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Fehl, Philipp P.

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Full Name: Fehl, Philipp P.

Gender: male

Date Born: 1920

Date Died: 2000

Place Born: Vienna, Vienna state, Austria

Place Died: Rome, Lazio, Italy

Home Country/ies: Austria

Subject Area(s): Italian (culture or style), Italian Renaissance-Baroque styles, and Renaissance


Overview

Professor of Italian Renaissance art. The son of a Jewish craftsman, Fehl grew up in Vienna. After the annexation of Austria, Fehl fled first to England and then, in July 1940, to the United States. He studied painting at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago, but volunteered for war service. Fehl was an interrogator for the United States Army at the Nuremberg Trials 1946-47. He returned to study art history with Ulrich Middeldorf at the University of Chicago. He additionally attended the Brussels Art Seminar seminar by Erwin Panofsky. He was a research fellow at the Warburg Institute. Fehl revered the work of E. H. Gombrich, whom he considered his friend as well as mentor.


Selected Bibliography

Capriccio: the Jest & Earnestness of Art: a History of the Capriccio in Prints. Urbana, IL: Krannert Art Museum, 1987; A Bibliographical Guide to the Study of the History of Art. Chapel Hill, NC, [s. n.]: 1965, new ed., 1969; Birds of a Feather. Urbana, IL: Krannert Art Museum, 1991; The Classical Monument: Reflections on the Connection Between Morality and Art in Greek and Roman Sculpture. New York University Press and the College Art Association of America, 1972; Decorum and Wit: the Poetry of Venetian Painting: Essays in the History of the Classical Tradition. Vienna: IRSA, 1992; Zatura and the Art of Painting Finely: Open-ended Narration in Paintings by Apelles, Raphael, Michelangelo, Titian, Rembrandt and Ter Borch. Groningen: The Gerson Lectures Foundation, 1997; Thomas Appleton of Livorno and Canova’s Statue of George Washington. Berlin: De Gruyter, 1968; edited and translated. Junius, Franciscus. The Literature of Classical Art. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1991.


Sources

Artibus et Historiae 23 no. 45 (2002): 27; Philipp P. Fehl – Capricci Eine Ausstellung des Deutschen Exilarchivs Der Deutschen Bibliothek, 30. November 2001 – 31. January 2002 (website).




Citation

"Fehl, Philipp P.." Dictionary of Art Historians (website). https://arthistorians.info/fehlp/.


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Professor of Italian Renaissance art. The son of a Jewish craftsman, Fehl grew up in Vienna. After the annexation of Austria, Fehl fled first to England and then, in July 1940, to the United States. He studied painting at the School of the Art Ins

Fechter, Paul Otto Heinrich

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Full Name: Fechter, Paul Otto Heinrich

Gender: male

Date Born: 1880

Date Died: 1958

Home Country/ies: Germany

Subject Area(s): Expressionist (style) and German Expressionist (movement)

Career(s): art critics


Overview

Art and literary critic; wrote early book on expressionism. Fechter studied architecture and natural science in Berlin. Hiis doctoral thesis, Die Grundlagen der Realdialektik, was completed in 1906. Fechter wrote for the Dresdner Neuesten Nachrichten newspaper after receiving his degree, moving to Berlin to write for the Vossischen Zeitung in 1911.Between 1918 until 1933 he was a cultural critic for the Deutschen Allgemeinen Zeitung. In 1914 he published Expressionismus one of the earliest documentations of Expressionism as an art movement. He wrote extensively on literature and the theater, always with a preference for nationalist themes. He published much during this time, mostly novels and other literary forms, the most important of which was the play Der Zauberer Gottes, in 1940. After World War II he published an art dictionary as well as a three-volume survey of European drama, Das europäische Drama in 1956.


Selected Bibliography

Der Expressionismus. Munich: R. Piper, 1914; Das europäische Drama: Geist und Kultur im Spiegel des Theaters. 3 vols. Mannheim: Bibliograph. Inst., 1956-1958; Der Zauberer Gottes: eine Komödie. Stuttgart: Deutsche Verlags-Anstalt, 1940; Kleines Wörterbuch für Kunstgespräche. Gütersloh: C. Bertelsmann, 1951.


Sources

Killy, W. (ed.). Literatur Lexicon. Autoren und Werke deutscher Sprache. Gütersloh: Bertelsmann Lexikon, 1988ff., vol.15, p. 342; Stonard, John-Paul. Art and National Reconstruction in Germany 1945-55. Ph.D. dissertation, University of London, 2004, p. 233.




Citation

"Fechter, Paul Otto Heinrich." Dictionary of Art Historians (website). https://arthistorians.info/fechterp/.


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Art and literary critic; wrote early book on expressionism. Fechter studied architecture and natural science in Berlin. Hiis doctoral thesis, Die Grundlagen der Realdialektik, was completed in 1906. Fechter wrote for the Dresdner Neue

Fechheimer, Samuel Sigismund

Full Name: Fechheimer, Samuel Sigismund

Gender: male

Date Born: 1867

Date Died: unknown

Home Country/ies: Germany

Subject Area(s): Italian (culture or style), Italian Renaissance-Baroque styles, and Renaissance


Overview

Art historian of the Italian Renaissance; Donatello scholar. Fechheimer received his Ph.D. from Jena with a dissertation on John Ruskin‘s art theory.


Selected Bibliography

[dissertation:] Ueber die Bedeutung Ruskins für das Leben und die Erziehung in England. Jena: Universitäts-Buchdr. G. Neuenhahn, 1898; Donatello und die Reliefkunst: eine kunstwissenschaftliche Studie. Strassburg: J.H.E. Heitz (Heitz & Mündel), 1904.





Citation

"Fechheimer, Samuel Sigismund." Dictionary of Art Historians (website). https://arthistorians.info/fechheimers/.


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Art historian of the Italian Renaissance; Donatello scholar. Fechheimer received his Ph.D. from Jena with a dissertation on John Ruskin’s art theory.

Fechheimer, Hedwig

Full Name: Fechheimer, Hedwig

Gender: male

Date Born: unknown

Date Died: unknown

Home Country/ies: Germany

Subject Area(s): Egyptian (ancient) and Egyptology


Overview

Egyptologist. Became embroiled in the primitivism controversy with Carl Einstein in 1915.


Selected Bibliography

Die Plastik der ägypter. Berlin: B. Cassirer, 1923; Kleinplastik der ägypter. Berlin: B. Cassirer, 1921. [book review] “Carl Einstein: Negerplastik.” Kunst und Künstler 13 (1915): 576 – 578.





Citation

"Fechheimer, Hedwig." Dictionary of Art Historians (website). https://arthistorians.info/fechheimerh/.


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Egyptologist. Became embroiled in the primitivism controversy with Carl Einstein in 1915.

Fèa, Carlo

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Full Name: Fèa, Carlo

Gender: male

Date Born: 1753

Date Died: 1836

Place Born: Pigna, Imperia, Liguria, Italy

Place Died: Rome, Lazio, Italy

Home Country/ies: Italy

Subject Area(s): archaeology, ceramic ware (visual works), Etruscan (culture or style), Etruscan pottery styles, Italian (culture or style), monuments, pottery (visual works), and vase

Career(s): conservators (people in conservation)


Overview

Italian archaeologist, monuments conservator, and authority on Etruscan vase painting. Fèa received a degree in law from the University of Rome (the Sapienza). He took priestly orders, and after a successful, brief career as a lawyer, he edited an edition of Geschichte der Kunst des Altertums of Johann Joachim Winckelmann, Storia della Arti (1783) adding a personal essay “Dissertation on the Ruins of Rome” (Sulle rovine di Roma). He worked as the librarian of the Biblioteca Chigiana. In 1790 he edited the first of two important archival publications, Miscellanea filogica. The following year he began excavating at Ardea, which launched his career as an archaeologist. Napoleon’s conquest of the region forced him into exile and prison. However, his appointment as Commissario delle Antichit à in 1800 by Pope Pius VII outwardly vindicated him of the charges. He remained in this capacity until his death in 1836. In 1801 he was appointed president of the Capitoline Museum. Fèa was responsible for the 1802 antiquities regulations that stimulated new archaeological investigations of major Roman monuments, including the Arch of Constintine, Arch of Septimus Severus and the Flavian ampitheater (Colosseum). He personally worked on the Pantheon in 1804 with the architect and restorer Giuseppe Valadier (1762-1832). In 1809 he concluded his tenure at the Capitoline with the Napoleonic occupation, but continued work with Valadier on the Domus Aurea and the Temple of Vesta. The excavation in 1812 of the arena in the Colosseum set off a major debate with many of his colleagues. After the Napoleonic withdrawal in 1814, Fèa continued his archaeolgical research. He correctly identified the Temple of Castor in 1816 with the Duc de Blacas (Pierre-Louis-Jean-Casimir Duc de Blacas d’Aulps, 1770-1839). The following year he discovered the Clivus Capitolinus and the Temple of Concord with the count of Funchal. His 1819 guide to the antiquities of Rome, Nouva descrizione de’ monumenti antichi, remains an important study of the time. His work on Etruscan vases, Storia dei vasi fittili, appeared in 1832. In 1836 he published the second volume of Miscellanea filogica. Fèa’s success as Commissioner of antiquities (he was the longest incumbent) is measured in the monuments he saved from destruction or abuse. At the founding of the Instituto di Corrispondenza Archeologica in 1829, he was the only Italian founding member.


Selected Bibliography

Storia dei vasi fittili dipinti che da 4 anni si trovano nello stato ecclesiastico in quella parte che e nèll antica Entruria colla relazione della colonia Lidia che li fece per più secoli prima del dominio dei romani. Discorso diretto all’Instituto di corrispondenza archeologica in Roma. Rome: Nella Stamperia delle belle arti, 1832; Progetto di una nuova edizione di Vitruvio: L’integrità del Panteone di Marco Agrippa. Rome: Pagliarini, 1788.


Sources

Ridley, R. T. “Fèa, Carlo.” Encyclopedia of the History of Classical Archaeology. Nancy Thomson de Grummond, ed. Westport, CT: Greenwood Press, 1996, vol. 1, pp. 435-6; Leoncini, Luca. “Fèa, Carlo.” Dictionary of Art.




Citation

"Fèa, Carlo." Dictionary of Art Historians (website). https://arthistorians.info/feac/.


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Italian archaeologist, monuments conservator, and authority on Etruscan vase painting. Fèa received a degree in law from the University of Rome (the Sapienza). He took priestly orders, and after a successful, brief career as a lawyer, he edited an

Faure, Élie

Image Credit: Wikipedia

Full Name: Faure, Élie

Other Names:

  • Élie Faure

Gender: male

Date Born: 1873

Date Died: 1937

Place Born: Sainte-Foy-la-Grande, Nouvelle-Aquitaine, France

Place Died: Paris, Île-de-France, France

Home Country/ies: France

Subject Area(s): French (culture or style) and Italian (culture or style)

Career(s): art critics


Overview

Critic and self-taught historian of French and Italian art. Faure was trained as a surgeon and spent his early years as a medical doctor, serving as a medical officer in the First World War. He received his first job in the art world from the writer Émile Zola (1840-1902) who secured Faure’s appointment as editor of L’Aurore, the paper in which Zola published his article “J’Accuse”. Faure’s 1904 pamphlet on Velasquez led him to establish an adult school in 1905, where he delivered a series of lectures entitled L’Histoire de l’art. This series was later compiled into five volumes, published in 1920-1921. He later published monographs on Paul Cézanne (1913), André Derain (1923) Chaim Soutine (1929) as well as a biography of Napoleon (1921). Between 1931-1932 he made a world tour, and when in Mexico stayed with the artist Diego Rivera. Faure’s History of Art, translated by Walter Pach, was one of the first art histories to examine art primarily in relation to civilization, according to the Art Digest of 1937. His highly poetic view of art history was most clearly contained in the final volume of the History of Art, his Spirit of Forms. Here he used what is now the familiar compare/contrast method of art pedagogy, comparing French sculpture with Greek, etc. Like his methological exact opposite, Arnold Hauser, and some others, Faure saw modern painting as dead, contending that film was the true successor of the arts. His History of Art was highly popular both in France and the United States, remaining available in paperback reprints long after the author’s death. The writer/art historian André Malraux popularized many of Faure’s ideas in his own work.


Selected Bibliography

œuvres complètes. Paris: J.J. Pauvert,1964; Napoléon. Paris: G. Crès, 1921, English: Napoleon. New York: A. A. Knopf, 1924; Histoire de l’art. Paris: G. Crés and Cie, 1924-28; Velázquez: biographie critique. Paris: H. Laurens, 1903; and Romains, Jules, Vildrac, Charles, and Werth, Léon. Henri-Matisse. Paris: G. Crés & cie, 1923; and Verhaeren, Emile. Sensations. Paris: G. Crès & cie,1928; Fonction du cinéma, de la cinéplastique à son destin social. Geneva: éditions Gontheir, 1964.


Sources

Columbia Dictionary of Modern European Literature. New York: Columbia University Press, 1947, pp. 257-8; Bazin 180, 359-362; [obituaries:] New York Times, November 1, 1937; Art Digest 12, no 4 (November 15, 1937): 16; [Obituary with medical assessment] Roger, H. La Presse médicale 45: 1790.



Contributors: LaNitra Michele Walker and Lee Sorensen


Citation

LaNitra Michele Walker and Lee Sorensen. "Faure, Élie." Dictionary of Art Historians (website). https://arthistorians.info/fauree/.


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Critic and self-taught historian of French and Italian art. Faure was trained as a surgeon and spent his early years as a medical doctor, serving as a medical officer in the First World War. He received his first job in the art world from the writ

Faries, Molly

Full Name: Faries, Molly

Other Names:

  • Molly Ann Faries

Gender: female

Date Born: 1941

Home Country/ies: United States

Subject Area(s): Northern Renaissance


Overview

Scholar of Northern Renaissance art, professor and early exponent of reflectography for the study of art. Faries graduated from Wooster College, Wooster, OH, in 1962 with a A. B. and an A. M. from the University of Michigan the following year. She entered Bryn Mawr for graduate work, spending the years 1966-1968 doing field reseach at the Rijksmuseum. Faries worked as an instructor at Swarthmore College between 1969-1971. She studied infrared imaging under J. R. J. van Asperen de Boer. Faries received her Ph.D. from Bryn Mawr in 1972 writing a dissertation on Jan van Scorel under James E. Snyder. Receiving a National Endowment for the Humanities grant, she returned to the Netherlands and Amsterdam in 1973 to study Scorel more. In 1975 she was appointed to the faculty of Indiana University. The same year she again worked with Asperen de Boer at the Centraal Museum in Utrecht using sterescope technology on paint samples. The result of this research was an article for the Nederlands Kunsthistorisch Jaarboek in 1976 and a 1977 exhibition on Scorel in Utrecht. Promoted to associate professor in 1978, she was appointed a senior fellow at the National Gallery of Art’s Center for Advanced Study in the Visual Arts (CASVA) for the 1981-1982 year, studying the Netherlandish paintings in the Gallery’s collection using dendrochronology and reflecography. A National Endowment for the Humanities grant allowed Faries, beginning in 1984, to examine paintings throughout the midwest. In 1985 she rose to full professor at Indiana. Faries purchased reflectography equipment through the university, becoming the first scholar in the United States to do so. She was a fellow at the National Humanites Center, NC, for the 1990-1991 year. Beginning in 1990, she used a Samuel H. Kress Foundation grant and funds from her university to establish a doctoral fellowship in reflectography. In 1998 Faries added to her duties as professor of Technical Studies in Art History at Groningen. She retired from both universities in 2005. Her life partner P. Eileen Fry, was an image curator at the Indiana University. Her students included Julien Chapuis. Faries was a leader in infrared reflectography. Her discoveries using this process included confirmation that Hans Memling had been a member of Rogier van der Weyden’s workshop (underdrawing confirmed his hand), and that patrons, such as Jan van Eyck’s Nicolas Rolin, had advised on paintings before they were complete.


Selected Bibliography

[bibliography:] “Chronological Bibliography of Molly Faries.” Chapuis, Julien, ed. Invention: Northern Renaissance Studies in Honor of Molly Faries. Turnhout: Brepols, 2008, pp. xiii-; [dissertation:] Jan van Scorel: his Style and its Historical Context. Bryn Mawr College, 1972;


Sources

Chapuis, Juline. “Molly Faries: Scholar and Mentor.” and van Aperen de Boer, J. R. J. “Laudatio Molly Faries.” in Chapuis, Julien, ed. Invention: Northern Renaissance Studies in Honor of Molly Faries. Turnhout: Brepols, 2008, pp. vii-ix, xi-xii; Kennedy, Janet. “Molly Faries.” Vice Provost for Faculty and Academic Affairs, Indiana University [website] http://www.indiana.edu/vpfaa/download/bios/2005/MFaries.pdf ; CV http://www.indiana.edu/arthist/faculty/faries.pdf.




Citation

"Faries, Molly." Dictionary of Art Historians (website). https://arthistorians.info/fariesm/.


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Scholar of Northern Renaissance art, professor and early exponent of reflectography for the study of art. Faries graduated from Wooster College, Wooster, OH, in 1962 with a A. B. and an A. M. from the University of Michigan the following year. She

Faré, Michel

Full Name: Faré, Michel

Other Names:

  • Michel Faré
  • Michel A. Faré
  • M.-A. Faré
  • Michel-Ange Faré

Gender: male

Date Born: 14 November 1913

Date Died: 22 July 1985

Place Born: Paris, Île-de-France, France

Place Died: Paris, Île-de-France, France

Home Country/ies: France

Subject Area(s): painting (visual works) and still lifes

Career(s): curators

Institution(s): Musée du Louvre


Overview

Chief curator of the Musée des arts décoratifs and the Musée Nissim de Camondo in Paris from 1962-1968; art historian specializing in French still life painting; professor at the École nationale supérieure des arts décoratifs, and later the École nationale supérieure des Beaux-arts. Faré was born in the 9e arrondissement, Paris, in 1931 to André Faré (1876-1944), an Avocat à la Cour d’appel de Paris, Négociant, (appellate lawyer) and Madeleine Blanche Laurence Mompez (Faré) (1882-1958).  His grandfather, Léonce Faré (1839-1905), founded the Magasins du Louvre (department store).  He obtained his baccalauréat from the lycée Sainte-Croix in Neuilly, and then studied under Henri Focillon at the Sorbonne (Faculté des Lettres de Paris, Institut d’Art et d’Archéologie), and with Robert Rey at the École du Louvre. He fought as a soldier beginning in 1939, participating in the French Campaign of World War II. He completed a thesis at the École in 1942 on French still life painting from the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, a topic which would remain for him of lifelong interest. The following year, Faré began working with curator René Huyghe at the Musée du Louvre, and at the Musée des arts décoratifs, where he was assistant curator from 1943 and chief curator from 1962 until 1968. He began teaching concurrently in 1946 at the École normale supérieure des arts décoratifs. In 1952, Faré completed a thèse de Lettres on French still life (titled Les origines de la nature morte dans la peinture d’objets du Moyen  ge et de la Renaissance) at the Université de Paris, and published his first book on the same subject ten years later, titled La Nature morte en France: son histoire et son évolution du XVII au XX siècle (1962). In 1970 he took over Hippolyte Taine’s position as the chair of art history at the École nationale supérieure des Beaux-arts. In 1975, Faré received the Prix Broquette-Gonin from the Académie des beaux-arts for his book, Le Grand siècle de la nature morte en France: le XVIIe siècle (1974). Faré was elected as a member to the same institution on March 4, 1981. He died in the 15e arrondissement, Paris, in 1985.

As curator of the Musée des arts décoratifs, Faré organized several exhibitions and wrote prefaces for the accompanying catalogs on art of diverse media, such as tapestry and ceramics, testifying to his “admirable eclecticism” as a scholar of early-modern French material culture (Bettencourt).


Selected Bibliography

  • [dissertation:] Les Origines de la nature morte dans la peinture d’objets du Moyen  ge et de la Renaissance. Thèse de Lettres, l’Université de Paris, 1952;
  • La Céramique contemporaine. Paris: Compagnie des arts photomécaniques, 1954;
  • “Attrait de la Nature morte au XVIIe siècle.” Gazette des Beaux-Arts 54 (January 1959): 129-144;
  • “Actualité de la tapisserie.” La Revue Française 107, Supplément “Tapisseries contemporaines” (February 1959);
  • La Nature morte en France: son histoire et son évolution du XVII au XX siècle. 2 vols. Genéve: P. Cailler, 1962;
  • [and Germain Bazin, Marcel Brion, Mathieu Matégot]. Les Tapisseries de Mathieu Matégot. Paris: La Demeure, 1962;
  • Bijoux de Braque réalisés par Heger de Löwenfeld. Paris: Musée des arts décoratifs, 1963;
  • Eugène Claudius-Petit, Georges Combet, Michel Faré, et al., Formes industrielles, 1963;
  • Georges Jouve céramiste. Paris: Art et Industrie (impr. R. Mourral), 1965;
  • Le Grand siècle de la nature morte en France: le XVIIe siècle. Fribourg: Office du livre, Paris: Société française du livre, 1974;
  • [and Fabrice Faré]. La Vie silencieuse en France: la nature morte au XVIIIe siècle. Fribourg: Office du Livre, 1976;

Sources

  • Who’s who in France 1959-1960: Dictionnaire biographique paraissant tous les deux ans (France – Communautés et Français de l’Étranger). Fourth edition. Paris: J. Lafitte, 1959;
  • “Mort du critique d’art Michel Faré.” Le Monde (Paris, France). July 26, 1985;
  • Leygue, Louis. Obsèques de Michel Faré, membre libre, en l’église Notre-Dame de Grâce de Passy. Paris: Institut de France, Académie des beaux-arts, July 26, 1985;
  • Leygue, Louis. Discours prononcés… pour la réception de M. Michel Faré. Institut de France, Académie des Beaux-Arts, December 2, 1981. Paris: Institut de France, 1981;
  • Hours, Magdeleine. Une vie au Louvre. Paris: R. Laffont, 1987, p. 52;
  • “Élection de M. Michel Faré.” Le Monde (Paris, France). March 6, 1981; 
  • Bettencourt, André. Notice sur la vie et les travaux de M. Michel Faré (1913-1985)… Address, Institut de France, Académie des Beaux-Arts, Paris during November 30, 1988 session; Académie française. “Michel FARE.” Accessed July 20, 2020. http://www.academie-francaise.fr/michel-fare;


  • Contributors: Yasemin Altun


    Citation

    Yasemin Altun. "Faré, Michel." Dictionary of Art Historians (website). https://arthistorians.info/farem/.


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    Chief curator of the Musée des arts décoratifs and the Musée Nissim de Camondo in Paris from 1962-1968; art historian specializing in French still life painting; professor at the École nationale supérieure des arts décoratifs, and later the École nat

    Farcy-Raynaud, Marc

    Full Name: Farcy-Raynaud, Marc

    Gender: male

    Date Born: unknown

    Date Died: unknown

    Home Country/ies: France

    Subject Area(s): French (culture or style)

    Career(s): archivists and researchers


    Overview

    Archival researcher in French art history


    Selected Bibliography

    Correspondance de M. de Marigny. 2 vols. XIX. Nouvelles Archives de l’art français. 1903-1904.; Correspondance de M. Pierre. Nouvelles Archives de l’art français, 1905-1906.; Inventaires des sculptures commandées au XVIIIe siècle par la Direction générale des Bâtiments du Roi 1720-1790. Paris, 1909.


    Sources

    Bazin, Germain. Histoire de l’histoire de l’art; de Vasari à nos jours. Paris: Albin Michel, 1986 p. 482




    Citation

    "Farcy-Raynaud, Marc." Dictionary of Art Historians (website). https://arthistorians.info/farcyraynaudm/.


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    Archival researcher in French art history

    Falke, Otto

    Full Name: Falke, Otto

    Other Names:

    • Otto von Falke

    Gender: male

    Date Born: 29 April 1862

    Date Died: 15 August 1942

    Place Born: Vienna, Vienna state, Austria

    Place Died: Schwäbisch Hall, Baden-Württemberg, Germany

    Home Country/ies: Germany


    Overview

    Historian of useful arts; museum director. Falke was the son of the art historian Jakob Falke. He studied art history and archeology at the University of Vienna beginning in 1881. He became a member of the Burschenschaft Libertas Wien (fraternity) and the Institut für Österreichische Geschichtsforschung, IÖGF (Austrian Institute for Historical Research). Like his father, he held a lifelong interest in the art of useful objects. After a year study on a stipend in Rome, he joined one of the major museums for the study of that genre, the Kunstgewerbemuseum Berlin (Museum of Decorative Arts) in 1886. He married Louise Dreger (1865-1935) around this time. He wrote his dissertation in 1887. Falke was appointed director of the Kunstgewerbemuseum Cologne in 1895 and in 1908 returned to the Kunstgewerbemuseum Berlin as director. In 1920 he succeeded the great Berlin Museums director Wilhelm Bode as general director of the museums, which he held for seven years, retiring in 1927. In retirement, von Falke founded and acted as publisher of the journal Pantheon. Though he died at the height of the Second World War, his importance among the art historians of the Allied countries was significant enough to be remarked in the English art press. He is buried at the cemetery at Stahnsdorf. Falke brought the study of the so-called “arts and crafts” (or pejoratively) “minor arts” to scholarly study and profile. His numerous articles and collection catalogs raised the level of the study of artifacts. As a skilled administrator he maintained the standards of the museum Bode had built through the difficult Weimar Republic years of Germany. The journal he founded, Pantheon, had from the first high standards for art publication which it maintains today. He never eclipsed his father’s importance for the history of art history. Falke’s Deutsche Schmelzarbeiten des Mittelalters, 1904, inspired Marcel Laurent to study metal work of the Meuse region.


    Selected Bibliography

    [bibliography:] Giese, Chalotte. Otto von Falke: Verzeichnis seiner Schriften. Munich: Bruckmann, 1932; and Clemen, Paul, and Swarzenski, Georg. Die Sammlung Dr. Leopold Seligmann. Berlin: H. Ball, 1930.


    Sources

    Meyer, Erich. “Falke, Otto von.” Neue Deutsche Biographie 5, pp. 8 ff.; Deutsche Biographische Enzyklopädie 3. 2nd ed.(2006): 226; Österreichisches biographisches Lexikon 1815-1950 1, p. 284; [obituaries:] Pantheon 29 (1942): 121; Pantheon 30 (1943): 234.


    Archives


    Contributors: Emily Crockett and Lee Sorensen


    Citation

    Emily Crockett and Lee Sorensen. "Falke, Otto." Dictionary of Art Historians (website). https://arthistorians.info/falkeo/.


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    Historian of useful arts; museum director. Falke was the son of the art historian Jakob Falke. He studied art history and archeology at the University of Vienna beginning in 1881. He became a member of the Burschenschaft Libe