Journal of Art Historiography (Dec 2011)
The work of Ernst H. Gombrich on the Aby M. Warburg fragments
Abstract
On January 1, 1936, Ernst Gombrich arrived in London from Austria. His task was to reorganize the last of Warburg’s fragments and, in particular, to revise what was left of the incomplete mnemosyne atlas. The goal of this study and inventory was to collate Warburg’s uncompleted studies with the purpose of putting together an English publication of his collected work. In 1970, the only result of this publishing endeavour was included in the pages of the famous Aby Warburg. An intellectual biography. The history of the intellectual, as well as critical, relationship between Gombrich and Warburg is, then, a posthumous one that was started on British soil. Further marking this distance are certain material and non-material aspects of Gombrich’s work in London, including his relationship with other warburgian scholars.
