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Nikolaus Pevsner
Sir Nikolaus Bernhard Leon Pevsner CBE FBA (30 January 1902 – 18 August 1983) was a German-British historian who specialised in the art and architecture genres. He is best known for his monumental 46-volume series of county-by-county guides, The Buildings of England (1951–1974).
Nikolaus Pevsner was born in Leipzig, Saxony, into a Russian-Jewish family, the son of Anna (née Perlmann) and her husband Hugo Pevsner. He attended St. Thomas School, Leipzig, and went on to study at several universities, Munich, Berlin and Frankfurt am Main, before being awarded a doctorate by Leipzig in 1924 for a thesis on the Baroque architecture of Leipzig. In 1923, he married Carola ("Lola") Kurlbaum, the half-Jewish daughter of distinguished Leipzig lawyer Alfred Kurlbaum. He worked as an assistant keeper at the Dresden Gallery between 1924 and 1928. He converted from Judaism to Lutheranism in young adulthood.
During this period he became interested in establishing the supremacy of German modernist architecture after becoming aware of Le Corbusier's Pavillon de l'Esprit Nouveau at the Paris Exhibition of 1925. In 1928, he contributed the volume on Italian baroque painting to the Handbuch der Kunstwissenschaft, a multi-volume series providing an overview of the history of European art. He taught at the University of Göttingen between 1929 and 1933, offering a specialist course on English art and architecture. According to biographers Stephen Games and Susie Harries, Pevsner welcomed many of the economic and cultural policies of the early Hitler regime. However, due to Nazi race laws he was forced to resign his lectureship at Göttingen in 1933.
His first intention was to move to Italy, but after failing to find an academic post there, Pevsner moved to England in 1933, settling in Hampstead at 2, Wildwood Terrace, where poet Geoffrey Grigson was his next-door neighbour at No. 3. Pevsner's first post was an 18-month research fellowship at the University of Birmingham, found for him by friends in Birmingham and partly funded by the Academic Assistance Council. A study of the role of the designer in the industrial process, the research produced a generally critical account of design standards in Britain which he published as An Enquiry into Industrial Art in England (Cambridge University Press, 1937). He was subsequently employed as a buyer of modern textiles, glass and ceramics for the Gordon Russell furniture showrooms in London.
By this time Pevsner had also completed Pioneers of the Modern Movement: from William Morris to Walter Gropius, his influential pre-history of what he saw as Walter Gropius' dominance of contemporary design. Pioneers ardently championed Gropius's first two buildings (both pre–First World War) on the grounds that they summed up all the essential goals of 20th-century architecture; in England, however, it was widely taken to be the history of England's contribution to international modernism, and a manifesto for Bauhaus modernism, which it was not.[citation needed] In spite of that, the book remains an important point of reference in the teaching of the history of modern design, and helped lay the foundation of Pevsner's career in England as an architectural historian. Since its first publication by Faber & Faber in 1936, it has gone through several editions and been translated into many languages. The second edition, published by the Museum of Modern Art in 1949, was renamed Pioneers of Modern Design.
Pevsner was fully Jewish on his mother and father's side.[page needed] Due to his heritage, in 1933 after the Nazi regime enacted the Civil Service Law, he was removed from his teaching post at University of Göttingen.[page needed] Shortly after losing his teaching post, Pevsner left Germany for England to find new employment and was able to relocate his wife and children.[page needed] Pevsner attempted to get his parents out of Germany, but they delayed their departure largely due to his father Hugo's ill-health and business interests. The couple were actively trying to exit at the time Germany invaded Poland and subsequently entered a state of war, ending their plans. Following her husband's death due to natural causes in 1940, Pevsner's mother Anna was ultimately scheduled for a transport as part of the Nazi's final solution. Instead of bearing this fate, she opted, shortly before her scheduled transport, to commit suicide in Leipzig on 10 February 1942.[page needed]
Despite the rise of the Nazi regime, Pevsner sent his children Dieter, Tom, and Uta to visit their mother Lola's family in Germany in August 1939. Uta was the only child without a British-issued passport, using German papers which marked her as Jewish. During their visit Germany invaded Poland and Britain declared war on Germany shortly after. At the time Uta was waiting for the British embassy in Berlin to process her British passport application. However following the declaration the embassy closed without completing her application. Dieter and Tom were able to leave Germany safely but Uta was forced to stay behind. She survived the war in Germany by posing as "Aryan" and at some points a maid.
Later following his settlement in England he was included in the Nazi Black Book of British residents hostile to the Hitler regime.
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Nikolaus Pevsner
Sir Nikolaus Bernhard Leon Pevsner CBE FBA (30 January 1902 – 18 August 1983) was a German-British historian who specialised in the art and architecture genres. He is best known for his monumental 46-volume series of county-by-county guides, The Buildings of England (1951–1974).
Nikolaus Pevsner was born in Leipzig, Saxony, into a Russian-Jewish family, the son of Anna (née Perlmann) and her husband Hugo Pevsner. He attended St. Thomas School, Leipzig, and went on to study at several universities, Munich, Berlin and Frankfurt am Main, before being awarded a doctorate by Leipzig in 1924 for a thesis on the Baroque architecture of Leipzig. In 1923, he married Carola ("Lola") Kurlbaum, the half-Jewish daughter of distinguished Leipzig lawyer Alfred Kurlbaum. He worked as an assistant keeper at the Dresden Gallery between 1924 and 1928. He converted from Judaism to Lutheranism in young adulthood.
During this period he became interested in establishing the supremacy of German modernist architecture after becoming aware of Le Corbusier's Pavillon de l'Esprit Nouveau at the Paris Exhibition of 1925. In 1928, he contributed the volume on Italian baroque painting to the Handbuch der Kunstwissenschaft, a multi-volume series providing an overview of the history of European art. He taught at the University of Göttingen between 1929 and 1933, offering a specialist course on English art and architecture. According to biographers Stephen Games and Susie Harries, Pevsner welcomed many of the economic and cultural policies of the early Hitler regime. However, due to Nazi race laws he was forced to resign his lectureship at Göttingen in 1933.
His first intention was to move to Italy, but after failing to find an academic post there, Pevsner moved to England in 1933, settling in Hampstead at 2, Wildwood Terrace, where poet Geoffrey Grigson was his next-door neighbour at No. 3. Pevsner's first post was an 18-month research fellowship at the University of Birmingham, found for him by friends in Birmingham and partly funded by the Academic Assistance Council. A study of the role of the designer in the industrial process, the research produced a generally critical account of design standards in Britain which he published as An Enquiry into Industrial Art in England (Cambridge University Press, 1937). He was subsequently employed as a buyer of modern textiles, glass and ceramics for the Gordon Russell furniture showrooms in London.
By this time Pevsner had also completed Pioneers of the Modern Movement: from William Morris to Walter Gropius, his influential pre-history of what he saw as Walter Gropius' dominance of contemporary design. Pioneers ardently championed Gropius's first two buildings (both pre–First World War) on the grounds that they summed up all the essential goals of 20th-century architecture; in England, however, it was widely taken to be the history of England's contribution to international modernism, and a manifesto for Bauhaus modernism, which it was not.[citation needed] In spite of that, the book remains an important point of reference in the teaching of the history of modern design, and helped lay the foundation of Pevsner's career in England as an architectural historian. Since its first publication by Faber & Faber in 1936, it has gone through several editions and been translated into many languages. The second edition, published by the Museum of Modern Art in 1949, was renamed Pioneers of Modern Design.
Pevsner was fully Jewish on his mother and father's side.[page needed] Due to his heritage, in 1933 after the Nazi regime enacted the Civil Service Law, he was removed from his teaching post at University of Göttingen.[page needed] Shortly after losing his teaching post, Pevsner left Germany for England to find new employment and was able to relocate his wife and children.[page needed] Pevsner attempted to get his parents out of Germany, but they delayed their departure largely due to his father Hugo's ill-health and business interests. The couple were actively trying to exit at the time Germany invaded Poland and subsequently entered a state of war, ending their plans. Following her husband's death due to natural causes in 1940, Pevsner's mother Anna was ultimately scheduled for a transport as part of the Nazi's final solution. Instead of bearing this fate, she opted, shortly before her scheduled transport, to commit suicide in Leipzig on 10 February 1942.[page needed]
Despite the rise of the Nazi regime, Pevsner sent his children Dieter, Tom, and Uta to visit their mother Lola's family in Germany in August 1939. Uta was the only child without a British-issued passport, using German papers which marked her as Jewish. During their visit Germany invaded Poland and Britain declared war on Germany shortly after. At the time Uta was waiting for the British embassy in Berlin to process her British passport application. However following the declaration the embassy closed without completing her application. Dieter and Tom were able to leave Germany safely but Uta was forced to stay behind. She survived the war in Germany by posing as "Aryan" and at some points a maid.
Later following his settlement in England he was included in the Nazi Black Book of British residents hostile to the Hitler regime.
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