Blanckenhagen, Peter von

Full Name: Blanckenhagen, Peter Heinrich von

Other Names:

• Peter von Blanckenhagen
• Peter Heinrich von Blanckenhagen
• Peter von Blankenhagen

Gender: male

Date Born: 21 March 1909

Date Died: 06 March 1990

Place Born: Riga, Latvia

Home Country/ies: Germany, Latvia, and United States

Career(s): educators

Institution(s): Institute of Fine Arts of New York University

Overview

Classical archaeologist and art historian, particularly of Roman wall painting; Robert Lehman Professor Emeritus of Fine Arts at the Institute of Fine Arts of New York University. Blanckenhagen’s Latvia at the time of his birth was a part of Russia. His landed family fled to Germany after the Russian Revolution in 1918, fearing execution from the Bolsheviks as elitists. As Latvian nobles, their  first language was German; the family settled in Schwerin, Germany, in 1919, which had just become part of the Free State of Mecklenburg-Schwerin from the collapsed German Empire.  Having lost all claims to property in Latvia, the Blanckenhagens opened a distillery in Schwerin.  Blanckenhagen attended school there, graduating in 1928 and entering the Germanic college system of the universities of Munich, Hamburg, and Berlin. He received his Ph.D. in Classical archaeology from Munich in 1936.  His dissertation, written under Ernst Buschor was on the architecture of the Forum of Nerva. From then until the outbreak of World War II he studied independently in Italy and Germany.  He published an expanded version of his dissertation in 1940 as Fllavische Architektur und ihre Dekoration untersucht am Nervaforum. During the War years he worked as an assistant to the art historian of the classical era, Friedrich Matz in Marburg.

After  the war, Blanckenhagen worked as a privatdozent between 1946 and 1950 at the University of Hamburg. He was given leave to teach as a visiting professor at the University of Chicago in 1947-1949.  There he completed and published (in Germany) Das Bild des Menschen in der Römischen Kunst. in 1948. He emigrated to the United States in 1956 and became a naturalized citizen that same year. He served as a visiting professor at Harvard University in 1957. In 1959, he joined the Institute of Fine Arts at New York University at a time when the IFA had moved to a separate location. He succeeded Karl Lehmann in the Institute’s development of studies in ancient Greek and Roman art. Together with Helga von Heintze, he edited the papers of Guido Kaschnitz von Weinberg in 1965. He was named Robert Lehman Professor of Fine Arts in 1966.  Blanckenhagen delivered the A. W. Mellon Lectures in the Fine Arts at the National Gallery of Art in 1976, a series of talks on Aspects of Classical Art.  He retired from NYU in 1977 continuing to teach half-time until 1985. He died in 1990, in New York City, from complications of a respiratory complication.

Blanckenhagen’s lectures drew large crowds at the Institute. “Seemingly without notes or preparation he would speak eloquently for an hour on each statue, and sometimes for it, making it seem as if ancient statues, whether male or female, possessed deep, rich, German-accented voices” (Nelson).

His students included Ellen Bienstock (1941-2021)

Selected Bibliography

• [dissertation, published:] Flavische Architektur und ihre Dekoration:untersucht am Nervaforum Archäologisches Institut des Deutschen Reiches. Berlin: Mann, 1940;
• Das Bild des Menschen in der Römischen Kunst. Krefeld, Germany: Scherpe-Verlag, 1948.
• The Paintings from Boscotrecase. Heidelberg: F.H. Kerle, 1962;
• edited, with von Heintze, Helga.  Kaschnitz von Weinberg, Guido. Mittelmeerische Kunst. Eine Darstellung ihrer Strukturen. Aus dem Nachlaß [Guido Kaschnitz von Weinberg]. Berlin: Gebr. Mann, 1965;
• “Daedalus and Icarus on Pompeian Walls,” Römische Mitteilungen 75 (1968): 106-145.
• The Augustan Villa at Boscotrecase. Mainz am Rhein: P. von Zabern, 1990.

Sources

• [obituary:] “Peter von Blanckenhagen: Professor, 80.”
  New York Times March 7, 1990;
• Harrison, Evelyn B. “Peter Heinrich von Blanckenhagen, 1909-1990” American Journal of Archaeology (1991): 155-156;
• Harrison, Evelyn B. “Peter Heinrich von Blanckenhagen (21 March 1909-6 March 1990).” Proceedings of the American Philosophical Society
  137, No. 2 (June 1993): 274-277;
• Studies in Classical Art and Archaeology: a Tribute to Peter Heinrich von Blanckenhagen. Locust Valley, NY: J. J. Augustin, 1979;
• States. Philadelphia : University of Pennsylvania Press, 1998, p. 227;
• [recollection] Nelson, Robert S. “The Slide Lecture, or the Work of Art ‘History’ in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction.” Critical Inquiry 26 no. 3 (Spring 2000): 419.
• Dyson, Stephen L. Ancient Marbles to American Shores: Classical Archaeology in the United 
• [recollection] Nelson, Robert S. “The Slide Lecture, or the Work of Art ‘History’ in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction.” Critical Inquiry 26 no. 3 (Spring 2000): 419.
• Encounters and Reflections: Conversations with Seth Benardete. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2010. pp. 11, 17, 33, 43, 47, 85, 107.
• “Peter Heinrich von Blanckenhagen”. American Academy of Arts & Sciences (website) https://www.amacad.org/person/peter-heinrich-von-blanckenhagen
• “Peter von Blanckenhagen.” Grokipedia. https://grokipedia.com/page/peter_von_blanckenhagen

Contributors: Lee Sorensen