Ars: časopis Ústavu Dejín Umenia Slovenskej Akadémie Vied (42.2009)

ŠTÚDIE / ARTICLES

ARS 42, 2009, 1

American Voices. Remarks on the Earlier History
of Art History in the United States and the Réception
of Germanie Art Historians1

Thomas DaCOSTA KAUFMANN

A wave of studies in the historiography of art
history has recently swept over both sides of the
Atlantic, bringing with it a vogue for scholarship on
German art historians who were active in America.2
Much information has been accumulated as a resuit.
Nevertheless, the resulting picture of both the earlier
history of art history in the United States and of the
role of Germanie art historians in America remains
faulty in several significant respects.

This essay offers a revised view of some aspects
of the earher history of art history in the United
States that have previously been ignored, down-
played, or represented inaccurately. It présents that
story as it unrolled before 1933 as providing prec-
edents and accordingly a context for the réception
of Germanie scholarship, among other things for the
origins of current interests in a broader, globalized
view of art history. It also offers a critique of some
outstanding interprétations of the importance and
identity of German scholarly émigrés.

1 This paper draws upon two lectures. The first was given as
“The American Voice. Deutsche Kunsthistoriker im Exil
in den Vereinigten Staaten”, Annual Meeting, Deutscher
Kunsthistorikerverband, Hamburg, Germany, March 23,
2001, and then in English as “German Art Historians in the
United States and Paul Frankl”, Moravská galerie, Brno, Czech
Republic, June 26, 2001, and as “German Art Historians in
the United States”, Speed Museum of Art, Louisville, Ken-
tucky, September 27, 2001. This lecture has been published
in slighdy different form as The American Voice. German
Historians of Art and Architecture in Exile in the United Sta-
tes. In: Wölkenkuckucksheim, 2007, No. 1: Heaven and Earth.
Festschrift to Honor Karsten Harries, www.theo.tu-cottbus.
de/wolke/cloud_l .html. The second lecture was given as the
introduction to a symposium, Pasts, Présents, Futures, at Prince-
ton University on December 7,2007. The material presented
in this paper has been considerably enlarged, however. I would
like to thank Jennifer A. Morris for her assistance.
2 For the study of German émigré art historians, see most
comprehensively MICHELS, K.: Transplantierte Kunstwis-
senschaft: deutschsprachige Kunstgeschichte im amerikanischen Exil.
Berlin 1999; and WENDLAND, U.: Biographisches Handbuch
deutschsprachiger Kunsthistoriker im Exil. 2 vols. München 1999.

See particularly for the discussion carried on here WOOD,
C. S.: Art History’s Normative Renaissance. In: The Italian
Renaissance in the Twentieth Century. Acts of an International
Conference, Villa I Tatti, Florence, 1999. Eds. A. J. GRIECO
- M. ROCKE - F. GIOFFREDI SUPERBE Florence 2002,
pp. 65-92; WOOD, C. S.: Strzygowski und Riegl in den Verein-
igten Staaten. In: Wiener Jahrbuch für Kunstgeschichte, 53, 2004,
pp. 217-234; and, though clearly more general than just an ac-
count of the immigrants and their réception, CROW, T.: The
Practice of Art History in America. In: Daedalus, 135, 2006,
No. 2, pp. 70-90. Earlier accounts are PANOFSKY, E.: Three
Decades of Art History in the United States: Impressions of
a Transplanted European. In: College Art Journal, 14,1954,No.
1, pp. 7-27; and EISLER, C.: “Kunstgeschichte” American
Style: A Study in Migration. In: FLEMING, D. - BAILYN, B.
(eds.): TheIntellectualMigration:EuropeandAmerica 1930— 1960.
Cambridge (Mass.) 1969, pp. 544-629. Signs of more general
interest in historiography, with pertinence for the discussion
here, are HOLLY, M. A.: Past looking: Historical Imagination
and the Rhetoric of the Image. Ithaca (NY) 1996; HOLLY, M.
A.: Panofsky and thefoundations of art history. Ithaca (NY) 1984;
SOUSSLOFF, C.: The Absolute Artist: the Historiography of a
Concept. Minneapolis 1997; and SOUSSLOFF, C. (ed.): Jewish
Identity in Modern Art History. Berkeley (Calif.) 1999.

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