Oberhuber, Konrad J.

Date born:   1935

Place Born:   Linz, Austria

Date died:   2007

Place died:   San Diego, CA

Raphael authority, Harvard scholar and director of the Albertina, 1987-2000. Oberhuber was raised in a family strongly adherent to Rudolf Steiner’s anthroposophy, a worldview Oberhuber embraced his whole life. Oberhuber studied at the University of Vienna, though spending periods in the United States, writing his dissertation under Karl Maria Swoboda (q.v.), the last of the masters who formed the Vienna School. His dissertation, on Bartholomeus Spranger, was completed in 1959. He continued study at the Austrian Historical Institute in Rome, were almost as an avocation he studied Raphael. While a scholar at the Bibliotheca Hertziana, he was asked to complete the corpus of Raphael drawings begun by Oskar Fischel (q.v.). He discovered many Raphael drawings and discounted others, only a handful of which he ever privately published. In 1961, the as-yet-to-be-appointed director of the Albertina museum, Walter Koschatzky (q.v.), hired him to assist his new directorship. Oberhuber returned to Vienna and teh Albertina, marrying Marianne Liebknecht, a dancer and granddaughter of Karl Liebknecht. Oberhuber was appointed to his alma mater in 1971 and as a curator at the National Gallery of Art, Washington, DC. Intermitant lecturing at Harvard University led to an appointment in 1975. Important works on paper by Titian, Federigo Barocci, Nicolas Poussin, and Thomas Eakins entered Harvard collection. He added significantly to the University’s collections in the areas of German 19th century drawings, French 17th century school, and modern artists. The five-hundredth anniversary of Raphael saw Oberhuber’s book on the artist, 1982, and a year at the Hertziana for the 1983-1984. In 1987 he succeeded Koschatzky as Albertina director. With these duties cam Hofrat and honorary professor at the University of Vienna. He retired from the museum in 2000, teaching for two years in Japan before ending his days in California with a new family. He died there of brain cancer at age 72.

Oberhuber was an authority on the drawings of Raphael, but expanded it to those of the mannerists, Venetians and the early Poussin. His book on Raphael is still considered a definitive study.

Home Country:   Austria/United States

Sources: [obituaries:]  Harvard Gazette Online, October 11, 2007; Frommel, Christoph Luitpold. "Konrad Oberhuber (1935-2007)." Burlington Magazine 150 (March 2008): 193-194;

Bibliography:  Entwürfe zu Werken Raphaels und seiner Schule im Vatikan 1511/12 bis 1520. vol. 9 of Raphaels Zeichnungen, edited by Oskar Fischel. Berlin: Gebruder Mann, 1972;