Otto Kurz
art historian (1908-1975)
Otto Kurz FBA (26 May 1908 in Vienna, Austria – 3 September 1975 in London) was a historian and Slade Professor of Fine Art, University of Oxford.
Education
University of Vienna
Career
Fleeing to London from the Nazis, he was Librarian at the Warburg Institute, 1944–65 and Professor of the History of Classical Tradition with special reference to the Near East, University of London, 1965–75. He was Slade Professor of Fine Art at the University of Oxford for 1971–72.
Honours
He was Visiting Lecturer, Hebrew University, Jerusalem, 1964, and 1973
He was elected a Fellow of the British Academy, 1962.
Honorary Fellow: Associazione Francesco Francia, Bologna; Raccolta Vinciana, Milan; Accademia Clementina, Bologna.
“Otto Kurz” enters the record as art historian (1908-1975). Crown Archives preserves that source wording while asking what Otto, Kurz and historian can confirm, complicate or overturn.
Why this record matters
“Otto Kurz” is worth following because a concise public description often conceals a longer documentary argument. Here, Otto, Kurz and historian provides the most credible route into that argument.
Chronology provides the most reliable spine for this subject; interpretation should follow only after identities and dates are secure. The source revision retrieved here is dated Nov 27, 2025. The linked authority identifier is Q7109692. VIAF identifies the subject as 27066946. The Library of Congress control number is n79099482. 3 of 3 selected statements include explicit references; 0 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1908, 1975, 1944 and 1965.
Later biographies can compress uncertainty and repeat inherited reputations, so apparently settled claims may still require comparison. The source lead contains qualifying language; that uncertainty should survive quotation, summary and reuse. Authority statements aid reconciliation but still require their own references, qualifiers and ranks to be checked.
How to read it
Read biographical claims against dates, named institutions and the cited references. Distinguish a subject’s later reputation from evidence produced during their lifetime.
- Establishing names and roles
- Building a first chronology
- Locating cited institutions
Personal papers, civil or court records, institutional files and the scholarship cited by the source.
Three-step research path
- Establish the record: confirm the title “Otto Kurz”, its source revision and the description used here.
- Expand the search: follow Otto Kurz primary sources, Otto Kurz archive and Otto research across catalogues and specialist indexes.
- Test the account: compare the strongest cited source with the responsible institution’s current record and note any disagreement.
Questions for further research
- Which source most directly establishes the central claim about “Otto Kurz”?
- Which claims depend on a single source or contested interpretation?
- How has the subject’s reputation changed across later accounts?
Search terms from this dossier
This entry incorporates text from “Otto Kurz” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.