Ernst Gombrich
Professor Sir Ernst Gombrich OM was born in Vienna in 1909 and died in London on November 3, 2001, aged 92. He studied at the Theresianum and then at the Second Institute of Art History at the University of Vienna under Julius von Schlosser (1928-33). He then worked as a Research Assistant and collaborator with the museum curator and Freudian analyst Ernst Kris. He joined the Warburg Institute in London as a Research Assistant in 1936. During World War 2 he was employed by the BBC as a Radio Monitor. After the war he rejoined the Warburg Institute eventually becoming its Director in 1959. His major publications include The Story of Art (1950), Art and Illusion: A Study in the Psychology of Pictorial Representation (1960), Aby Warburg: An Intellectual Biography (1970), The Sense of Order: A Study in the Psychology of Decorative Art. (Also see: www.gombrich.co.uk.)
From the Review
February 24, 2000: Only a Guideline (letter)
January 20, 2000: Portrait of the Artist as a Paradox
Rembrandt's Eyes by Simon Schama
May 28, 1998: 'Largesse' (letter)
April 23, 1998: In the Giving Vein
Largesse by Jean Starobinski, translated by Jane Marie Todd
November 14, 1996: The Miracle at Chauvet
Dawn of Art: The Chauvet Cave, The Oldest Known Paintings in the World by Jean-Marie Chauvet, by Eliette Brunel Deschamps, by Christian Hillaire
The Cave Beneath the Sea: Paleolithic Images at Cosquer by Jean Clottes, by Jean Courtin
February 15, 1996: Icon
Three Essays on Style by Erwin Panofsky, edited by Irving Lavin, with a memoir by William S. Heckscher
Perspective as Symbolic Form by Erwin Panofsky, translated by Christopher S. Wood
June 23, 1994: Keeping Up with Leonardo
Inventing Leonardo by A. Richard Turner
October 21, 1993: What Art Tells Us
History and Its Images: Art and the Interpretation of the Past by Francis Haskell
March 4, 1993: Getting the Picture
Only Connect…Art and the Spectator in the Italian Renaissance by John Shearman
February 15, 1990: The Edge of Delusion
The Power of Images: Studies in the History and Theory of Response by David Freedberg
January 19, 1989: Distinguished Dissident
James J. Gibson and the Psychology of Perception by Edward S. Reed
June 25, 1987: Back from Oblivion
Past and Present in Art and Taste: Selected Essays by Francis Haskell
June 13, 1985: Scenes in a Golden Age
Masters of Seventeenth-Century Dutch Genre Painting Pennsylvania Press) catalog of an exhibition organized by Peter C. Sutton
November 10, 1983: Mysteries of Dutch Painting
The Art of Describing: Dutch Art in the Seventeenth Century by Svetlana Alpers
March 3, 1983: On Frances Yates
December 2, 1982: The Art of Collecting Art
The Rare Art Traditions: The History of Art Collecting and Its Linked Phenomena Wherever These Have Appeared by Joseph Alsop
September 27, 1979: 'The Sense of Order': An Exchange
March 9, 1978: The Life-giving Touch
P.P.Rubens: Paintings, Oilsketches, Drawings June 29-September 30, 1977 Catalogue of the Exhibition, Antwerp, Royal Museum of Fine Arts,
P.P.Rubens by Frans Baudouin, translated by Elsie Callander
Rubens compiled and with an introduction by Keith Roberts
Rubens and Italy by Michael Jaffé
Rubens, Drawings and Sketches in the British Museum, 1977 Publications Limited by John Rowlands. Catalogue of an Exhibition at the Department of Prints and Drawings
January 20, 1977: Talking of Michelangelo
Michelangelo's Last Paintings: The Conversion of St. Paul and the Crucifixion of St. Peter in the Cappella Paolina, Vatican Palace by Leo Steinberg
November 29, 1973: Dream Houses
On Adam's House in Paradise: The Idea of the Primitive Hut in Architectural History by Joseph Rykwert
May 4, 1972: Zebra Crossings
House Decoration in Nubia by Marian Wenzel
Nuba Personal Art by James C. Faris
Self-Decoration in Mount Hagen by Andrew Strathern, by Marilyn Strathern
Bangwa Funerary Sculpture by Robert Brain, by Adam Pollock
April 23, 1970: Not the Sheik (letter)
March 12, 1970: Rembrandt Now
Rembrandt: The Complete Edition of the Paintings by Abraham Bredius, 3rd edition revised by Horst Gerson
Rembrandt Paintings by Horst Gerson
Rembrandt by Joseph-Emile Muller, translated by Brian Hooley
Rembrandt: Life and Work by Jakob Rosenberg
Rembrandt As An Etcher by Christopher White
Rembrandt by Michael Kitson
Rembrandt: His Life, His Work, His Time by Bob Haak, translated by Elizabeth Willems Treeman
Rembrandt in Amsterdam by R.H. Fuchs, translated by Patricia Wardle, translated by Alan Griffiths
Rembrandt's "Aristotle" and Other Rembrandt Studies by Julius Held
June 19, 1969: Art Transplant
The Great Age of Fresco: Giotto to Pontormo with an Introduction by Millard Meiss
December 5, 1968: In Search of Leonardo
Leonardo da Vinci by V.P. Zubov, translated by David H. Kraus, with a Foreword by Myron P. Gilmore
August 22, 1968: A Matter of Form (letter)
June 20, 1968: Waiting for Cézanne
The Disintegration of Form in the Arts by Erich Kahler
Vision and Image (to be published in the fall) by James Johnson Sweeney
February 1, 1968: How Do You Know It's Any Good?
On Quality in Art: Criteria of Excellence Past and Present (The A. W. Mellon Lectures in the Fine Arts, 1964) by Jakob Rosenberg
July 13, 1967: Calling for "The Doctor"
Victorian Painting by Graham Reynolds
Victorian Narrative Paintings by Raymond Lister
February 23, 1967: Bosch of Hertogenbosch
Hieronymus Bosch by Charles de Tolnay
November 17, 1966: Art or Behavior (letter)
June 23, 1966: Art at the End of its Tether
Man's Range for Chaos: Biology, Behavior and the Arts by Morse Peckham
January 6, 1966: The Art of the Greeks
Greek Temples, Theatres, and Shrines by Helmut Berve, by Gottfried Gruben, photographs by Max Hirmer
Greek Sculpture by R. Lullies, photographs by Max Hirmer
Ancient Greek Sculpture of South Italy and Sicily by Ernest Langlotz, photographs by Max Hirmer
A History of 1000 Years of Greek Vase Painting by Paolo Enrico Arias, translated by B. Shefton, photographs by Max Hirmer
Crete and Mycenae by Spyridon Marinatos, photographs by Max Hirmer
The Portraits of the Greeks by G.M.A. Richter
The Techniques of Painted Attic Pottery by Joseph Veach Noble
February 11, 1965: The Mystery of Leonardo
Leonardo da Vinci on Painting: A Lost Book (Libro A) reassembled, translated, and edited by Carlo Pedretti, with a Foreword by Sir Kenneth Clark
Leonardo da Vinci and a Memory of His Childhood by Sigmund Freud, translated by Alan Tyson
Books by Ernst Gombrich
The Uses of Images: Studies in the Social Function of Art and Visual Communication (1999)
The Essential Gombrich: Selected Writings on Art and Culture (1996)
Shadows: The Depiction of Cast Shadows in Western Art (1995)
Papers Given on the Occasion of the Dedication of the Last Supper (after Leonardo), Magdalen College Oxford, 10 March 1993 (1993)
Gombrich on the Renaissance. Volume 3, the Heritage of Apelles (1993)
Looking for Answers: Conversations on Art and Science (1993)
A Lifelong Interest: Conversations on Art and Science with Didier Ribon (1993)
Topics of Our Time: Twentieth-Century Issues in Learning and in Art (1991)
Reflections on the History of Art: Views and Reviews (1987)
Aby Warburg: An Intellectual Biography (1986)
Kokoschka in His Time: Lecture Given at the Tate Gallery on 2 July 1986 (1986)
New Light on Old Masters (1986)
Gombrich on the Renaissance. Volume 1, Norm and Form (1985)
Meditations on a Hobby Horse and Other Essays on the Theory of Art (1985)
Gombrich on the Renaissance. Volume 2, Symbolic Images (1985)
Tributes, Interpreters of Our Cultural Tradition (1984)
The Image and the Eye: Further Studies in the Psychology of Pictorial Representation (1982)
Nature and Art As Needs of the Mind: The Fourth Leverhulme Memorial Lecture Delivered 23 February 1981 in the University of Liverpool (1981)
The Sense of Order: A Study in the Psychology of Decorative Art (1979)
Ideals and Idols: Essays on Values in History and in Art (1979)
Norm and Form (1978)
Meditations on a Hobby Horse: And Other Essays on the Theory of Art (1978)
The Heritage of Apelles: Studies in the Art of the Renaissance (1976)
Means and Ends: Reflections on the History of Fresco Painting (1976)
Art History and the Social Sciences (1975)
The Story of Art (1972)
Symbolic Images (1972)
Art, Perception and Reality (1972)
Aby Warburg: An Intellectual Biography (1970)
Myth and Reality in German War-Time Broadcast (1970)
Art and Illusion: A Study in the Psychology of Pictorial Representation (1969)
In Search of Cultural History (1969)