The preservation of stained glass windows in particular had become a national and international preoccupation since World War Two. The International Committee on the History of Art (CIHA) founded in 1952 a research project of medieval stained glass windows, the Corpus Vitrearum Medii Aevi. In 1956 it was placed under the patronage of the International Union of Academies (UAI). Helbig was involved in the Belgian series, Corpus Vitrearum Medii Aevi: Belgique. He rose to curator of the Royal Museums (KMKG/MRAH) in 1956. He was the contributor for Italian, Spanish, and Belgian ceramics to the 1958-1959 Art Encyclopedia, Winkler Prins van de Kunst (Elsevier). Helbig held teaching positions at professional art schools in Brussels, and at the Antwerp Kunsthistorisch Instituut. One year after his retirement as curator (1960), his first volume in the Corpus Vitrearum Medii Aevi: Belgique, appeared, Les vitraux médiévaux 1200-1500 conservés en Belqique (1961). It is a revision and expansion of his major 1943-1951 work. The second volume followed in 1968, Les vitraux de la première moitié du XVIe siècle conservés en Belqique. Province d’Anvers et Flandres. Helbig’s last contribution, vol. 3, coauthored with Yvette Vanden Bemden (b. 1946), appeared in 1974, Les vitraux de la première moitié du XVIe siècle conservés en Belqique. Brabant et Limbourg. Vanden Bemden, a stained glass specialist and art historian, continued the series (volumes 4 and 5). Helbig was a contributor to various periodicals in Belgium and abroad, including the Bulletin des Musées Royaux d’Art et d’Histoire, the Revue Belge d’Archéologie et d’Histoire de l’Art, and Faenza: Bolletino del Museo Internazionale delle Ceramiche in Faenza. He was a member of several institutions and committees, including the Académie Royale d’Archéologie de Belgique and the Comité international de Patronage du Musée céramique de Faenza (Italy).
Selected Bibliography
[complete list until 1960:] Mariën-Dugardin, Anne-Marie. “Bibliographie Jean Helbig.” Bulletin des Musées royaux d’Art et d’Histoire 32 (1960): 130-132; Meesterwerken van de glasschilderkunst in de oude Nederlanden. Antwerp: De Sikkel, 1941; De oude glasramen van de Collegiale Sinte-Goedele te Brussel. Antwerp: De Sikkel, 1942; Oud-Antwerpsche school van glazeniers. Antwerp: Nederlandsche Boekhandel, 1943; De Glasschilderkunst in België. Repertorium en Documenten. 2 vols. Antwerp: De Sikkel, 1943-1951; La céramique bruxelloise du bon vieux temps. Brussels: éditions du Cercle d’art, 1946; „Repertorium van het cultureel bezit” Archief- en bibliotheekwezen in België 24 (1953): 157-160; and De Borchgrave d’Altena, J. Faiences hollandaises XVIIe – XVIIIe – début XIXe siècle 2 vols. Brussels: Musées royaux d’Art et d’Histoire, 1952-1958; Les vitraux médiévaux conservés en Belgique, 1200-1500. Corpus Vitrearum Medii Aevi: Belgique, 1. Brussels: Weissenbruch, 1961; Les vitraux de la première moitié du XVIe siècle conservés en Belgique, Province d’Anvers et Flandres. Corpus Vitrearum Medii Aevi: Belgique, 2. Brussels: Van Buggenhout, 1968; and Vanden Bemden, Yvette. Les Vitraux de la première moitié du XVIe siècle conservés en Belgique. Brabant et Limbourg. Corpus Vitrearum Medii Aevi: Belgique, 3. Ledeberg/Gent: Erasmus, 1974.
Sources
Crick-Kuntziger, M. “Helbig (Dr Jean) De Glasschilderkunst in België …” Revue belge de philologie et d’histoire 25 (1946): 251-253; Le Livre bleu. Recueil Biographique. Brussels: Maison Ferd. Larcier S.A., 1950, p. 267; Koller, F., De Maeyer, T. W. and Taylor, Stephen S. (eds) Who’s Who in Belgium, including the Belgian Congo. Brussels: G. H. B. Universal Editions, 1959, p. 315; Mariën-Dugardin, Anne-Marie. “Jean Helbig” Bulletin des Musées royaux d’Art et d’Histoire 32 (1960): 129-132; Manderyck, Madeleine. „Het kunsthistorisch onderzoek van de monumentale glasschilderkunst in Vlaanderen. Een status questionis” Gentse Bijdragen 34 (2006): 175-193; Caviness, Madeline. “Introduction – The Corpus Vitrearum Project” www.international.icomos.org/publications/93stainintro2.pdf
Contributors: Monique Daniels
Citation
Monique Daniels. "Helbig, Jean." Dictionary of Art Historians (website). https://arthistorians.info/helbigj/.
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Search for materials by & about this art historian:
Curator Koninklijke Musea voor Kunst en Geschiedenis/Musées Royaux d’Art et d’Histoire in Brussels (KMKG/MRAH). Jean Helbig was the son of Edmond Helbig (1854-1896) and Marguerite Van der Laat. He was a grandnephew of the painter and art historian
Fürtwangler student. His dissertation, written at Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität in Munich, was entitled Römische weibliche Gewandstatuen, was granted in 1906.
Selected Bibliography
Römische weibliche Gewandstatuen. Dissertation, König Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität, Munich: C. H. Beck, 1908; Museum der bildenden Künste in Budapest: Die Sammlung antiker Skulpturen. Vienna: Krystall-Verlag, 1929; Greek and Roman Portraits. New York: G. P. Putnam’s Sons, 1912.
Sources
Archäologenbildnisse: Porträts und Kurzbiographien von Klassichen Archäologen deutscher Sprache. Reinhard Lullies, ed. Mainz am Rhein: Verlag Philipp von Zabern, 1988: 111, mentioned.
Citation
"Hekler, Anton." Dictionary of Art Historians (website). https://arthistorians.info/heklera/.
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Fürtwangler student. His dissertation, written at Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität in Munich, was entitled Römische weibliche Gewandstatuen, was granted in 1906.
Subject Area(s): Expressionist (style), German (culture, style, period), German Expressionist (movement), and museums (institutions)
Career(s): art collectors, directors (administrators), and museum directors
Institution(s): Hamburger Kunsthalle
Overview
Museum director for the Hamburger Kunsthalle; notable advocate and collector of German modernist works. Heise was born in Hamburg, Germany as the only child of upper middle-class merchant Francis Julius Heise and Helene Kaemmerer (Heise). He attended the private secondary school of Dr. August Bieber until age 15, when he then moved to the Staatliche Oberrealschule in Uhlenhorst. He earned his Abitur in 1908 and in the same year, he met Aby Warburg for the first time, who would become a lifelong mentor and have immense influence on Heise’s educational and professional career. For university, Heise studied in the cities of Freiburg, Halle, Munich, Berlin, and Kiel, starting in 1909. Spurred by the recommendation of Warburg, he studied art history under Wilhelm Vöge in Freiburg before transferring to Halle to study under Adolph Goldschmidt. Heise then moved to university in Munich, where he studied under Heinrich Wölfflin, against the recommendation of Warburg. Warburg grouped and studied works based upon “universal impulse”, or rather the subject of the work. His approach was similar to those of Vöge and Goldschmidt, who also focused on symbolism and social context, but it clashed greatly with that of Wölfflin. Wölfflin was deemed the father of “style art history” and thus analyzed artwork with a much more formalist perspective.
In 1910, Heise expanded upon his art history studies by travelling to Italy with Wilhelm Waetzoldt and Warburg. The group visited Venice and then Ferrara, where Warburg was researching the frescoes in the Palazzo Schifanoia. Heise returned to Italy with Warburg in 1912 to attend the Art Historians’ Congress in Rome. Upon being rejected for volunteer military service in 1914, Heise returned to university in Berlin and Kiel. In 1916, he published his dissertation titled Norddeutsche Malerei. Studien zu ihrer Entwicklungsgeschichte im 15. Jh. von Köln bis Hamburg (North German Painting. Studies on the history of its development in the 15th century from Cologne to Hamburg) under Georg Graf Vitzthum von Eckstädt in Kiel. His dissertation was dedicated to Warburg.
Within a year after finishing his doctorate, Heise became an unpaid research assistant for Gustav Pauli at the Hamburger Kunsthalle. In this role, he worked to compile a catalogue titled Katalog der alten Meister der Hamburger Kunsthalle (Catalog of the old masters of the Hamburger Kunsthalle) that was published in 1918.
After five years at Hamburger Kunsthalle, Heise moved to Lübeck in 1920 to become Director of Museumsquartier St. Annen (St. Anne’s Museum), one of Lübeck’s museums of Art and Cultural History. He would hold this position until 1933. In the same year, Heise also became the director of the Overbeck Society. From 1918 to 1921, he worked with Giovanni Mardersteig and Kurt Pinthus as an editor for the newspaper Genius. Zeitschrift für werdende und alte Kunst (Genius: Magazine for nascent and ancient art). While still in Hamburg in 1919, Heise published one of his own works, Emil Noldes religiöse Malerei (Emil Nolde’s religious painting), in the magazine. He was a personal friend of Nolde’s and would continue to work with Nolde in a professional capacity later in his career.
During his time in Lübeck, Heise became an innovative museum theorist of sorts, describing this period as “the best and most fruitful period of [his] professional life”. He worked to blend the lines between the physical museum and the broader city landscape in order to elevate the overall cultural scene of Lübeck. Heise commenced one of his first significant initiatives in 1920, which was the acquisition and conversion of a building known as Behnhaus into a museum with a substantial collection of paintings. On July 29th 1922, Heise was wed to his lifelong partner, Hildegard Neumann, who was the daughter of the mayor of Lübeck Johann Martin Neumann.
Heise accomplished much as the director of Museumsquartier St. Annen. In this role, Heise generally oversaw the reorganization and expansion of the museum’s collection. In 1926, he began private fundraising for the celebrations of the 700th anniversary of the city of Lübeck. His dedication towards the success of these festivities and more largely towards molding Lübeck into a cultural center is evident in his invention of the sweet Jubelkugel to sell to the public in tandem with a larger lottery event. His fundraising efforts permitted him to curate and run the exhibition Lübeckische Kunst außerhalb Lübecks (“Lübeck Art outside Lübeck”).
The Hamburg Facsimile Debate. The show featured medieval art that had been taken from Lübeck and exported to Baltic sea region during the reign of the Hanseatic League, a few of which were plaster reproductions, including Bernt Notke’s sculpture “St. George’s Group” (Sankt-Jürgen-Gruppe). The exhibition took place in Katharinenkirche (St. Catherine’s Church). Heise had struck an agreement with the church so that services could be held during the dates of the show. The exhibition formed part of the city’s other festivities asserting the importance of Lübeck in the greater context of northern European art. Heise’s ability to acquire the loan of several original works by Lübeck artists–artists that had not been together in such high numbers since their conception–was chief among the city’s celebrations. However, the use of reproductions for works that could not be lent caused a furor among area art historians. Kurt Karl Eberlein, Hugo Sieker and Max Sauerlandt were among Heise’s harshest critics. Erwin Panofsky, however, supported Heise’s decision. The debate came to be known as the Hamburger Faksimile-Streit (Hamburg facsimile dispute) since most of the art historians were from Hamburg.
As the Director of the Overbeck Society, Heise worked on many projects that involved the work and legacy of Lübeck artist Johann Friedrich Overbeck. During the summer of 1926, Heise organized the special exhibition Overbeck und sein Kreis (Overbeck and his Circle) at Museumsquartier St. Annen which was followed with a publication of the same name in 1928. In 1929, Heise initiated one of the first exhibitions for photographers, including works by Albert Renger-Patzsch (1897-1966), Emil Otto Hoppé (1878-1972), Hugo Erfurth (1874-1948) and Wilhelm Castelli (1901-1984), then a young Lübeck photographer. In 1930, he oversaw the construction of the Overbeck Society’s exhibition center. In 1931, he used this space to curate an exhibition for the 400th anniversary of the Katharineum zu Lübeck with the help of drawing teacher Hans Peters and the works of the pupils.
For the duration of his time in Lübeck, Heise was a strong advocate for German modern art, as displayed through his exhibitions and personal collection. For his various art projects, Heise acquired works by Expressionist artists like Ernst Barlach, Franz Marc and Edvard Munch, as well as the work of New Objectivity photographer Renger-Patzsch. He also organized exhibitions that further proved his support, such as “Emil Nolde’s Religious Pictures” or “Works by Schmidt-Rottluff” in 1921. Heise’s relationship with contemporary artists delved beyond just the artwork and into personal connections with artists like Oskar Kokoschka, who had painted Heise in 1919 in a diptych with his then lover Hans Mardersteig.
Unfortunately, Heise’s time in Lübeck was plagued by the rise of the National Socialist government, who deemed German Expressionist art as “Degenerate Art”. Heise’s staunch support for modern art and his great influence over Lübeck’s cultural life worked together to spur great social and political discussion in the city, which resulted in extreme criticism from right-wing circles. As the Nazi party gained more power during the Gleichschaltung, Heise was forced to retire on September 31, 1933 due to section 6 of the “Law for the Restoration of the Professional Civil Service” for the promotion of modern art. From 1928 to 1933, he lived in the Zöllnerhaus (“Tax or customs collector’s house”) at the Burgtor in Lübeck. His removal from numerous art organizations allowed the cultural scene of Lübeck to fall under municipal control and thus transition to more conservative subjects. Works acquired during his time in Lübeck would later be utilized to populate the Entartete Kunst (Degenerate art) exhibitions of 1937 onwards.
Heise left Lübeck for Berlin in 1935, where he worked until 1945 as a journalist and freelancer for publisher Gebrüder Mann and Frankfurter Zeitung. He also took on the role of art advisor for Frankfurter Zeitung from 1934 to 1947. Heise became the publisher of the successful art letter Kunstbriefes in 1939, which were pocket-sized art monographs intended to be utilized out in the field. In Kunstbriefes, Heise published a few of his own works, such as Bernd Notke. St. Jürgen zu Stockholm. Holzbildwerk von 1489. (Bernd Notke: St. Jürgen in Stockholm. Wooden painting from 1489) in 1942. On the side, Heise also worked as an art advisor for his colleagues during his time in Berlin. Socially, Heise belonged to a private circle centered around the cultural minister Theodor Heuss (1884-1963) (later to be the first chancellor of the West German Republic) that also included members such as Ludwig Grote and Leopold Reidemeister. Despite his removal from positions of power in Lübeck, Heise’s support for “degenerate” German artists did not waver and he continued to maintain contact and provide help for individuals like Ernst Wilhelm Nay.
Immediately following the end of World War II in 1945, Heise returned to the Hamburger Kunsthalle as the newly appointed director. He was tasked with rebuilding the museum in a war-ridden Germany. Heise’s responsibilities included overseeing the management of repair work on the building, as well as the repatriation and reorganization of the collection after the mistreatment of the artwork by Nazi forces. He was successful in improving the general conditions of the museum, especially in rebuilding the modern art department. Heise commented that although he felt successful in his role of director, he was “already too old to develop the same carefree initiative as in Lübeck and inhibited by an often unbalanced temperament”. In 1947, Heise privately published a manuscript recording memories from his relationship with Warburg, titled Persönliche Erinnerungen an Aby Warburg. The work, which is widely regarded as his most notable, was written in 1945 while he was trapped in Berlin and then later re-published for the public in 1959.
Following his retirement from the Hamburger Kunsthalle in 1955, Heise was the editor for Werkmonographien zur Bildenden Kunst (Monographs of Works on the Visual Arts) at Verlag Reclam until 1965. The publication was the successor to his previous project Kunstbriefes. Similar to Kunstbriefes, Heise published some of his own writings in Werkmonographien zur Bildenden Kunst. His works were often centered on artists he had a personal connection with, such as Oskar Kokoschka: Thermopylae 1954. (1961). Heise also continued his journalistic projects through contributions on exhibitions and current issues in art life to the newspapers Die Zeit and Neue Zürcher Zeitung. He also held a professorship at the University of Hamburg. His legacy is preserved among other things in the art-historical “Heise Collection” which comprises 9,000 titles within the Staats- und Universitätsbibliothek Bremen (“State and University Library of Bremen”).
Selected Bibliography
Norddeutsche Malerei. Studien zu ihrer Entwicklungsgeschichte im 15. Jh. von Köln bis Hamburg. Leipzig 1918;
Katalog der alten Meister der Hamburger Kunsthalle. 2nd edition.. Hamburg 1918;
Overbeck und sein Kreis. Hundert Bildertafeln mit dem Festvortrag Kunst und Kunstgeist der Nazarener von Kurt K. Eberlein zur Erinnerung an die Ausstellung in Lübeck im Sommer 1926. Munich 1928;
Bernd Notke. St . Jürgen zu Stockholm. Holzbildwerk von 1489. (Der Kunstbrief 2) Berlin 1942;
Persönliche Erinnerungen an Aby Warburg. New York 1947;
Oskar Kokoschka: Thermopylae 1954. (Werkmonographien zur bildenden Kunst 68). Stuttgart, 1961
Sources
em>Gedenkworte für Carl George Heise und Hildegard Heise geb. Neumann. Verona, 1980;
Wendland, Ulrike. Biographisches Handbuch deutschsprachiger Kunsthistoriker im Exil: Leben und Werk der unter dem Nationalsozialismus verfolgten und vertriebenen Wissenschaftler. Munich: Saur, 1999, vol. 1, pp. 351-355.;
Meyer, Jutta. “Lübeckische Kunst außerhalb Lübecks“. Die Gipsabgusssammlung in der Katharinenkirche und die Ausstellung anlässlich der 700-Jahrfeier der Reichsfreiheit der freien und Hansestadt Lübeck 1926. Mit einem Katalog der Sammlung.” ZVLGA 90 (2010): 273–318;
“Overbeck Society – Overbeck-Gesellschaft.” Overbeck Society, October 6, 2014. https://second.wiki/wiki/overbeck-gesellschaft.;
Russell, Mark. “[Review of:] Heise, Carl Georg: Persönliche Erinnerungen an Aby Warburg, Wiesbaden 2005.” ArtHist.net, Sep 25, 2006 (accessed Jun 25, 2021), .;
Contributors: Cindy Xu, Helen Jennings, and Lee Sorensen
Citation
Cindy Xu, Helen Jennings, and Lee Sorensen. "Heise, Carl Georg." Dictionary of Art Historians (website). https://arthistorians.info/heisec/.
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Museum director for the Hamburger Kunsthalle; notable advocate and collector of German modernist works. Heise was born in Hamburg, Germany as the only child of upper middle-class merchant Francis Julius Heise and Helene Kaemmerer (Heise). He atten
Place Born: Bielsko-Biala, Silesian Voivodeship, Poland
Place Died: Rome, Lazio, Italy
Home Country/ies: Germany
Subject Area(s): painting (visual works), portraits, and Roman (ancient Italian culture or period)
Overview
Romanist art historian, noted authority on portraiture. She was born in Bielitz, Silesia, Austria which is present-day Bielsko-Biala, Poland. Von Heintze was born Helga Hoinkes, the daughter of Carl Hoinkes (1882-1960), a cloth manufacturer and writer. She studied in Vienna beginning in 1940. She married the book publisher Wolf Freiherr von Heintze during World War II in 1944, becoming Freifrau (Baroness) von Heintze. As the War began to turn in favor of the Allies, she fled with her mother and young son to the west in 1945. Her son died and her husband was lost at war–listed as missing until 1959–when it was disclosed he had been a casualty during one of the last days of World War II in Bavaria. She moved to Hamburg, where she studied under Gerhard Kleiner, her dissertation on Roman portrait in Noricum essentially complete. Freifrau von Heintze received the 1952 stipendium from the German Archaeological Institute (Deutsches Archaölogisches Institut or DAI) in Rome, the first after the war, to travel to Rome. She remained there–except for annual two-month sea cruises to Hamburg, for the rest of her life, nearly fifty years. There she became a fellow and assistant to the director, Guido Kaschnitz von Weinberg. After Kaschnitz von Weinberg’s death, she acted as his literary executor, publishing material beginning in 1962. During these years she assisted Hermoine Speier on the second edition of the Führer durch die öffentlichen Sammlungen klassischer Altertümer in Rom, originally issued in 1912 by Wolfgang Helbig. In 1969 she authored the vademecum on Roman art for a series on world art conceived by Belser publishing. This masterpiece of brevity, with its carefully selected monuments, became a staple for undergraduates and was quickly translated into English–her only text–two years later. She formed a life-partnership with Mario Domenici-Grisi. She died after a lengthy illness and is buried in the cemetery near the Pyramid of Cestius in Rome. Von Heintze followed not methodological approach or school (Mitteilungen obituary), except that of the influence of Kaschnitz von Weinberg.
Selected Bibliography
[complete bibliography:] Antike Porträts: zum Gedächtnis von Helga von Heintze. Möhnesee: Bibliopolis, 1999, pp. 317-328; [dissertation:] über das römische Porträt in Noricum, Vienna, ?; [Habilitation:] Imago clipeata. Hamburg1949; Römische Porträt-Plastik aus sieben Jahrhunderten. Stuttgart: H. E. Günther, 1961; edited, Kaschnitz von Weinberg, Guido. Die Grundlagen der republikanischen Baukunst. Reinbek bei Hamburg: Rowohlt, 1962; edited, with Speier, Hermine. Helbig, Wolfgang. Führer durch die öffentlichen Sammlungen klassischer Altertümer in Rom. 2nd ed. 4 vols. Tübingen: E. Wasmuth, 1963-1972; edited, with Kleiner, Gerhard. Kaschnitz von Weinberg, Guido. Ausgewählte Schriften. 2 vols. Berlin: Gebr. Mann 1965; Die antiken Porträts in Schloss Fasanerie bei Fulda. Mainz am Rhein: P. von Zabern, 1968; Römische Kunst. Stuttgart: Belser, 1969, English, Roman Art. New York: Universe Books, 1971; Römische Porträts. Darmstadt: Wissenschaftliche Buchgesellschaft, 1974; edited, with Bonfante, Larissa. In Memoriam Otto J. Brendel: Essays in Archaeology and the Humanities. Mainz: von Zabern, 1976.
Sources
[obituaries:] Steuben, Hans von. “Ein Halbes Jahrhundert in Rom.” Antike Welt 28 no.1 (1997): 84; ‘P.Z.’ “Helga von Heintze.” Mitteilungen des Deutschen Archaeolgoischen Instituts, Roemische Abteilung 104 (1997): vii-viii.
Citation
"Heintze, Helga, Freifrau von." Dictionary of Art Historians (website). https://arthistorians.info/heintzeh/.
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Romanist art historian, noted authority on portraiture. She was born in Bielitz, Silesia, Austria which is present-day Bielsko-Biala, Poland. Von Heintze was born Helga Hoinkes, the daughter of Carl Hoinkes (1882-1960), a cloth manufacturer and wr
Romantic art historian; disagreed with Winckelmann on the importance of Greek art as a measure
Selected Bibliography
“Briefe aus der düsseldorfer Gemäldegalerie.” In Teutschem Merkur 1776 & 1777; Ardinghello und die glückselign Insel (novel) 1787.
Sources
KGK, 144-5; Schiff, Gert. “Introduction.” German Essays on Art History. New York: Continuum, 1988, pp. xvi-xix, 280; Metzler Kunsthistoriker Lexikon: zweihundert Porträts deutschsprachiger Autoren aus vier Jahrhunderten. Stuttgart: Metzler, 1999, pp. 164-6.
Citation
"Heinse, Johann Jakob Wilhelm." Dictionary of Art Historians (website). https://arthistorians.info/heinsej/.
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