2024-03-28T10:34:24Z
https://keydocuments.net/oai
oai:jgo:source-24.en
2017-02-02T00:00:00Z
en
Obituary for Aby Warburg in the Hamburger Fremdenblatt, October 28, 1929
https://dx.doi.org/10.23691/jgo:source-24.en.v1
Erwin Panofsky
Institute for the History of the German Jews
Online Ressource
This source is an obituary first published by the art historian Erwin
Panofsky in the Hamburger Fremdenblatt on 28.10.1929 following his
elder colleague Aby Warburg’s death on 26.10.1929. However, it is
more than the record of an art historian’s life. Born in Hannover in
1892, and educated in Berlin, Freiburg, and Munich, Panofsky was hired
by the University of Hamburg in 1920, and he quickly climbed the ranks
to become an Ordinarius professor in 1928 and a leading figure of the
still nascent field of art history. Panofsky and Warburg were engaged,
like many art historians of their day, in identifying whether art was
an expression of its time period, a national characteristic, or
artistic genius. Panofsky’s obituary reveals the intellectual
partnership between the two and the wider urban community of scholars
that congregated around the Kulturwissenschaftliche Bibliothek Warburg
(KBW) in Hamburg during the 1920s. Though the Hamburger Fremdenblatt
was a daily newspaper with a wide audience, the intimate and detailed
nature of the obituary was—like much of the activity of the
KBW—presented with an insider audience in the mind. As a celebration
of this partnership, Panofsky’s obituary of Warburg offers a window
into this distinct Hamburgian sub-culture of Weimar-era intellectual
life in which German-Jewish scholars were able to play such an active
role.
2017-02-02