Erwin Panofsky

Erwin Panofsky (born March 30, 1892, Hannover, Germany—died March 14, 1968, Princeton, New Jersey, U.S.) was a German American art historian who gained particular prominence for his studies in iconography (the study of symbols and themes in works of art).

Panofsky studied at the University of Freiburg in Breisgau and was a professor at the University of Hamburg from 1926 to 1933. He first went to the United States in 1931 as visiting professor at New York University in New York City, and in 1935 he became professor of art history at the Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton, New Jersey.

Panofsky’s writings are distinguished by their critical penetration, erudition, and rich allusions to literature, philosophy, and history. He studied many iconographic, stylistic, and theoretical aspects of medieval and Renaissance art and wrote a seminal account of Albrecht Dürer as well as a definitive history of early Dutch painting. Among his major works in English are Studies in Iconology (1939); The Codex Huygens and Leonardo da Vinci’s Art Theory (1940); Albrecht Dürer, 2 vol. (1943; later published as The Life and Art of Albrecht Dürer [1955]); Abbot Suger on the Abbey Church of St.-Denis and Its Art Treasures (1946); Gothic Architecture and Scholasticism (1951); Early Netherlandish Painting, 2 vol. (1953); Meaning in the Visual Arts (1955), a collection of nine of Panofsky’s most important articles and essays on a wide variety of subjects; Renaissance and Renascences in Western Art, 2 vol. (1960); and Tomb Sculpture (1964).