Major scholar of French Medieval sculpture in the 20th century; Director Zentralinstitut für Kunstgeschichte, 1970-1989. Sauerländer entered the Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität in Munich in 1946, receiving his Ph.D. there in 1953 under Hans Jantzen. Early on, the friendship and scholarship of Louis Grodecki was formative to his methodology. In 1958 he published a seminal article on the west portals of Senlis and Mantes cathedrals, followed by a second on the west portals of Notre Dame, which redefined the study of Gothic sculpture (Little).