Werckmeister, O. K.

Medievalist and Marxist-methodology art historian at Northwestern and UCLA. Werckmeister's father, Karl Werckmeister, was an art dealer and his mother, Rose Petzold (Werckmeister) an artist. He married Maria Eugenia Lacarra in 1965. Werckmeister received his Ph.D. from the Ph.D. in 1958 from the Freie Universität in Berlin. He spent his early career researching and publishing on Romanesque manuscript illuminations (and their book covers). In 1971 he moved to the United States, joining the University of California, Los Angeles, as professor of art history. In the United States, as in Germany, he strongly expoused a Marxist approach to art history, examining class ideology as a driving force to artistic creation. This was perhaps most clearly demonstrated in his 1976 essay, "The Political Ideology of the Bayeux Tapestry." The same year, Werckmeister became a founding member of Caucus for Marxism and Art of the College Art Association. The Caucus session delivered papers by other prominent Marxist art historians, including T. J. Clark, Lee Baxandall, Serge Guilbaut. He was named a John Simon Guggenheim Memorial fellow for the 1981-1982 year. He divorced his wife in 1983. In 1984 he moved to Northwestern University, Evanston, IL, to become Mary Jane Crowe Distinguished Professor of Art History. He held a fellowship at Wissenschaftskolleg, Berlin, 1986-1987. He participated on the dissertatin committees of Serge Guilbaut and Thomas E. Crow. His students included and Jane Welch Williams.