Fritz Saxl

Who was Fritz Saxl?

Friedrich "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.

Saxl studied in his native Vienna under Franz Wickhoff, Julius von Schlosser and Max Dvořák, who oversaw his dissertation on Rembrandt. Then in Berlin he studied under Heinrich Wölfflin, and spent 1912-13 researching in Italy for his only major work, a study of medieval illuminated manuscripts with astrological and mythological elements, marrying Elise Bienenfeld in 1913. He served in the Austro-Hungarian army as a lieutenant on the Italian front for the duration of World War I. In 1913 he had joined what was then the Warburg Library in Hamburg as librarian, and he returned in 1919, also lecturing at the University of Hamburg from 1923. On Warburg's death in 1929 Saxl formally became director, although he had effectively been in charge for several years already. With the Nazi regime in power, Saxl was instrumental in moving the Warburg Institute to safety in London in 1933, coming with it himself and settling in England, becoming a British citizen in 1940. His efforts at maintaining the Warburg Institute came at the cost of his own scholarly output, which was mostly restricted to papers and lectures.