Descriptive Summary
Biographical/Historical Note
Administrative Information
Scope and Content of Collection
Indexing Terms
Descriptive Summary
Title: Ernst Kitzinger papers
Date (inclusive): 1931-1995
Number: 970036
Creator/Collector:
Kitzinger, Ernst, 1912-
Physical Description:
33.0 linear feet
(55 boxes)
Repository:
The Getty Research Institute
Special Collections
1200 Getty Center Drive, Suite 1100
Los Angeles, California, 90049-1688
(310) 440-7390
Abstract: Art historian specializing in Byzantine, early Christian, and early medieval art. The papers document Kitzinger's scholarly
contribution to the history of late antique, early Christian, Byzantine, and early medieval art. The collection consists of
offprints of his published work, research materials, lecture materials, teaching files, and photographs and slides.
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Language: Collection material is in
English
Biographical/Historical Note
Ernst Kitzinger, an art historian specializing in Byzantine, early Christian, and early medieval art, was born in Munich,
Germany on December 27, 1912. He wrote and lectured on a wide variety of artistic media, but is perhaps best known for his
scholarship on Byzantine mosaics. The diverse research topics that make up his life's work are informed by the premise that
form has meaning and that changes in form and style have something to tell us about what is happening in the society of that
time.
Kitzinger pursued his graduate studies at the Universities of Munich and Rome, receiving his Ph.D. from the University on
Munich in 1934. Upon completing his degree, he resided briefly in Rome, and then in London from 1935 to 1940, where he was
an Assistant at the British Museum.
Kitzinger spent the greater part of his career at Dumbarton Oaks, in Washington, D.C., from 1941 to 1966, where he was, successively,
a Junior Fellow and Fellow (1941-1946), Assistant Professor of Byzantine Art and Archeology (1946-1951), Associate Professor
(1951-1956), Professor (1956-1967), and Director of Studies (1955-1966). During his tenure as Director of Studies, field work
projects were developed and supported, the publications program became firmly established,
Dumbarton Oaks Papersbecame an annual journal, and the library holdings increased substantially.
Kitzinger then left Dumbarton Oaks to teach courses and seminars at Harvard University as the Arthur Kingsley Porter University
Professor (1967-79). In 1979, he became the Emeritus Arthur Kingsley Porter University Professor. In addition, Kitzinger was
a Fulbright Scholar in Sicily (1950-1951); a Guggenheim Fellow in Italy, Greece, Yugoslavia and Turkey (1953-1954); a Member
of the Institute for Advanced Study at Princeton University (1966-1967, 1980, and 1982); Slade Professor of fine art at the
University of Cambridge (1974-1975); and Visiting Distinguished Professor, University of Washington, Seattle (1989).
Administrative Information
Access
Open for use by qualified researchers.
Publication Rights
Preferred Citation
Ernst Kitzinger papers, 1931-1935, Getty Research Institute, Research Library, Accession no. 970036.
http://hdl.handle.net/10020/cifa970036
Acquisition Information
Donated by Ernst Kitzinger, 1997.
Processing History
Martha Steele processed and described the Ernst Kitzinger Papers in 1999.
Scope and Content of Collection
The Ernst Kitzinger archive is comprised of Kitzinger's research materials, created and collected over the course of his career,
from 1932 to 1995. The collection documents the wide range of Kitzinger's contributions to scholarship of the history of late
antique, early Christian, Byzantine, and early medieval art via the diverse media of his published articles, unpublished lectures,
teaching notes, topical research files, and photographs, slides and negatives. The titles and sequential organization of the
series are that of Dr. Kitzinger, with the following exceptions: series VIII and IX originally followed series II; and descriptive
information is appended to the titles of series II, VIII and IX. Correspondence is left in its original, reverse, chronological
order.
The writings series begins with the 1934 typescript of Kitzinger's dissertation (generally known only through the revised
and abridged version published in 1936, also in the archive), and proceeds with "work copies" of offprints. Throughout his
career, Kitzinger updated his offprints with marginalia and slips of paper noting recent bibliography and further observations,
correspondence and reviews. As such, these materials document Kitzinger's continuing thoughts on, and response to, the issues
addressed in his published work.
Kitzinger was a very active lecturer from the mid 1950s through the 1980s. The materials for more than 65 lecture topics complement,
but do not expressly reiterate, his published work. As such, the lecture typescripts document vast unpublished areas of Kitzinger's
thought.
Kitzinger taught courses and seminars at Harvard University mostly between 1967 and 1979. The topics include the courses on
Early Christian and Byzantine Art and seminars on Early Christian, Anglo-Saxon, and Carolingian art, and mosaics and ivories.
Kitzinger's course and seminar files record the topics covered for each class meeting, reading assignments, and seminar participants.
The unpublished research materials include lecture transcripts, extensive research files and abandoned articles. The topical
and geographical organization of the research files (on floor mosaics, frieze sarcophagi, silver, and a group of early Christian
marbles at the Cleveland Museum of Art) reveal Kitzinger's particular interests and lines of thoughts in these areas.
Other papers document Kitzinger's professional activities as a reader and reviewer for journals; as a colleague nominating
others for membership in professional societies; as a respondent to research questions; as a participant in various proposed
publication projects; and as an author of obituaries honoring and characterizing the contributions of his colleagues.
Photographs, slides and negatives generally correspond to the content of the offprints, lectures, and research files, with
sections on mosaic, sculpture, panel painting, manuscripts, and so-called minor arts including ivories, silver, ceramics,
coins, glass, glyptic, textiles, silver and other metal works.
Related archival collections include:
Title: Interviews with art historians
, at the Getty Research Library, Special Collections, accession no. 940109 (includes the tapes and transcript of
Title: Style and its meaning in early medieval art
, a series of interviews with Kitzinger conducted in 1995 by Richard Caéndida Smith, with a curriculum vitae and partial 5
p. list of publications; and
Title: Papers of Ernst Kitzinger
, 1942-1967 (inclusive), at Harvard University Archives; and
Title: Records of Dumbarton Oaks, 1941-
, at Harvard University Archives.
Arrangement note
The papers are arranged in 12 series:
Series I. Writings,
Date (inclusive): 1932-1995
;
Series II. Various Research Projects (unpublished),
Date (inclusive): 1968-1993
;
Series III. Lectures,
Date (inclusive): 1931-1990
;
Series IV. Harvard Courses,
Date (inclusive): 1960, 1969-1978
;
Series V. Harvard Seminars,
Date (inclusive): 1947-1979
;
Series VI. Floor Mosaics,
Date (inclusive): n.d.
;
Series VII. Cleveland Marbles,
Date (inclusive): 1966-1979
, and
Date (inclusive): n.d.
;
Series VIII. Various Topics (research files and correspondence),
Date (inclusive): 1962-1994
, and
Date (inclusive): n.d.
;
Series IX. Various Matters (professional activities and other writings),
Date (inclusive): 1942-1943, 1956, 1961-1986
;
Series X. Photographs,
Date (inclusive): 1937,1960,1977, 1990-1991, and n.d.
;
Series XI. Slides,
Date (inclusive): n.d.
;
Series XII. Negatives,
Date (inclusive): 1937, 1943, and n.d.
.
Indexing Terms
Subjects - Corporate Bodies
Chiesa della Martorana (Palermo, Italy)
Cleveland Museum of Art
Duomo di Monreale
Panayia Kanakaria (Church : Lythrankomi, Cyprus)
Santa Maria Antiqua (Church: Rome, Italy)
Subjects - Topics
Art, Ancient
Art, Byzantine
Art, Coptic
Art, Early Christian
Art, Medieval
Art, Roman
Art--Study and teaching
Icons, Byzantine
Mosaics, Byzantine
Mosaics, Early Christian
Mural painting and decoration--Italy--Rome
Sarcophagi
Sculpture, Byzantine
Silverwork, Ancient
Silverwork, Byzantine
Subjects - Places
Dura-Europos (Extinct city)
Genres and Forms of Material
Black-and-white prints (photographs)
Color slides
Color transparencies
Photographs, Original
Contributors
Battiscombe, C. F.
Belting, Hans
Dumbarton Oaks
Frolow, A. (Anatole)
Gombrich, E. H. (Ernst Hans), 1909-2001
Grierson, Philip
Koehler, Wilhelm Reinhold Walter, 1884-1959
Panofsky, Erwin, 1892-1968
Schapiro, Meyer, 1904-
Weitzmann, Kurt, 1904-1993
Wixom, William D.