Sauerländer, Willibald

Date born:  1924

Place Born:  Waldsee, Württemberg, Germany

Date died:  

Place died:  

Scholar of early French Medieval sculpture, Director Zentralinstitut für Kunstgeschichte, 1970-1989. Sauerländer entered the University of Munich in 1946, receiving his Ph.D. there in 1953.  In 1958 he published a seminal article on the west portals of Senlis and Mantes cathedrals, followed by a second on the west portals of Notre Dame, which redefined the study of Gothic sculpture. After teaching in Paris, 1959-1961, Marburg 1961-1962, and Freiburg, 1962-1964, he was a visiting professor at New York University, 1964-65. He returned to Freiburg as professor of art history in 1970.  The same year (1970) he published his best known book, Gotische Skulptur in Frankreich (translated into English as the Gothic Sculpture in France, 1971).  The book broke the Chartres-centric view of the genesis of medieval sculpture and secured his reputation among English-language readers. Sauerländer was a member of the  Institute of Advanced Study in Princeton in 1973. During the 1980s he held several visiting appointments, including the Collège de France, Paris, 1981; University of Wisconsin, Madison, in 1982; Harvard University, 1984 and 1985, and the University of California, Berkeley, 1989.  In 1991 he presented the Mellon lectures at the National Gallery of Art, Washington, DC. 1994 he accepted the director position at the Zentralinstitut für Kunstgeschichte, Munich, where he remained until his retirement.

Sauerländer was credited by the Times Literary Supplement in the early 1970s as having rewritten the history of early French Gothic Sculpture.  He has acknowledged his debt to the methodology of Wilhelm Vöge.  In general, Sauerländer looks at a history of styles within early medieval sculpture to determine influence of masters and date sculpture.  His most famous work, Gothic Sculpture in France, shows him avoiding the study of sculpture by monument in favor of grouping the figures by stylistic period.  In his historiographic writing, Sauerländer characterized post-World War II art history in Munich as "would-be Positivism," citing a shift toward empiricism and positivism.

Home Country:  Germany

Sources:  Dilly, Heinrich.  Kunstgeschichte als Institution:  Studien zur Geschichte einer Diziplin.  Frankfurt am Main:  Suhrkamp, 1979, pp. 46-7; Bazin, Germain.  Histoire de l'histoire de l'art; de Vasari à nos jours.  Paris: Albin Michel, 1986 p. 277;  "Comparable Carvings." Times Literary Supplement April 13, 1973: 410.

Bibliography:  "Alle Jahre wieder . . . ?" Kunstchronik 25 (1975): 262;  Gotische Skulptur in Frankreich: 1140-1270. Munich: Hirmer, 1970, English, Gothic Sculpture in France:  1140-1270.  New York:  Abrams, 1971;  and Kauffmann, Georg, eds.,  Walter Friedlaender zum 90. Geburtstag:  eine Festgabe seiner europäischen Schüler, Freunde und Verehrer.  Berlin:  De Gruyter, 1965;   editor, Studien zur mittelalterlichen Kunst 800-1250 : Festschrift für Florentine Mütherich zum 70. Geburtstag.  Munich: Prestel-Verlag, 1985.

Subject's name: Willibald Sauerländer