Sachsl, Fritz

Friedrich Sachsl was born on January 8, 1890 in the family of the Vienna prosecutor Ignaz Sachsl; Friedrich grew up in a wealthy Jewish family belonging to the upper class. While Frederick's grandmother and grandfather were active Jews , his father had already changed his denomination - albeit without denying his roots. Friedrich studied archeology and history at the universities of Vienna , Berlin and Rome . In Vienna, he was part of a narrow circle of students from Franz Wyckhoff, Julius von Schlosser, and Max Dvorak ; in Berlin, he studied mainly with the Swiss art historian and writer Heinrich Wölflin . Already at the age of 22 years, Sachsl, under the leadership of Dvorak, presented his dissertation on the work of Rembrandt . Shortly before this, Sachsl personally met with Abi Warburg and became his student and follower. In 1912-1913 he completed the academic year in Rome, where he was engaged in the analysis of medieval texts on mythology and astrology - his stay in the Italian capital was made possible thanks to a large scholarship from the Roman Institute for Historical Studies of Austria.

Sachsl then moved to Hamburg , where he began working as a research fellow at Abi Warburgs - in his library of cultural sciences. Subsequently, Sachsl agreed with the theses of Warburg, who believed that ancient mythological and artistic themes continued to exist in the history of art; thus he left his original area of ​​interest - the art of the Baroque period . During the First World War, Fritz Sachsl was drafted into the current Austrian-Hungarian army , where he served as an officer (lieutenant) on the Italian front ; in the last two years of the war he was an army instructor. After the war, he organized exhibitions in Vienna - as part of public education and education.

In 1919, Sachsl returned to Warburg, who by that time was already seriously ill and until 1924 was in the Swiss neurological clinic of Ludwig Binswanger in Kreuzlingen : so Sachsl, together with his colleague Gertrude Bing, became the head of the library, which numbered about 20,000 volumes. In the 1920s, he was first accepted as a private assistant professor at the University of Hamburg , where he later became an extraordinary professor (he remained in this rank until 1933).

Sachsl managed to foresee that the coming to power of the National Socialists in Germany posed a threat to academic life in the country: he supported the scientists who had already begun to persecute in Austria and came into contact with the British collector and philanthropist Samuel Curto, in the hope of preserving the Warburg library. As a result, he also moved to England and in 1940 received British citizenship. By 1944, the Warburg Library officially became part of the University Library of London as the “Warburg Institute”; she was also included at the Curto Institute of Art at the University of London , of which she is part of to this day. Until his death in March 1948, Sachsl's efforts were mainly focused on preserving the Warburg library and the memory of the German explorer.

• Vorträge der Bibliothek Warburg. (Hg. Von Fritz Saxl), 1921-31 (9 Bde.)
• Studien der Bibliothek Warburg. (Hg. Ders.), 1922-32 (21 Bde.)
• Verzeichnis astrologischer und mythologischer illustrierter Handschriften des lateinischen Mittelalters. Bd. 1, Heidelberg: C. Winter, 1915, Bd. 2, Heidelberg: C. Winter, 1927, [Bde. 3 u. 4 hrsg. von Meier, Hans, and Bober, Harry, and McGurk, Patrick.]
• A Heritage of Images: A Selection of Lectures by Fritz Saxl. Introduction by EH Gombrich. 2 vols. Harmondsworth, Middlesex: Penguin, 1970
• The History of Warburg's Library. In: Gombrich, Aby Warburg. 2nd ed. Oxford: Phaidon Press, 1986, pp. 325-38
• Gebärde, Form, Ausdruck, vorgestellt von Pablo Schneider, Zürich-Berlin: diaphanes, 2010, ISBN 978-3-03734-131-5 .
• English sculpture of the 12th century. 1954
• Lectures. 1957.
• Ausreiten der Ecken. Die Aby Warburg - Fritz Saxl Korrespondenz 1910 bis 1919. Hrsg. von Dorothea McEwan. München 1998. ISBN 3-930802-79-1 .
• Wanderstrassen der Kultur. Die Aby Warburg - Fritz Saxl Korrespondenz 1920 bis 1929. Hrsg. von Dorothea McEwan. München 2004. ISBN 3-935549-85-7 .

In 1913, Fritz Sachsl married Elise Binenfeld (1893-1966).

• EH Gombrich: Saxl Friedrich (Fritz). In: Österreichisches Biographisches Lexikon 1815-1950 (ÖBL). Band 10, Verlag der Österreichischen Akademie der Wissenschaften, Wien 1994, ISBN 3-7001-2186-5 , S. 7.
• Charlotte Schoell-Glass: Saxl, Fritz. In: Neue Deutsche Biographie (NDB). Band 22, Duncker & Humblot, Berlin 2005, ISBN 3-428-11203-2 , S. 480 f. (Digitalisat).
• Donald J. Gordon (Hrsg.): Fritz Saxl (1890-1948). Nelson, London 1957.
• Eric M. Warburg, The Transfer of the Warburg Institute to England, from: The Warburg Institute Annual Report 1952-1953.
• Ulrike Wendland: Biographisches Handbuch deutschsprachiger Kunsthistoriker im Exil. Leben und Werk der unter dem Nationalsozialismus verfolgten und vertriebenen Wissenschaftler. Teil 2: LZ. Saur, München 1999, ISBN 3-598-11339-0 , S. 586-592.
• Dorothea McEwan: Fritz Saxl - Eine Biografie. Aby Warburgs Bibliothekar und erster Direktor des Londoner Warburg Institutes. Böhlau, Wien / Köln / Weimar 2012, ISBN 978-3-205-78863-8 .
• Hellwig, Karin. Aby Warburg und Fritz Saxl enträtseln Velázquez. Ein spanisches Intermezzo zum Nachleben der Antike. Berlin, Boston: De Gruyter, Sept. 2015, ISBN 978-3-11-042052-4 .

• Lee Sorensen. Saxl, Fritz . arthistorians.info . Dictionary of Art Historians. Date of treatment March 20, 2019.