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Kootz, Samuel M.

Full Name: Kootz, Samuel M.

Other Names:

  • Samuel Melvin Kootz

Gender: male

Date Born: 1898

Date Died: 1982

Place Born: Portsmouth, Portsmouth, VA, USA

Place Died: New York, NY, USA

Home Country/ies: United States

Subject Area(s): Abstract Expressionist and American (North American)

Career(s): art dealers


Overview

First author of an American art survey to write sympathetically about Abstract Expressionism; art dealer. Kootz earned a Bachelor of Laws degree from the University of Virginia in 1921. He practiced briefly before moving to New York city to work as an account executive in advertising handling motion pictures clients. During that time he published Modern American Painters in 1930, an early text on contemporary American artists. Kootz switch careers in 1934 again, now a silk converter, where he commissioned Stuart Davis and Arthur Dove to design scarves. He selected paintings of Abstract Expressionism for a 1942 show at Macy’s department store. In 1943 his New Frontiers in American Painting became the first to positively treat the emerging Abstract Expressionist artists in a book on American art (Ashton). He resigned from his agency in 1944 to become a dealer of modern American art, opening his gallery the following year. As a gallery dealer, he subsidized the emerging artists in 1947, Robert Motherwell and William Baziotes among others, sending the two artists to Florida to paint uninterrupted. The Kootz Gallery held the first post-World War II exhibition of Picasso’s work in the United States in 1947. His personal rapport with the artist led him–at Picasso’s suggestion–to close his gallery and sell Picasso’s work exclusively by appointment. However, Kootz missed greater public interaction. Kootz reopened his gallery, now on Madison Avenue, holding an exhibition of Abstract Expressionist painters–the first gallery to show–called, “the Intrasubjectives,” the term he coined for the movement, in 1949. In 1950, Kootz commissioned two important figures in the New York art world, the critic Clement Greenberg and the Columbia art historian Meyer Schapiro to launch what was to become a series of modernist exhibitions, titles “Talent.” These shows gave first-time exposure to Franz Kline, Helen Frankenthaler and Morris Louis. He closed the gallery in 1966, insisting that it had lost its usefulness as a venue for new art–the field now so full of “merchants.” He also wrote two detective novels and one play. Kootz was a leader in bringing elevating American modernist taste and promoting the important artists of the New York School. His Modern American Painters chided American chauvinism, pointing out that important American painters and found the roots in stiles outside the continent (Ashton).


Selected Bibliography

Modern American Painters. New York: Brewer & Warren, 1930; New Frontiers in American Painting. New York: Hastings House, 1943; “Peinture moderne et expression sociale.” in, Gagnon, Maurice, ed. Fernand Léger; la forme humaine dans l’espace. Montreal: Les éditions de l’Arbre, 1945.


Sources

Ashton, Dore. The New York School. New York: Penguin, 1979, pp. 35, 145; [obituaries:] Glueck, Grace. “Samuel M. Kootz Dead at 83, An Activist for American Art.” New York Times August 9, 1982, p. D8; Art in America 71 (August 1983): 27.




Citation

"Kootz, Samuel M.." Dictionary of Art Historians (website). https://arthistorians.info/kootzs/.


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First author of an American art survey to write sympathetically about Abstract Expressionism; art dealer. Kootz earned a Bachelor of Laws degree from the University of Virginia in 1921. He practiced briefly before moving to New York city to work a

Körte, Gustav

Full Name: Körte, Gustav

Gender: male

Date Born: 1852

Date Died: 1917

Place Born: Berlin, Germany

Place Died: Göttingen, Lower Saxony, Germany

Home Country/ies: Germany

Subject Area(s): Antique, the, Classical, and Etruscan (culture or style)


Overview

Specialist in Etruscan art and culture. Professor of Archaeology at Rostock University 1881-1905, Göttingen University, 1907-1917. notes about Körte’s opinions on Giotto appear in Richard Offner‘s annotated catalog of the 1937 Mostra Giottesca.



Sources

Archäologenbildnisse: Porträts und Kurzbiographien von Klassichen Archäologen deutscher Sprache. Reinhard Lullies, ed. Mainz am Rhein: Verlag Philipp von Zabern, 1988: 102; Ladis, Andrew. “The Unmaking of a Connoisseur.” in, Offner, Richard. A Discerning Eye: Essays on Early Italian Painting. University Park, PA: Pennsylvania State University Press, 1998, p,19, note 1.




Citation

"Körte, Gustav." Dictionary of Art Historians (website). https://arthistorians.info/korteg/.


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Specialist in Etruscan art and culture. Professor of Archaeology at Rostock University 1881-1905, Göttingen University, 1907-1917. notes about Körte’s opinions on Giotto appear in Richard Offner’s annotated catalog of the 19

Koschatzky, Walter

Full Name: Koschatzky, Walter

Gender: male

Date Born: 1921

Date Died: 2003

Place Born: Graz, Steiermark, Austria

Place Died: Vienna, Vienna state, Austria

Home Country/ies: Austria


Overview

Director of the Albertina, 1962-1986. Koschatzky attended the state gymnasium in Lichtenfelsgasse, Graz, graduating in 1933 and the military academy in Liebenau (1936-40). Between 1940-45 he served in the Austrian army. After the war he returned to Graz and enrolled in Karl-Franzens University, studying art history, archaeology, and history which he financed in part by performances as a jazz musician. In 1948 he married Trude (Caroline) Bauer (d. 1994) in Graz. He received his Ph.D. in 1952, joining the Steirien Landesdienst in 1953 and serving there until 1955 when he moved to state museum, Landesmuseum Joanneum, now the Neue Galerie. He was appointed director of that museum in 1956. In 1961 moved to the Albertina in Vienna as the announced successor to Otto Benesch. He assumed responsibilities as the director of the Albertina in 1962. Koschatzky set about an ambitious exhibition program for the Albertina to raise its reputation worldwide as the premier prints and drawings museum. He was a lecturer at the University of Vienna 1973-87 and visiting professor at Salzburg 1986/87. He received numerous honors and honorary degrees. After his first wife’s death he married (Dr) Gabriela Elias.


Selected Bibliography

[Koschatzky issued many exhibition catalogs in the auspices of the Albertina. Only a few are mentioned here.] Faszination Kunst: Erinnerungen eines Kunsthistorikers. Vienna: Böhlau, 2001; Eine Künstlerin im Wandel der Gegenwart: zu den neuen Werken von Heide Osterider-Stibor. Graz: Schnider Verlag, 2001; and Aberbach, Joachim Jean. The Albertina Exhibition of Hundertwassser’s Complete Graphic Work, 1951-1976. Glarus: Gruener Janura AG., 1973; and Strobl, Alice. Die Albertina in Wien. Salzburg: Residenz Verlag, 1970; and Strobel, Alice. Dürer Drawings in the Albertina. Greenwich, CN: New York Graphic Society 1972.


Sources

Koschatzky, Walter. Faszination Kunst: Erinnerungen eines Kunsthistorikers. Vienna: Böhlau, 2001, pp. 320-23 [CD recording of reminiscences]; [obituary:] The Gazette (Montreal, Quebec) May 10, 2003 p. C10.




Citation

"Koschatzky, Walter." Dictionary of Art Historians (website). https://arthistorians.info/koschatzkyw/.


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Director of the Albertina, 1962-1986. Koschatzky attended the state gymnasium in Lichtenfelsgasse, Graz, graduating in 1933 and the military academy in Liebenau (1936-40). Between 1940-45 he served in the Austrian army. After the war he returned t

Kostof, Spiro Konstantin

Full Name: Kostof, Spiro Konstantin

Other Names:

  • Spiro Kostof

Gender: male

Date Born: 1936

Date Died: 1991

Place Born: Istanbul, Turkey

Place Died: Berkeley, Alameda, CA, USA

Home Country/ies: Greece

Subject Area(s): architecture (object genre) and sculpture (visual works)


Overview

Architectural historian. Kostof attended Robert College, an English-language university-preparatory school in Istanbul. He moved to the United States in 1957 to study drama at Yale University. He switched to art history after hearing the lectures of Vincent Scully, Jr., studying under him as well. Following his Ph.D. in 1961, whose dissertation written under Scully was on the Orthodox Baptistry of Ravenna, he taught at Yale. Four years later he published his dissertation and, after what has been described as a “generational transition/bloodbath” in the department (Sears), he moved to the University of California, Berkeley, to teach architectural history at the newly-founded College of Environmental Design. Kostof was a visiting professor at MIT in 1970. From 1974 to 1976 he was president of the Society of Architectural Historians, teaching as a visiting professor at Columbia University in 1976. In 1985 he wrote what would become a classic textbook, A History of Architecture: Settings and Rituals. In it, Kostof wrote, “all buildings of the past, regardless of size or status or consequence, should ideally be deemed worthy of study.” Kostof was a visiting professorship at Rice University for the 1986-87 year. While engaged in writing a two-volume work on the origins and design of cities world-wide, he was diagnosed with lymphoma. Six months later he died at age 55. His two works, The City Shaped: Urban Patterns and Meanings throughout History and The City Assessed appeared posthumously. The Society of Architectural Historians established the Spiro Kostof Award in 1993 to recognize interdisciplinary books whose content focuses on urban development, the history of urban form or the architecture of the built environment. Kostof believed that architectural histories concentrated far too exclusively on the works of famous designers, resulting in histories that presented the discipline as a linear series of monuments. Architectural history was not a series of styles each an influence or reaction of the past, according to Kostof. He outlined this notion in a five-part television series for PBS, America by Design, in 1987. He pointed out that architecture comes embedded in a framework of vernacular, often transient “background.” True to his dramatic background, Kostof was a dynamic classroom lecturer. As an architectural critic, he frequently criticized modernist megalomaniac architecture–Helmut Jahn’s One Liberty Place in Philadelphia was once singled out–for its carelessness of the built environment surrounding it.


Selected Bibliography

[dissertation:] The Orthodox Baptistry of Ravenna: A Study in Early Christian Art and Architecture. Yale, 1961, published under the same title, New Haven: Yale University Press, 1965; Caves of God: the Monastic Environment of Byzantine Cappadocia. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 1972; A History of Architecture: Settings and Rituals. New York: Oxford University Press, 1985; America by Design. PBS Television, 1987; The City Shaped. Boston: Little, Brown and Co., 1991; The City Assembled: the Elements of Urban Form through History. Boston: Little, Brown, 1992.


Sources

Sears, Elizabeth. “The Art-Historical Work of Walter Cahn.” in Hourihane, Colum, ed. Romanesque Art and Thought in the Twelfth Century: Essays in Honor of Walter Cahn. University Park, Pa: Penn State Press, 2008, p. 21, note 42; [obituaries:] Glancey, Jonathan. “Professor Spiro Kostof.” Independent (London), December 13, 1991, p. 27; Washington Post December 13, 1991, p. B5; “Spiro Kostof, Professor, is Dead; Architectural Historian Was 55.” New York Times December 10, 1991, p. B20; MacDonald, William Lloyd. “Spiro Konstantinos Kostof, 1936-1991.” Society of Architectural Historians. Newsletter 36 no. 2 ( June 1992): 2-3; “Spiro Kostof, 1936-1991.” Progressive Architecture 73 no. 2 (February 1992): 24.




Citation

"Kostof, Spiro Konstantin." Dictionary of Art Historians (website). https://arthistorians.info/kostofs/.


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Architectural historian. Kostof attended Robert College, an English-language university-preparatory school in Istanbul. He moved to the United States in 1957 to study drama at Yale University. He switched to art history after hearing the lectures

Kozloff, Max

Full Name: Kozloff, Max

Other Names:

  • Max Kozloff

Gender: male

Date Born: 1933

Place Born: Chicago, Cook, IL, USA

Home Country/ies: United States

Subject Area(s): Modern (style or period) and photographs

Career(s): art critics


Overview

Historian and critic of modern art; photographer. Kozloff graduated from the University of Chicago in 1953. Between 1954-1956 he served in the U.S. Army and then returning to the University of Chicago for his A. M. in 1958. He entered New York University’s Institute of Fine Arts in 1959 for his Ph.D. He taught at NYU, joining the Nation as art critic in 1961 (remaining until 1968) and Art International. Kozloff was awarded a Fulbright fellowship for the, 1962-1963 year winning a Pulitzer Prize for critical writing for the same time period. He left NYU without a degree in 1964 and began contributing to Artforum as an associate editor. In 1965 he earned the Frank Jewett Mather, Jr., Award for art criticism from College Art Association of America. He married the artist Joyce Blumberg in 1967 and became a contributing editor to Artforum the same year. Kozloff was awarded a Guggenheim fellowship for 1968-1969. He wrote the volume on Jasper Johns for the Abrams artist series in 1968. In 1972 he was named an associate editor of books at Artforum. He published his book Cubism/ Futurism in 1973. Kozloff was executive editor of the magazine between 1975 and 1977. A second Jasper Johns book appeared in 1986. In 1989 he joined the faculty of the School of Visual Arts. Kozloff switched careers, becoming an art photographer in 1976. He held numerous shows, initially photographing store windows, and then to the people of New York, intentionally following the path of Jewish itinerant photographers of the city. His subsequent notions of photography were criticized, especially the notion that Jewish photographers has a special way of making images.


Selected Bibliography

Photography & fascination: Essays. Danbury, NH: Addison House, 1979; The Privileged Eye: Essays on Photography. Albuquerque: University of New Mexico Press, 1987; Duane Michals: Now Becoming Then. Altadena, CA: Twin Palms Publishers, 1991; Lone Visions, Crowded Frames: Essays on Photography. Albuquerque: University of New Mexico Press, 1994; Cultivated Impasses: Essays on the Waning of the Avant-Garde, 1964-1975. New York: Marsilio, 2000; New York: Capital of Photography. New York: Jewish Museum/New Haven: Yale University Press, 2002; Cubism/Futurism. New York: Charterhouse 1973.


Sources

“Max Kosloff.” Challenging Art: Artforum 1962-1974. Newman, Amy, ed. New York: Soho Press, 2000, pp. 474-475; Halasz, P. “Art Criticism (and Art History) in New York: the 1940s vs the 1990: Part Three: Clement Greenberg.” Arts Magazine 57 (April 1983): 84-85.



Contributors: Lee Sorensen


Citation

Lee Sorensen. "Kozloff, Max." Dictionary of Art Historians (website). https://arthistorians.info/kozloffm/.


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Historian and critic of modern art; photographer. Kozloff graduated from the University of Chicago in 1953. Between 1954-1956 he served in the U.S. Army and then returning to the University of Chicago for his A. M. in 1958. He entered New York Uni

Krahmer, Gerhard

Full Name: Krahmer, Gerhard

Other Names:

  • Gerhard Krahmer

Gender: male

Date Born: 1890

Date Died: 1931

Place Died: Berlin, Germany

Home Country/ies: Germany

Subject Area(s): Ancient Greek (culture or style), Antique, the, and Classical


Overview

Specialist in ancient Greek art, particularly sculpture. He was the first to document the difference between archaic-paratactic and classical-hypotactic statuary. Lecturer at the University of Göttingen, 1925-1927. He was forced to break off his lectures in 1927 due to a sickness of the lungs, and went to Egypt and then Greece to recuperate. Krahmer employed the methodology, Strukturforschung, a German theoretical notion attempting to replace the concept of style with a spatial structural analysis, which was linked to cultural identity.


Selected Bibliography

Figur und Raum in der ägyptischen und griechisch-archaischen Kunst, in: 28. HallWPr (1931);”Stilphasen.” RM 38/39, 1923/24, 138-184;”Eine Jünglingsfigur mittelhellenistischer Zeit.” RM 46, 1931, 130-149; “Die Artemis vom Lateran und Verwandtes.” AM 55, 1930, 237-272.


Sources

Archäologenbildnisse: Porträts und Kurzbiographien von Klassichen Archäologen deutscher Sprache. Reinhard Lullies, ed. Mainz am Rhein: Verlag Philipp von Zabern, 1988, pp. 254-255.




Citation

"Krahmer, Gerhard." Dictionary of Art Historians (website). https://arthistorians.info/krahmerg/.


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Specialist in ancient Greek art, particularly sculpture. He was the first to document the difference between archaic-paratactic and classical-hypotactic statuary. Lecturer at the University of Göttingen, 1925-1927. He was forced to break off his l

Kramm, Christiaan

Full Name: Kramm, Christiaan

Other Names:

  • Christiaan Kramm

Gender: male

Date Born: 1797

Date Died: 1875

Place Born: Utrecht, Netherlands

Place Died: Utrecht, Netherlands

Home Country/ies: Netherlands

Subject Area(s): Dutch (culture or style) and Flemish (culture or style)

Career(s): art historians


Overview

Writer of a dictionary of Dutch and Flemish artists, architects and painters. Kramm was the son of a cloth-merchant. At age 13, he was apprenticed to the silversmith, N. van Voorst, in Utrecht. In 1815 he joined the studio of the painter Pieter Christoffel Wonder (1780-1852). Kramm soon became a private teacher in drawing. In 1920 he found employment in the new theater of Utrecht as decorator. Here he developed his skill in architectural design. In 1826 he was appointed director of the architecture department of the municipal schools of Design and Architecture in Utrecht. In 1934, he introduced classes in designing gothic architecture in order to prepare the students for future work in neo-gothic architecture. After the rebuilding of the so-called Paushuis in Utrecht, by that time the provincial Governor’s house, and the building of the Palace of Justice in the same city, Kramm was appointed, in 1839, architect of the province of Utrecht. He designed public buildings and private houses, as well as a number of neo-gothic churches. He also directed restoration projects, and the rebuilding, between 1835 and 1862, of the Beverweerd castle. As a painter, Kramm specialized in portraits. He is mostly known for his 1857-1864 dictionary of Dutch and Flemish painters, sculptors, engravers and architects, from the fifteenth up to the mid-nineteenth century, De levens en werken der Hollandsche en Vlaamsche kunstschilders, beeldhouwers, graveurs en bouwmeesters van den vroegsten tot op onze tijd. This huge work of six volumes and a supplement is a sequel to the 1842-1843 dictionary of Johan Immerzeel Junior, De levens en werken der Hollandsche en Vlaamsche kunstschilders, beeldhouwers, graveurs en bouwmeesters, van het begin der vijftiende eeuw tot heden. Kramm intended to complete and to correct Immerzeel’s work with additional facts and information. Unlike Immerzeel, Kramm mentioned his sources in each biography, often with quotations. He considered both dictionaries as complementary to each other. He stated that he aimed to offer critical and complete information. He had great admiration for the scholarly approach of Johann Dominico Fiorillo, who had published, between 1798 and 1820, a nine-volume work on art history. Kramm’s own work offers an impressive amount of facts, anecdotes, details, and personal observations about artists and their works. His romantic vision on major artists of the past is immediately apparent. In his entry on Rembrandt, whom he glorifies as a national hero, he enthusiastically inserts a contemporary event, the 1852 unveiling of the painter’s statue in Amsterdam. In reaction to Arnold Houbraken, who in his eyes had slandered artists such as Jan Steen, Adriaan Brouwer, and Frans Hals, Kramm wants to see these artists in a much more positive light. Even though Kramm’s remarkable work is not always well-organized and often lacks focus, its documentary value is very high.


Selected Bibliography

[for a complete list, see] Wap in De levens …, Amsterdam: Israël, p. 10; De levens en werken der Hollandsche en Vlaamsche kunstschilders, beeldhouwers, graveurs en bouwmeesters van den vroegsten tot op onze tijd. 7 vols. Amsterdam: gebroeders Diederichs, 1857-1864.


Sources

C.H. Immerzeel and C. Immerzeel, eds., De levens en werken der Hollandsche en Vlaamsche kunstschilders, beeldhouwers, graveurs en bouwmeesters, van het begin der vijftiende eeuw tot heden door J.Immerzeel Jr. Amsterdam: Israël, 1974, 2, pp. 133-136; Wap, [J.J.F]. “Levensberigt van den schrijver” in Kramm, Christiaan. De levens en werken der Hollandsche en Vlaamsche kunstschilders, beeldhouwers, graveurs en bouwmeesters van den vroegsten tot op onze tijd. Amsterdam: Israël, 1974, pp. 1-10; Van der Vies. Nieuw Nederlandsch Biografisch Woordenboek 6 (1924), pp. 893-894; Henkel, M.D. Allgemeines Lexikon der bildenden Künstler 21 (1927), pp. 418-419; Boersma, T. ” ‘Tijdvakken van een ver verleden welke wij alzoo hopen te zien herleven.’ Christiaan Kramm en zijn betekenis voor het bouwkunstonderwijs en het ‘Gothische Architectuurteekenen’ aan de Utrechtse ‘Stadsschoolen voor Teeken- en Bouwkunde’ 1822-1866.” De Sluitsteen 5 (1989): 83-109; Bosman, Lex. “De geschiedenis van de Nederlandse architectuurgeschiedenis: middeleeuwse bouwkunst” in Hecht, Peter, and Hoogenboom, Annemieke, and Stolwijk, Chris, eds., Kunstgeschiedenis in Nederland. Negen opstellen. Amsterdam: Prometheus, 1998, p. 67.



Contributors: Monique Daniels


Citation

Monique Daniels. "Kramm, Christiaan." Dictionary of Art Historians (website). https://arthistorians.info/krammc/.


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Writer of a dictionary of Dutch and Flemish artists, architects and painters. Kramm was the son of a cloth-merchant. At age 13, he was apprenticed to the silversmith, N. van Voorst, in Utrecht. In 1815 he joined the studio of the painter Pieter Ch

Kramrisch, Stella

Full Name: Kramrisch, Stella

Gender: female

Date Born: 1896

Date Died: 1993

Place Born: Nikolsburg, Czechoslovakia

Place Died: Philadelphia, Philadelphia, PA, USA

Home Country/ies: Austria

Subject Area(s): Asian, Indian (South Asian), and South Asian


Overview

Art historian of South Asian art. Studied under Josef Rudolf Thomas Strzygowski at University of Vienna. Dissertation on early Buddhist sculpture (1919). 1921-50 taught at University of Calcutta. During those years she edited Journal of the Indian Society of Oriental Art and published numerous works including magnum opus, The Hindu Temple (1946). She traveled to the U.S. as early as 1922, but after the assassination of her husband in Pakistan (1950), she moved there permanently to the United States where she taught at the Institute of Fine Art, New York University, the University of Pennsylvania and the Philadelphia Museum of Art. Methodologically, Kramrisch remained close to her mentor, Strzygowski, studying the object using a metaphysical approach and employing distinctly non-western concepts in her history writing. While a student, she was influenced by Kandinsky’s art theory and the theosophy of Rudolf Steiner (whom she knew personally). In India, she converted to Hinduism and amassed a significant collection of South Asian art objects which she ultimately sold or willed to the Philadelphia Museum of Art. The major exhibition she mounted at the museum in 1968, “Unknown India” perhaps best demonstrates her belief that the understanding of both aristocratic and common art objects were necessary to appreciate a culture’s artistic accomplishment.


Selected Bibliography

[complete bibliography:] Dye, Joseph M., III, comp. “A Bibliography of the Writings of Stella Kramrisch.” in Exploring India’s Sacred Art: Selected Writings of Stella Kramrisch. Philadelphia: University of Philadelphia Press, 1983, pp. 35-48; [dissertation:] Untersuchungen zum Wesen der frühbuddhistischen Bildnerei Indiens. Ph. D., University of Vienna, 1919; The Hindu Temple. 2 vols. Calcutta: University of Calcutta, 1946. (Repr. Delhi: Motilal Banarsidass, 1976). Presence of Siva. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1981; Unknown India: Ritual Art in Tribe and Village. Philadelphia: Philadelphia Museum of Art, 1968;


Sources

New York Times, January 24, 1999, Section 2: 35. Dictionary of Art 18: 437-8; Miller, Barbara Stoler, “Stella Kramrisch: A Biographical Essay,” pp 3-34, in Exploring India’s Sacred Art: Selected Writings of Stella Kramrisch, Barbara Stoler Miller, ed. Philadelphia: University of Philadelphia Press, 1983; Threads of Cotton, Threads of Brass: Arts of Eastern India and Bangladesh from the Stella Kramrisch Collection. Philadelphia Museum of Art exhibition catalog, 1999.




Citation

"Kramrisch, Stella." Dictionary of Art Historians (website). https://arthistorians.info/kramrischs/.


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Art historian of South Asian art. Studied under Josef Rudolf Thomas Strzygowski at University of Vienna. Dissertation on early Buddhist sculpture (1919). 1921-50 taught at University of Calcutta. During those years she e

Knuttel, Gerhardus Wzn

Full Name: Knuttel, Gerhardus Wzn

Gender: male

Date Born: 1889

Date Died: 1968

Place Born: The Hague, South Holland, Netherlands

Home Country/ies: Netherlands

Career(s): art critics and curators


Overview

Museum curator; art critic. Knuttel was the son of Willem Knuttel (1854-1921), who was a librarian at the Royal Library in The Hague. His mother, Elize Fabius, was a writer. Knuttel attended the Gymnasium in The Hague and from 1909 to 1913 he took painting classes at the Hague Academy. In 1914 he was appointed an assistant at the Rotterdam Museum Boymans, a position he held for one year. He then decided to study art history. In Germany he enrolled at the universities of Berlin and Heidelberg. From Heidelberg University, where he studied under Carl Neumann, he earned, in 1917, his doctoral degree with a dissertation on a painting by Adriaan van de Venne, “Fishing for Souls”, Das Gemälde des Seelenfischfangs von Adriaen Pietersz. van der Venne. The painting (1614) is an allegory of the fight between the Protestants in the Northern Netherlands and the Catholics in the Southern Netherlands. After his return to the Netherlands, Knuttel began, in 1919, his yearlong career at the Hague Gemeentemuseum, under H. E. Van Gelder. In addition, between 1926 and 1938, he taught modern art at Utrecht University as a privaat-docent. In the museum, where he climbed in rank from assistant to curator of modern art, he stimulated the acquisition of works of contemporary Dutch and foreign painters. This collection became one of the highlights of the new museum designed by Hendrik Petrus Berlage (1856-1934), and completed in 1935. In 1938 Knuttel published his synthesis on Netherlandish painting, De Nederlandsche schilderkunst van Van Eyck tot Van Gogh. Between 1939 and 1941 he published, in the Palet-series, three monographs: Hubert en Jan van Eyck, Hercules Seghers, and Willem van Konijnenburg. In the Gemeentemuseum Knuttel eventually succeeded H. E. van Gelder as director in 1941. Unwilling to collaborate with the Nazis during the German Occupation, Knuttel was held hostage for two years in Michielgestel, a municipality in the southern part of the Netherlands. During those empty days the hostages organized courses on various topics. Knuttel contributed to the program with art history classes. After the war he resumed his position at the museum. In 1947 he published a book on leading painters in art history, Fakkeldragers van de Nederlandse Schilderkunst. Van Eyck, Bruegel, Rubens, Rembrandt, Vermeer, Van Gogh. In 1948, the year of his retirement, followed his study, Tot het hart der mensheid, het Nederlandse in de beeldende kunst. In 1949 his monograph on a contemporary painter appeared, Charles Eyck. As an art critic he regularly published in the journals Nieuwe Rotterdamsche Courant and Het Vaderland, and in the magazine Kroniek voor Kunst en Kultuur. In 1950 he was one of the co-founders of the Association Internationale des Critiques d’Art, and for years he was the president of the Dutch section. In 1951 he published a study on the evolution of the artistic design of letters throughout different style periods, De letter als kunstwerk; beschouwingen en confrontaties met andere gelijktijdige kunstuitingen van de Romeinse tijd tot op heden. His publication on Rembrandt’s etchings was translated into English, German, French, and Swedish. His Rembrandt monograph was published in 1956, a Rembrandt commemoration year. His last work (1962) is a critical study on the oeuvre of the Flemish painter Adriaen Brouwer. Knuttel saw his synthesis, De Nederlandsche schilderkunst van Van Eyck tot Van Gogh, as belonging to Geistesgeschichte and he pointed to the art history approach of Max Dvořák. In this perspective the personality of the artist is a component in the intellectual evolution of a specific period. Knuttel’s observations also reveal his personal engagement with the artworks and their creators. In his earlier publications he paid more attention to the iconological content of art works, as appears from his dissertation and from his 1926 essay on the Dutch still life (Eddy de Jongh, 1999). In his 1962 monograph on Adriaen Brouwer, which Knuttel intended as a necessary improvement on the earlier monographs by F. Schmidt-Degener, published in 1908, and Wilhelm Bode, published in 1924, Knuttel offers a new picture of the master’s life and personality, and of his artistic development,. As an art critic, privaat-docent, curator, and writer, Knuttel saw himself as a mediator between art and his audience as well as the contemporary public. (Jaffé, 1974).


Selected Bibliography

[dissertation:] Das Gemälde des Seelenfischfangs von Adriaen Pietersz. van de Venne. Heidelberg, 1917, published, The Hague: M. Nijhoff, 1917; Het classicisme en de kunst van heden: openbare les op 21 October 1926. Utrecht: Oosthoek, 1926;”Het Nederlandsch stilleven” Mededeelingen van den Dienst voor Kunsten en Wetenschappen der Gemeente ‘s-Gravenhage (1926, 2): 1-31; De Nederlandsche schilderkunst van Van Eyck tot Van Gogh. Amsterdam: H. J. W. Becht, 1938; Fakkeldragers van de Nederlandse Schilderkunst. Van Eyck, Bruegel, Rubens, Rembrandt, Vermeer, Van Gogh. Antwerp: De Sikkel, 1947; Tot het hart der mensheid, het Nederlandse in de beeldende kunst. Amsterdam: Ploegsma, 1948; Charles Eyck. Amsterdam: Van Munster, 1949; De letter als kunstwerk; beschouwingen en confrontaties met andere gelijktijdige kunstuitingen van de Romeinse tijd tot op heden. Amsterdam: Lettergieterij “Amsterdam” voorheen N. Tetterode, 1951; Rembrandt: etsen. The Hague: L. J C. Boucher, 1954; Rembrandt, de meester en zijn werk. Amsterdam: Ploegsma, 1956; Adriaen Brouwer, the Master and his Work. The Hague: L. J. C. Boucher, 1962.


Sources

Jaffé, H. L. “Gerhardus Knuttel WZN” in Jaarboek van de Maatschappij der Nederlandse Letterkunde te Leiden 1972-1973. Leiden, 1974, pp. 153-159; Jansen, H. ” ‘Zingen, lief, is zich versteken, in een vindbaarheid zoo schoon'” Jaarboek Haags Gemeentemuseum 1995-1996. The Hague, 1997, pp. 64-85; Blotkamp, Carel “Kunstgeschiedenis en moderne kunst: een lange aanloop.” in Hecht, Peter; Stolwijk, Chris; Hoogenboom, Annemieke, eds., Kunstgeschiedenis in Nederland. Negen opstellen. Amsterdam: Prometheus, 1998, pp. 97-98; De Jongh, E. “The Iconological Approach to Seventeenth-Century Dutch Painting” in Grijzenhout, Frans and Van Veen, Henk, eds., The Golden Age of Dutch Painting in Historical Perspective. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1999, pp. 208-210.



Contributors: Monique Daniels


Citation

Monique Daniels. "Knuttel, Gerhardus Wzn." Dictionary of Art Historians (website). https://arthistorians.info/knuttelg/.


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Museum curator; art critic. Knuttel was the son of Willem Knuttel (1854-1921), who was a librarian at the Royal Library in The Hague. His mother, Elize Fabius, was a writer. Knuttel attended the Gymnasium in The Hague and from 1909 to 191

Koch, Bob

Full Name: Koch, Bob

Other Names:

  • Bob Koch

Gender: male

Date Born: 1919

Date Died: 10 November 2011

Place Born: Durham, NC, USA

Place Died: Raleigh, Wake, NC, USA

Home Country/ies: United States

Subject Area(s): Netherlandish, Northern Renaissance, prints (visual works), and Renaissance

Career(s): curators


Overview

Northern Renaissance and prints scholar; Princeton University Art Museum curator and professor 1955-1990. Koch was the son of Frederick Henry Koch (1877-1944), a Harvard-educated folklorist and professor of dramatic literature at the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill, and Loretta Jean Hanigan (Koch) [spellings as “Hannigan” are incorrect]. After graduating from the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill with a B. A.in 1940, Koch continued there for his MA in art history, graduating in 1942. He was then drafted into the Army during World War II, rising to first lieutenant. Koch was stationed in Germany after the war until 1946 working in the Division of Monuments, Fine Arts, and Archives. It was there that he gained his first exposure to the arts of Europe (Hand). After discharge, he received a second master’s degree in art history (MFA) from Princeton in 1948. Koch was appointed assistant director of the Princeton Art Museum in 1949. His Ph.D, was awarded from Princeton in 1954 with a dissertation topic on medieval sculpture written under Erwin Panofsky. Koch held a visiting professorship at Princeton Theological Seminary 1954-1956. He joined Princeton University as an assistant professor in the Art Museum in 1955, studying in Belgium as a Fullbright fellow 1956-1957. He rose to associate professor in 1958. He was chair of the board of the College Art Association, 1961-1963. In 1962 he was promoted at the Museum to faculty curator of prints. Koch served on the board of the Mediaeval Academy of America, 1964-1966. In 1966, Koch was named Professor in the Department of Art and Archaeology, Princeton University, and faculty curator of prints at the Princeton University Art Museum. In his lifetime, Koch published comparatively little. In 1968 he issued a book on Joachim Patinir. He retired from Princeton University as professor emeritus in 1990 and in later years moved to Raleigh, NC where he died in 2011. His students included James A. Snyder, John O. Hand, Gregory T. Clark, Charles Minott, and J. David Farmer. Letters to his father (during his military posting post-war) are included with his father’s papers at the University of North Carolina. He is occasionally confused with the other art historian named Robert Koch, a professor at Southern Connecticut State University who was one year older. Koch’s area of specialty was Northern Renaissance painting and prints. He edited the illustrated re-issue of the Bartsch catalog of Adam von Bartsch in the 1970s.


Selected Bibliography

“Selected Bibliography.” A Tribute to Robert A. Koch: Studies in the Northern Renaissance. Princeton, NJ : Dept. of Art and Archaeology, Princeton University, 1994, pp. xiii-xiv; [dissertation:] The Central Portal Sculpture of the Church of Saint-Maurice at Vienne. Princeton, 1954; Joachim Patinir. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1968; Hans Baldung Grien: Eve, the Serpent and Death/Hans Baldung Grien: Ève, le serpent et la Mort. Ottawa: National Gallery of Canada/Corporation of the National Museums of Canada, 1974.


Sources

Hand, John Oliver. “Introduction.” A Tribute to Robert A. Koch: Studies in the Northern Renaissance. Princeton, NJ : Dept. of Art and Archaeology, Princeton University, 1994, pp. ix-xi; Frederick Henry Koch Papers Inventory. Manuscripts Department, Library of the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. Southern Historical Collection #4124, http://www.lib.unc.edu/mss/inv/k/Koch,Frederick_H; personal correspondence, Dorothy Limouze, March 2010, Thomas A Koch, November 2011, and Barbara Ross, January, 2012.



Contributors: Lee Sorensen


Citation

Lee Sorensen. "Koch, Bob." Dictionary of Art Historians (website). https://arthistorians.info/kochra/.


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Northern Renaissance and prints scholar; Princeton University Art Museum curator and professor 1955-1990. Koch was the son of Frederick Henry Koch (1877-1944), a Harvard-educated folklorist and professor of dramatic literature at the University of