Gertrud Bing (7 June 1892 – 3 July 1964) was a German art historian and director of the

Warburg Institute The Warburg Institute is a research institution associated with the University of London in central London, England. A member of the School of Advanced Study, its focus is the study of cultural history and the role of images in culture – cros ...

Early life and education

Gertrud Bing was born in

Hamburg Hamburg (, ; ), officially the Free and Hanseatic City of Hamburg,. is the List of cities in Germany by population, second-largest city in Germany after Berlin and List of cities in the European Union by population within city limits, 7th-lar ...

on 7 June 1892, to Moritz Bing, a merchant, and Emma Jonas. Bing originally trained as a school teacher, and taught for eighteen months during the early 1910s. In 1916, Bing enrolled at the

Ludwig Maximilian University of Munich The Ludwig Maximilian University of Munich (simply University of Munich, LMU or LMU Munich; ) is a public university, public research university in Munich, Bavaria, Germany. Originally established as the University of Ingolstadt in 1472 by Duke ...

and studied philosophy, German literature, and psychology. Bing returned to teaching in 1918, before resuming her studies at the

University of Hamburg The University of Hamburg (, also referred to as UHH) is a public university, public research university in Hamburg, Germany. It was founded on 28 March 1919 by combining the previous General Lecture System ('':de:Allgemeines Vorlesungswesen, ...

in 1919. Bing gained her

PhD A Doctor of Philosophy (PhD, DPhil; or ) is a terminal degree that usually denotes the highest level of academic achievement in a given discipline and is awarded following a course of graduate study and original research. The name of the deg ...

in 1921. Supervised by

Ernst Cassirer Ernst Alfred Cassirer ( ; ; July 28, 1874 – April 13, 1945) was a German philosopher and historian of philosophy. Trained within the Neo-Kantian Marburg School, he initially followed his mentor Hermann Cohen in attempting to supply an idealistic ...

, Bing's

doctoral dissertation A thesis (: theses), or dissertation (abbreviated diss.), is a document submitted in support of candidature for an academic degree or professional qualification presenting the author's research and findings.International Standard ISO 7144: D ...

focused on the works of

Gotthold Ephraim Lessing Gotthold Ephraim Lessing (; ; 22 January 1729 – 15 February 1781) was a German philosopher, dramatist, publicist and art critic, and a representative of the Enlightenment era. His plays and theoretical writings substantially influenced the dev ...

and

Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz (or Leibnitz; – 14 November 1716) was a German polymath active as a mathematician, philosopher, scientist and diplomat who is credited, alongside Sir Isaac Newton, with the creation of calculus in addition to ...

Career

Kulturwissenschaftlichen Bibliothek Warburg

In 1922, Bing began working as a librarian at the ″Kulturwissenschaftlichen Bibliothek Warburg″, founded by

Aby Warburg Aby Moritz Warburg (June 13, 1866 – October 26, 1929) was a German art historian and cultural theorist who founded the ''Kulturwissenschaftliche Bibliothek Warburg'' (Warburg Library for Cultural Studies), a private library, which was later m ...

Warburg Institute

In December 1933, the ″Kulturwissenschaftlichen Bibliothek Warburg″ was moved to London when the Nazis rose to power, becoming the

. With her partner,

Fritz Saxl Friedrich "Fritz" Saxl (8 January 1890, Vienna, Austria – 22 March 1948, Dulwich, London) was the art historian who was the guiding light of the Warburg Institute, especially during the long mental breakdown of its founder, Aby Warburg, whom h ...

, the new institute's first director, she settled in Dulwich. Saxl died in 1948, and was succeeded as director by

Henri Frankfort Henri "Hans" Frankfort (24 February 1897 – 16 July 1954) was a Dutch Egyptology, Egyptologist, archaeologist and orientalism, orientalist. Early life and education Born in Amsterdam, into a "Reform Judaism, liberal Jewish" family, Frankfort stud ...

. After the death of Frankfort in 1954, Bing in 1955 became director of the institute and Professor of the History of the Classical Tradition. She held these posts until her retirement in 1959. Gertrud Bing died in 1964 in

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 ...

, following a brief illness.

Writings

* ''Fragments sur Aby Warburg. Documents originaux et leur traduction française. Avant-propos de

Carlo Ginzburg Carlo Ginzburg (; born 15 April 1939) is an Italian historian and a proponent of the field of microhistory. He is best known for ''Il formaggio e i vermi'' (1976, English title: '' The Cheese and the Worms''), which examined the beliefs of an I ...

.'' Edited by Philippe Despoix and Martin Treml. Paris 2019.

References

1892 births 1964 deaths Directors of the Warburg Institute German art historians German emigrants to the United Kingdom German women historians Writers from Hamburg German women art historians {{Germany-art-historian-stub