Richard Krautheimer

Architectural historian, born in Fürth, Germany. A specialist in early Christian and mediaeval architecture who later turned to the baroque period, he was an early exponent of architectural iconography. His works include Corpus Basilicarum Christianarum Romae (1937–70). He taught at Vassar College (1937–52) and the Institute of Fine Arts, New York University (1952).

Richard Krautheimer (born 1897 in Fürth (Franconia), Germany – died in Rome, Italy, 1994) was a 20th century Byzantinist and baroque scholar and architectural historian. He was born in Germany in 1897, the son of Nathan Krautheimer (1854-1910) and Martha Landman (Krautheimer) (1875-1967). As a young man, Krautheimer enlisted in the (German) army in the First World War and saw serious war service (1916-18). He briefly worked on the state inventory of Churches for Erfurt (Inventarisierung der Erfurter Kirchen für die Preussische Denkmalpflege) during this time as well. In 1924 he married Trude Hess who subsequently also studied art history and became a noted scholar and collector herself. Willibald Sauerländer (q.v.) contends that it was Krautheimer who later introduced Frankl’s work to the United States. The systematizing methodology of Krautheimer's mentor, Frankl, "never left Krautheimer" according to Willibald Sauerlander. The same year, while researching at the Bibliotheca Hertziana in Rome, Krautheimer developed the idea for a handbook of Roman churches with a colleague, Rudolf Wittkower , later to become the Corpus Basilicarum. The momentous year 1933 saw Krautheimer’s first volume of the Corpus Basilicarum Christianarum Romae, a scholarly inventory and documentation of the early Christian churches in Rome eventually running to five volumes. Between 1933-35 Krautheimer worked on the Corpus, accepting paying employment from Frankl’s son in the city. Krautheimer found a position at the University of Louisville, Kentucky, a university he purportedly had never heard of. At his request, Louisville hired another fleeing art historian, Krautheimer’s friend from school days, Justus Bier. Krautheimer moved to Vassar in 1937 at the request of Vassar’s Art Department chair, Agnes Claflin. With the United State’s entrance into the World War II, he and Trude became naturalized citizens and Richard volunteered for duty as a senior research analyst for the Office of Strategic Services for the years 1942-44. Here he analyzed aerial photographs of Rome to assist in the protection of historic buildings during bombing. While still at Vassar, he taught (with lecturer status) at New York University (1938-49). He moved to NYU permanently in 1952 as the Jayne Wrightsman Professor of Fine Arts. The early 1950s were devoted to researching his one monograph on an artist, Lorenzo Ghiberti, published jointly with his wife in 1956. He would become Director of Institute of Fine Arts at New York University.

Krautheimer next engaged in what he called his most difficult book to research and write: the survey volume on early Christian architecture for the Pelican History of Art. The manuscript was completed in 1963 and published two years later. The volume turned out to be one of the finest syntheses of late antique/early medieval architecture published and brought Krautheimer his widest readership. After a second tome on Ghiberti in 1971, Krautheimer retired from NYU as Samuel F. There, Krautheimer completed his long-standing research on the Corpus Basilicarum. In these final years he set to work writing two of his most synthetic and lyrical works on art history. Rome: Profile of a City (1980) and The Rome of Alexander VII (1985) combined social history, vast breadth of archival knowledge and insightful architectural history into single volumes. In both cases, Krautheimer selected comparatively neglected periods in Roman history to offer a compelling narrative of the interaction of public works and patronage. His many students at New York University included Howard Saalman, Leo Steinberg, and Frances Huemer. Journal of the Courtald and Warburg Institutes 5 (1942): 1-33, reprinted in: Studies in Early Christian, Medieval and Renaissance Art. New York: New York University Press, 1969. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1980. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1956 "Mensa-coemeterium-martyium." "The Carolingian Revival of Early Christian Architecture." Reprinted in a slightly revised version in Studies in Early Christian, Medieval and Renaissance Art (above): 203-56. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1971. Corpus Basilicarum Christianarum Romae: The early Christian Basilicas of Rome (IV-IX Centuries). Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1985. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1983. Marburg an der Lahn: Verlag des Kunstgeschichtlichen Seminars der Universität Marburg an der Lahn, 1926-1935. Research Guide to the History of Western Art. Modern Perspectives in Western Art History: An Anthology of 20th-Century Writings on the Visual Arts. 70, 81, 87 cited, 92 [his method of Carolingian art research discussed]. "Richard Krautheimer: 1897-1994" Burlington Magazine 137 (February 1995): 119-20.

Adapted from http://www.lib.duke.edu/lilly/artlibry/dah/krautheimerr.htm

This biography has the following errors: The first volume of the CORPUS BASILICARUM was published in 1937, not 1933. Krautheimer was never the director of the Institute of Fine Arts.