Professor of English and writer on art history. Sypher was born to Harry Wylie Sypher and Martha Berry (Sypher). He graduated from Amherst College in 1927, continuing for two master's degrees, the first from Tufts University, in 1929 and, after marrying Lucy Johnston the same year, pursued a second from Harvard University in 1932. He joined Simmons College, Boston, as an instructor beginning in 1929. Sypher was awarded his Ph.D., from Harvard in 1937.

"Vienna School"-trained historian of Venetian art; author of a major "principles of art history" monograph and developer of Baroque Museum, Vienna. Tietze was the son of a Czech lawyer, Siegfried Tietze (d. 1920), and Auguste Pohl. The family name had originally been Taussig. He attended the Gymnasium Altstadt in Prague. His father converted the family from Judaism to protestant Christianity in 1893 moving the family to Vienna. Tietze graduated from the Schottengymnasium there in 1898. Anxious to be seen as fully Austrian, he volunteered for a year's service in the Austrian army 1899-1900.