Full Name: Pfuhl, Ernst
Gender: male
Date Born: 1876
Date Died: 1940
Place Born: Charlottenburg, Berlin, Germany
Place Died: Basel, Basle-Town, Switzerland
Home Country/ies: Germany
Subject Area(s): ancient, Ancient Greek (culture or style), painting (visual works), and sculpture (visual works)
Overview
Art historian of ancient Greek painting and sculpture. Pfhul’s father was the sculptor Johannes Pfuhl (1846-1914). Pfuhl attended the university in Berlin where he studied under the classicists Reinhard Kekulé von Stradonitz and Ulrich von Wilamowitz-Moellendorff (1848-1931). He traveled to Rome with fellow student Richard Delbrueck. In Greece he excavated the necropolis at Thera, under the direction of Friedrich, Freiherr Hiller von Gaertringen (1864-1947). There he married Sophie Rhousopoulos the daughter of Greek archaeologist Athanasios Rhousopoulos (1823-1898). Pfuhl accepted a professorship at the university in Basel in 1909. In Basel he set about with no less daunting a task than to revise the history of Greek vase painting. In 1923 he issued his magnum opus, Malerei und Zeichnung der Griechen, a systematic account heavily illustrated. A shortened version appeared the following year, which J. D. Beazley translated and published in English as Masterpieces of Greek Drawing and Painting in 1926. Pfuhl also contributed many entries to the second edition of the Real-Encyclopädie der classischen Alterthumswissenschaft (“Pauly”) by edited by Georg Wissowa (1859-1931). Pfuhl remained at Basel until his death in 1940, succeeded that year by Karl Schefold and his lectureship by Arnold von Salis. His personal art collection was auctioned in Lucern in 1941. In 1946 Hans Möbius took over compiling the corpus of Greek grave reliefs from the eastern provinces which Pfuhl had been working on at the time of his death. These were published at Möbius’ death in 1977. Pfuhl’s students included Herbert Cahn.
Selected Bibliography
Malerei und Zeichnung der Griechen. 3 vols. Munich: F. Bruckmann a.g.,1923, [abridgement:] Meisterwerke griechischer Zeichnung und Malerei. Munich: F. Bruckmann, 1924, English, Masterpieces of Greek Drawing and Painting. New York: The Macmillan Company, 1926; “Untersuchungen der Komposition durch eine Formenlehre ergänzt: Mausoleum” Jahrbuch des deutschen archäologischen Instituts 43 (1928): 1-53; “Untersuchungen der Komposition durch eine Formenlehre ergänzt: Nike von Samothrake” Jahrbuch des deutschen archäologischen Instituts 45 (1930): 1-61; part II, 47 (1932): 69-76; Möbius, Hans, editor. Die ostgriechischen Grabreliefs. 2 vols. Mainz am Rhein: Von Zabern, 1977, 1979; Die anfänge der griechischem bildniskunst. Ein beitrag zur geschischte der individualität. Munich: F. Bruckmann a.g., 1927 [pamphlet]; and Schefold, Karl. Tausend Jahre griechischer Malerei: Bilder zur Malerei und Zeichnung der Griechen. Munich: F. Bruckmann, 1940; Der archäische Friedhof am Stadtberge von Thera. Mitteilungen des Kais. Deutschen Archäologischen Institus Athenische Abteilung 28. Athens: Beck und Barth, 1903.
Sources
Archäologenbildnisse: Porträts und Kurzbiographien von Klassichen Archäologen deutscher Sprache. Reinhard Lullies, ed. Mainz am Rhein: Verlag Philipp von Zabern, 1988: 192-193; “Pfuhl, Ernst.” Encyclopedia of the History of Classical Archaeology. Nancy Thomson de Grummond, ed. Westport, CT: Greenwood Press, 1996, vol. 2, pp. 882-83; ägyptische, griechische, etruskische, römische Altertümer: Sammlung Prof. Dr. Ernst Pfuhl, Basel [and] Sammlung Dr. Philipp Lederer, Lugano und anderer Besitz: Vasen, Terrakotten, Bronzen, Marmorfiguren und -Reliefs, Gläser, Schmuck. Lucern: Galerie Fischer, 1941.