DICTIONARY OF ART HISTORIANS

A Biographical Dictionary of Historic Scholars, Museum Professionals and Academic Historians of Art

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G r a ba r , A n d r [N ikolaevich]
Date born: 1896
Place born: Kiev, Ukraine
Date died: 1990
SEARC H AN HI STORI AN

Place died: Paris, France

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Archaeologist and historian of medieval and Byzantine art at the Collge de France. Grabar graduated from the lyce in Kiev in 1914, entering th

University of St. Vladimir. He enrolled in the school of classical studies, which at that time included art history. In 1915 he moved to the university

Petrograd, studying under N. P. Kondakov, D. V. Ainalov and Jacob Smirnov until the Bolshevik revolution in 1917. He characterized this perio
as the formative years that shaped his conception of iconography. Grabar completed his exams in Odessa in 1919 and left Russia in 1920 for

Bulgaria. In Sofia, the director of the Archaeological Museum, Bogdan Filov (1883-1945), gave him a position inventorying the medieval monume
of Bulgaria. He labored on the project for three years in harsh field work. Grabar moved to Strasbourg, as a lecturer on the Russian language.

1922, he settled permanently in France, marrying a Bulgarian medical student Julie Ivanova in 1923 (d. 1977). In Strasbourg he met the medieva
Paul Perdrizet (1870-1938), whom Grabar later described as his most influential colleague. Grabar attained the title matre de confrences

Strasbourg where he taught the history of art. In 1937 Gabriel Millet, the chair of Christian Archaeology at the cole pratique des hautes tudes

retired and proposed Grabar as his successor. Grabar moved to Paris, teaching there until 1966. After World War II, he published extensively on

cult of relics, and religious images during Iconoclasm. He founded Cahiers Archologiques, editing it with Jean Hubert. Between 1946 and 1966
Grabar also held the chair of Art and Archaeology of Byzantium at the Collge de France, and in 1955 he was elected a member of the French
Academy. He was a frequent participant in the Dumbarton Oaks symposia, chairing the 1950 one on "The Emperor and the Palace." He and

Nordenfalk produced a two-volume set on early medieval painting, translated into English in 1957-1958, which became one of the most readabl

and trusted introductory sources on the topic. In 1961 he gave the A. W. Mellon Lectures in Fine Arts at the National Gallery of Art in Washington
These later became the book, Christian Iconography: A Study of Its Origins (1968). As chair of Art and Archaeology of Byzantium at the cole
pratique, Grabar delivered Saturday lectures and travaux pratiques whose participants included the major medievalists in Paris (Sears). He lent

credence to the pioneering and controversial work of the medievalist Percy Ernst Schramm. Despite being housebound and increasingly blind t

last decade of his life, Grabar continued to publish, dictating articles which contain his last thoughts concerning Byzantine art. One of his two son
Oleg Grabar, was also a medievalist art historian.

The Johns Hopkins medievalist Henry Maguire (b. 1943) characterized Grabar's methodology as synthetic, weaving theology, liturgy and politica

ideology into his studies of Byzantine art in contrast to the formalistic research of earlier historians. The renewed interest (and accessibility) in the
art and monuments of eastern Europe after World War II helped Grabar's work reach a vast scholarly audience, particularly in the United States

which was undergoing a methodological shift. The role of the cult in the formation of Christian art; the interrelationship with the Islamic world with
the west and general relations between East and West were the hallmarks of his scholarship. Grabar updated and reissued many of his
monographs throughout his life. LS
Home Country: Ukraine/France

Sources: Kleinbauer, W. Eugene. Modern Perspectives in Western Art History: An Anthology of 20th-Century Writings on the Visual Arts. New Yo

Holt, Rinehart and Winston, 1971, pp. 4, 66, 67 cited; Kleinbauer, W. Eugene. Research Guide to the History of Western Art. Sources of Informat

in the Humanities, no. 2. Chicago: American Library Association, 1982, p. 70; Bazin, Germain. Histoire de l'histoire de l'art; de Vasari nos jours
Paris: Albin Michel, 1986, pp. 205-206, 212-213; Maguire, Henry. "Andr Grabar: 1896-1990." Dumbarton Oaks Papers 45 (1991): xiii-xv; The

Dictionary of Art; Sears, Elizabeth. "The Art-Historical Work of Walter Cahn." in Hourihane, Colum, ed. Romanesque Art and Thought in the Twel
Century: Essays in Honor of Walter Cahn. University Park, Pa: Penn State Press, 2008, p. 21, note 40; .[obituary:] The Independent (London),
October 9, 1990: 14.

Bibliography: [collected articles and bibliography 1917-1968:] L'Art de la fin de l'Antiquit et du Moyen ge [etc.] 3 vols. Paris: Collge de France
1968 [bibliography, pp. 1215-1223]; Boianskata tsurkva: arkhitektura--zhivopis'. Sofiia: Durzhavna pechatnitsa, 1924; La dcoration byzantine

Paris: G. van Oest, 1928; Nordenfalk, Carl. La peinture religieuse en Bulgarie. Paris: P. Geuthner, 1928; L'art byzantin. Paris: Les ditions d'art e

d'histoire, 1938; Martyrium: recherches sur le culte des reliques et l'art chrtien antique. 2 vols. Paris: Collge de France,1946; "Un mdaillon en

provenant de Mersine en Cilicie." Dumbarton Oaks Papers 6 (1951): 25-49; Byzantine Painting: Historical and Critical Study. Geneva: Skira, 195
La peinture byzantine: tude historique et critique. Geneva: Skira, 1953; "Un nouveau reliquaire de Saint Dmtrios." Dumbarton Oaks Papers
(1954): 305-313; Early Medieval Painting from the Fourth to the Eleventh Century: Mosaics and Mural Painting. New York: Skira, 1957; and
Nordenfalk, Carl. Le haut moyen ge, du quatrime au onzime sicle: Mosaques et peintures murales. Geneva: Skira, 1957, English, Early

Medieval Painting from the Fourth to the Eleventh Century. New York: Skira, 1957; L'iconoclasme byzantin: dossier archeologique. Paris: College

de France, 1957; and Fourmont, Denise. Ampoules de Terre Sainte (Monza, Bobbio). Paris: C. Klincksieck, 1958; and Nordenfalk, Carl. La peint
romane du onzime au treizime sicle. Geneva: Skira, 1958, English, Romanesque Painting from the Eleventh to the Thirteenth Century. New
York: Skira, 1958; and Chatzedakes, Manoles. Byzantine and Early Medieval Painting. New York: Viking Press, 1965; and Velmans, Tania.

affreschi della Chiesa di Sopocani. Milan: Fabbri, 1965; and Velmans, Tania. Mosaici e affreschi nella Kariye-Camii ad Istanbul. Milan: Fratelli

FabbrI, 1965; L'ge d'or de Justinien, de la mort de Thodose l'Islam. Paris: Gallimard, 1966, English, Byzantium: from the Death of Theodosiu

to the Rise of Islam. Arts of Mankind 10. London: Thames and Hudson, 1966, [U.S. version retitled as] The Golden Age of Justinian: from the De
of Theodosius to the rise of Islam. New York: Odyssey Press, 1967; Byzantium: Byzantine art in the Middle Ages. London: Methuen, 1966;

Premier art chrtien (200-395). Paris: Gallimard, 1966, English, The Beginnings of Christian Art, 200-395. Arts of Mankind 9. London: Thames &

Hudson, 1967; L'Art du Moyen ge en Europe orientale. Paris: A. Michel, 1968; Die mittelalterliche Kunst Osteuropas. Baden-Baden: Holle,1968
Christian Iconography: a Study of its Origins. A.W. Mellon Lectures in the Fine Arts, 1961. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1968;
manuscrits grecs enlumins de provenance italienne, IXe-XIe sicles. Paris: Klincksieck, 1972. Les origines de l'esthtique mdivale. Paris:
Macula, 1992.
Subject's name: Andr Grabar

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