Frederick Antal (21 December 1887 – 4 April 1954), born Frigyes Antal, later known as Friedrich Antal, was a Hungarian

art historian Art history is the study of artistic works made throughout human history. Among other topics, it studies art’s formal qualities, its impact on societies and cultures, and how artistic styles have changed throughout history. Traditionally, the ...

, particularly known for his contributions to the social history of art.

Early life

Antal was born in

Budapest Budapest is the Capital city, capital and List of cities and towns of Hungary, most populous city of Hungary. It is the List of cities in the European Union by population within city limits, tenth-largest city in the European Union by popul ...

to an upper-class Jewish family. After earning a degree in law, he decided to pursue art history. He studied with

Heinrich Wölfflin Heinrich Wölfflin (; 21 June 1864 – 19 July 1945) was a Swiss art historian, esthetician and educator, whose objective classifying principles (" painterly" vs. "linear" and the like) were influential in the development of formal analysis in ...

at the

University of Berlin The Humboldt University of Berlin (, abbreviated HU Berlin) is a public research university in the central borough of Mitte in Berlin, Germany. The university was established by Frederick William III on the initiative of Wilhelm von Humbol ...

before completing his doctorate under Max Dvorák at the

University of Vienna The University of Vienna (, ) is a public university, public research university in Vienna, Austria. Founded by Rudolf IV, Duke of Austria, Duke Rudolph IV in 1365, it is the oldest university in the German-speaking world and among the largest ...

. Antal was a member of the Sonntagskreis intellectual group formed in Budapest by

Béla Balázs Béla Balázs (; 4 August 1884 – 17 May 1949), born Herbert Béla Bauer, was a Hungarian film critic, aesthetician, writer and poet of Jewish heritage. He was a proponent of formalist film theory. Career Balázs was the son of Simon Bauer a ...

György Lukács György Lukács (born Bernát György Löwinger; ; ; 13 April 1885 – 4 June 1971) was a Hungarian Marxist philosopher, literary historian, literary critic, and Aesthetics, aesthetician. He was one of the founders of Western Marxism, an inter ...

and others in 1915.Gluck, Mary. (1985
''Georg Lukács and His Generation, 1900-1918''
Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press. p. 14

Career

He started his career at the Museum of Fine Arts in Budapest with a year as a volunteer from 1914. In 1919, he became its ''Vorsitzender des Direktoriums'' (Chairman of the Board) for several months until the White Terror toppled the new

Hungarian Soviet Republic The Hungarian Soviet Republic, also known as the Socialist Federative Soviet Republic of Hungary was a short-lived communist state that existed from 21 March 1919 to 1 August 1919 (133 days), succeeding the First Hungarian Republic. The Hungari ...

and he fled the country. After a brief sojourn in Vienna, Antal lived in

Germany Germany, officially the Federal Republic of Germany, is a country in Central Europe. It lies between the Baltic Sea and the North Sea to the north and the Alps to the south. Its sixteen States of Germany, constituent states have a total popu ...

. Until 1923, when he relocated to

Berlin Berlin ( ; ) is the Capital of Germany, capital and largest city of Germany, by both area and List of cities in Germany by population, population. With 3.7 million inhabitants, it has the List of cities in the European Union by population withi ...

. From 1926 to 1934, he was an editor for ''Kritische Berichte zur kunstgeschichtlichen Literatur'', alongside Bruno Fürst. In 1933, he was forced to flee from political upheaval again, as the

Nazi Party The Nazi Party, officially the National Socialist German Workers' Party ( or NSDAP), was a far-right politics, far-right political party in Germany active between 1920 and 1945 that created and supported the ideology of Nazism. Its precursor ...

rose to prominence in Germany. Settling in

England England is a Countries of the United Kingdom, country that is part of the United Kingdom. It is located on the island of Great Britain, of which it covers about 62%, and List of islands of England, more than 100 smaller adjacent islands. It ...

, he lectured at the

Courtauld Institute of Art The Courtauld Institute of Art (), commonly referred to as The Courtauld, is a self-governing college of the University of London specialising in the study of the history of art and conservation. The art collection is known particularly for ...

London London is the Capital city, capital and List of urban areas in the United Kingdom, largest city of both England and the United Kingdom, with a population of in . London metropolitan area, Its wider metropolitan area is the largest in Wester ...

and wrote. According to a 2012 article in ''Visual Culture in Britain'', "Antal became the leading practitioner of the social history of art in Britain, and a formative influence on

Anthony Blunt Anthony Frederick Blunt (26 September 1907 – 26 March 1983), (formerly styled Sir Anthony Blunt from 1956 until November 1979), was a leading British art historian and a Soviet spy. Blunt was a professor of art history at the University ...

and

John Pope-Hennessy Sir John Wyndham Pope-Hennessy (13 December 1913 – 31 October 1994), was a British art historian. Pope-Hennessy was director of the Victoria and Albert Museum between 1967 and 1973, and director of the British Museum between 1974 and 1976. ...

, as well as

John Berger John Peter Berger ( ; 5 November 1926 – 2 January 2017) was an English art critic, novelist, painter and poet. His novel '' G.'' won the 1972 Booker Prize, and his essay on art criticism '' Ways of Seeing'', written as an accompaniment to t ...

."Stirton, Paul. (2012)
Frederick Antal and Peter Peri: Art, Scholarship and Social Purpose
''Visual Culture in Britain'' Volume 13, Issue 2. Accessed 5 May 2013. Lee Sorensen of the ''Dictionary of Art Historians'' writes that Antal "increasingly applied the concept of Marxist

dialectical materialism Dialectical materialism is a materialist theory based upon the writings of Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels that has found widespread applications in a variety of philosophical disciplines ranging from philosophy of history to philosophy of scien ...

to art history", suggesting that "artistic style is primarily an expression of

ideology An ideology is a set of beliefs or values attributed to a person or group of persons, especially those held for reasons that are not purely about belief in certain knowledge, in which "practical elements are as prominent as theoretical ones". Form ...

, political beliefs and

social class A social class or social stratum is a grouping of people into a set of Dominance hierarchy, hierarchical social categories, the most common being the working class and the Bourgeoisie, capitalist class. Membership of a social class can for exam ...

".Sorensen, Lee.
Antal, Frederick
." Dictionary of Art Historians. Accessed 5 May 2013. Criticisms of his work include, according to Sorensen, that it assumes "too strong a determination of artistic style by social constructs" and neglecting the subjectivity of the artist's work in favor of too great an identification with the social class of the artist's sponsor.

Selected publications

*''Florentine Painting and its Social Background: The Bourgeois Republic before Cosimo de’ Medici’s Advent to Power: XIV and Early XV Centuries''. London, 1948. (Reprint: Harvard University Press, 1986, ) *''Fuseli Studies''. London, 1956. *''Hogarth and his Place in European Art''. New York: Basic Books, Inc., 1962. *''Classicism and Romanticism, with Other Studies in art history''. London: Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1966. ncludes the essay ‘Remarks on the Method of Art History’

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Antal, Frederick 1887 births 1954 deaths Hungarian art historians Hungarian Jews Jewish historians Hungarian expatriates in Italy Hungarian expatriates in Germany Jewish emigrants from Nazi Germany to the United Kingdom