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The Warburg Institute is a research institution associated with the University of London
University of London

Based primarily in London, England, United Kingdom, the University of London is a federal mega university made up of 31 affiliates: 19 separate university institutions, and 12 research institutes....
. A member of the School of Advanced Study
School of Advanced Study

The School of Advanced Study is a listed organisation of the University of London. It was established on 1 August 1994 and has ten member Institutes....
, its focus is the study of the influence of classical antiquity on all aspects of European civilization.

Institute was founded by Aby Warburg
Aby Warburg

Abraham Moritz Warburg, known as Aby Warburg, was an art historian and cultural theorist who founded the Warburg Institute. The subject of his research was the legacy of the Classical world in the most varied areas of western culture through to the Renaissance....
 (1866–1929), a student of Renaissance
Renaissance

The Renaissance was a cultural movement that spanned roughly the 14th to the 17th century, beginning in Italy in the late Middle Ages and later spreading to the rest of Europe....
 art and culture. Warburg became dissatisfied with a purely stylistic approach to art history and grew interested in a more interdisciplinary approach.






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The Warburg Institute is a research institution associated with the University of London
University of London

Based primarily in London, England, United Kingdom, the University of London is a federal mega university made up of 31 affiliates: 19 separate university institutions, and 12 research institutes....
. A member of the School of Advanced Study
School of Advanced Study

The School of Advanced Study is a listed organisation of the University of London. It was established on 1 August 1994 and has ten member Institutes....
, its focus is the study of the influence of classical antiquity on all aspects of European civilization.

History

The Institute was founded by Aby Warburg
Aby Warburg

Abraham Moritz Warburg, known as Aby Warburg, was an art historian and cultural theorist who founded the Warburg Institute. The subject of his research was the legacy of the Classical world in the most varied areas of western culture through to the Renaissance....
 (1866–1929), a student of Renaissance
Renaissance

The Renaissance was a cultural movement that spanned roughly the 14th to the 17th century, beginning in Italy in the late Middle Ages and later spreading to the rest of Europe....
 art and culture. Warburg became dissatisfied with a purely stylistic approach to art history and grew interested in a more interdisciplinary approach. While studying the culture of Renaissance Florence
Florence

Florence is the Capital city of the Italy Regions of Italy of Tuscany and of the provinces of Italy Province of Florence. It is the most populous city in Tuscany and has a population of 364,779 ....
, he grew interested in the influence of antiquity on modern culture, and, while a professor at the University of Hamburg
University of Hamburg

The University of Hamburg is a university in Hamburg, Germany. It was founded on 1 April 1919 by William Stern and others. It grew out of the previous Allgemeines Vorlesungswesen and the Kolonialinstitut as well as the Akademisches Gymnasium....
, built up his personal library around the question.

Warburg was joined by his fellow professor Fritz Saxl
Fritz Saxl

Fritz Saxl 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 he succeeded as director....
 (1890–1948), who transformed Warburg's collection into a scholarly institute, the Kulturwissenschaftliche Bibliothek Warburg, affiliated to the University of Hamburg. In 1934, under the shadow of Nazism
Nazism

Nazism, officially National Socialism , refers to the ideology and practices of the National Socialist German Workers? Party under Adolf Hitler, and the policies adopted by the dictatorial government of Nazi Germany from 1933 to 1945....
, the institute was relocated from Hamburg to London. In 1944 it became associated with the University of London, and in 1994 it became a founding institute of the University of London's School of Advanced Study.

Campus

The Institute occupies a large building in the University of London's Bloomsbury
Bloomsbury

Bloomsbury may refer to:* Bloomsbury, an area in central London.* the Bloomsbury Group, an English literary group active around from around 1905 to the start of World War II....
 campus in the central London Borough of Camden
London Borough of Camden

The London Borough of Camden is a London borough of London, England, which forms part of Inner London. The southern reaches of Camden form part of Central London....
. Built in 1957, and adjacent to the University of London Student Union, School of Oriental and African Studies
School of Oriental and African Studies

The School of Oriental and African Studies is a constituent college of the University of London, specialising in the laws, politics, economics, languages and humanities concerning Asia, Africa and the Near East and Middle East....
, and Christ the King Church, the building is also the home of the studio of the Slade School of Fine Art
Slade School of Fine Art

Slade School of Fine Art is the art school of University College London, UK.The school traces its roots back to 1868 when Felix Slade bequeathed funds to establish three Chairs in Fine Art, to be based at University of Oxford, University of Cambridge and University College, London, where six studentships were endowed....
.

The Warburg Institute maintains a research library of more than 350,000 volumes. These volumes, except for a small number of rare and valuable books, are kept on open shelves and are accessible to all. The Institute also holds a large photographic collection and the personal archives of Aby Warburg. The Institute is notable for its unusual and unique reference system: the Institute's collection is arranged by subject according to Warburg's division of human history into the categories of Action, Orientation, Word, and Image.

Organization

In addition to its primary purpose as an academic reference library, the Institute accepts a small number of graduate students each year. The Institute awards the degrees of Master of Arts in Cultural and Intellectual History and Doctor of Philosophy; the former is a one-year degree with taught and research components while the latter is a three-year terminal research degree. The emphasis of these programs is on developing interpretative skills in a number of different academic subjects, which follows from the Institute's interdiscplinary mission. Considerable attention is devoted to improving language skills and knowledge of primary sources; the Institute believes that these areas are unjustly neglected by aspiring academics in order to focus on secondary scholarship and critical theory. The MA program is one of the few non-Classics graduate programs in the United Kingdom which requires fluency in Latin.

Students and faculty

Well-known scholars associated with the Warburg Institute include Ernst Cassirer
Ernst Cassirer

Ernst Cassirer was a Germany Jewish philosopher. Coming out of the Marburg tradition of neo-Kantianism, he developed a philosophy of culture as a theory of symbols founded in a Phenomenology of epistemology....
, Henri Frankfort
Henri Frankfort

Henri 'Hans' Frankfort was a Dutch Egyptology, archaeology and orientalism....
, Arnaldo Momigliano
Arnaldo Momigliano

Arnaldo Dante Momigliano KBE was an Italy historian known for his work in historiography, characterized by Donald Kagan as the "world?s leading student of the writing of history in the ancient world."...
, Ernst Gombrich
Ernst Gombrich

Sir Ernst Hans Josef Gombrich, Order of Merit, Order of the British Empire was an Austrian-born art historian who spent most of his working life in the United Kingdom....
 (who served as director from 1959 to 1976), Erwin Panofsky
Erwin Panofsky

Erwin Panofsky was a German Jewish art historian who emigrated to America and remains highly influential in the modern academic study of iconography....
, Edgar Wind
Edgar Wind

Edgar Wind was German-born British interdisciplinary art historian, specializing in iconology in the Renaissance era. He was a member of the school of art historians associated with Aby Warburg and the Warburg Institute as well as the first Professor of art history at Oxford University....
, Frances Yates
Frances Yates

Dame Frances Amelia Yates Order of the British Empire was a noted British historian. She taught at the Warburg Institute of the University of London for many years....
 and Anthony Grafton
Anthony Grafton

Anthony Grafton is a Jewish-American historian and the current Henry Putnam University Professor at Princeton University. He is also a corresponding fellow of the British Academy and a recipient of the Balzan Prize....
. The current group of scholars continues the Institute's tradition of interdisciplinary research into history, philosophy, religion, and art. The permanent staff is enriched by a sizeable number of academics and graduate students who hold short and long-term fellowships. Due to the small number of staff, students, and regular users, the Institute prides itself on a friendly and informal teaching and research atmosphere.

Together with the Courtauld Institute of Art
Courtauld Institute of Art

The Courtauld Institute of Art is a self-governing college of the University of London specialising in the study of the history of art. The Courtauld is one of the premier centres for the teaching of art history in the world; it was the only History of Art department in the UK to be awarded a top 5* grade in the most recent Research Assessm...
, the Institute publishes The Journal of the Warburg and Courtauld Institutes, a well-known annual of about 300 pages.

Directors of the Institute


2001– Charles Hope
Charles Hope

Charles Hope , was a Scottish politician and judge.The eldest son of John Hope , he studied law at Edinburgh University. He was admitted as an Faculty of Advocates in 1784 and was appointed sheriff of Orkney in 1792....

1990–2001 Nicholas Mann
Nicholas Mann

Nicholas R. Mann is the author of books on geomancy, mythology, the Celtic tradition, sacred geometry and, most recently, archaeoastronomy. Glastonbury, England, Sedona, Arizona and Washington, DC are all locations which feature in his work....

1976–1990 J. B. Trapp
J. B. Trapp

Joseph Burney Trapp was an historian, scholar and former director of the Warburg Institute.Trapp was born in New Zealand, and was educated at Victoria University College in Wellington....

1959–1976 Ernst Gombrich
Ernst Gombrich

Sir Ernst Hans Josef Gombrich, Order of Merit, Order of the British Empire was an Austrian-born art historian who spent most of his working life in the United Kingdom....

1954–1959 Gertrud Bing
Gertrud Bing

Gertrud Bing was a scholar and Director of the Warburg Institute. She was educated at the Lyceum in Hamburg from 1909-1913, and received her abitur from the Heinrich-Hertz Realgymnasium in 1916....

1949–1954 Henri Frankfort
Henri Frankfort

Henri 'Hans' Frankfort was a Dutch Egyptology, archaeology and orientalism....

1929–1948 Fritz Saxl
Fritz Saxl

Fritz Saxl 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 he succeeded as director....



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