Full Name: Wolf, Walther
Gender: male
Date Born: 1900
Date Died: 1973
Place Born: Hildesheim, Lower Saxony, Germany
Home Country/ies: Germany
Overview
Wolf was the son of Peter and Mathilde Stinde (Wolf). After spending the final year of World War I with the German Marines, he attended the University of Heidelberg between 1919-22. Wolf spent the year 1923 at the University in Berlin before completing his dissertation at Göttingen. He was an assistant at the Berliner Museum 1922-28. In 1928 he became a privatdozent associated with the University in Leipzig, acceding to a professorship there in 1934. He also held a joint appointment as director of Egyptology Institute. During World War II, he joined the Luftwaffe 1939-45. After the war he spent a period of time outside academics, like many faculty associated with Nazi government appointments. In 1949 he received a position to teach at the university of Munster. He remained the the next twenty years, retiring emeritus in 1969. Wolf was devoted to stylistic analysis in his art history. His use of scientific language for art was attacked in 1960 by Otto Neugebauer (1899-1990) as meaningless appropriation of scientific jargon, with whom Neugebauer also lumped Percy Ernst Schramm.
Selected Bibliography
Wesen und Wert der ägyptologie. Glückstadt: J.J. Augustin, 1937; Die Welt der ägypter. Stuttgart: G. Kilpper, 1954; Kulturgeschichte des alten ägypten. Stuttgart: A. Kröner, 1962; Individuum und Gemeinschaft in der ägyptischen Kultur. Glückstadt: J.J. Augustin, 1935; Funde in ägypten. Göttingen: Musterschmidt, 1966; and Steindorff, Georg, and Heidenreich, Robert, (et al.). Missionarchéologique de Nubie: 1929-1934. Glückstadt: J. J. Augustin, 1935-37; and Steindorff, Georg. Die thebanische Gräberwelt. Glückstadt: J.J. Augustin, 1936; Frühe Hochkulturen: ägypten, Mesopotamien, ägäis. English, The Origins of Western Art: Egypt, Mesopotamia, the Aegean. New York: Universe Books, 1971; [posthumous update] and Christoph Wetzel. Frühgeschichte und Frühe Hochkulturen. Neue Belser Stilgeschichte 1. Stuttgart: Belser, 1990.
Sources
Who’s Who in the World, 2nd ed. 1974-75, pp. 1071; Neugebauer, Otto. “Sense or Nonsense in Scientific Jargon.” Journal of the Courtauld and Warburg Insititutes 23 (1960): 175-6; Die Religion in Geschichte und Gegenwart: Handwörterbuch für Theologie und Religionswissenschaft. 3rd ed. Tübingen, Mohr, 1957-65.