Sir Ernst Hans Josef Gombrich, OM, CBE (30 March 1909 – 3 November 2001) was an Austrian-born art historian, who spent most of his working life in the United Kingdom. For other Orders see Order of Merit (disambiguation). ... The Most Excellent Order of the British Empire is a British order of chivalry established on 4 June 1917 by King George V. The Order includes five classes in civil and military divisions; in decreasing order of seniority, these are Knight Grand Cross or Dame Grand Cross (GBE) Knight Commander... is the 89th day of the year (90th in leap years) in the Gregorian calendar. ... Year 1909 (MCMIX) was a common year starting on Friday (link will display full calendar) of the Gregorian calendar (or a common year starting on Thursday of the 13-day-slower Julian calendar). ... is the 307th day of the year (308th in leap years) in the Gregorian calendar. ... Year 2001 (MMI) was a common year starting on Monday (link displays the 2001 Gregorian calendar). ... Art history usually refers to the history of the visual arts. ...

He was born in Vienna, Austria-Hungary, into an assimilated bourgeois family of Jewish origin, who were part of a sophisticated social and musical milieu. His father was a lawyer and former classmate of Hugo von Hofmannsthal, and his mother was a pianist who was a pupil of Anton Bruckner (she also knew Schoenberg, Mahler and Brahms). Rudolf Serkin as well was a close family friend. Gombrich was educated at Theresianum secondary school in Vienna and at Vienna University before coming to Britain in 1936 where he took up a post as a research assistant at the Warburg Institute, University of London. “Wien” redirects here. ... Austria-Hungary, also known as the Dual monarchy (or: the k. ... Hugo von Hofmannsthal Hugo von Hofmannsthal (February 1, 1874 – July 15, 1929), was an Austrian novelist, librettist, poet, dramatist, narrator, and essayist. ... “Bruckner” redirects here. ... Arnold Schoenberg, Los Angeles, 1948 Arnold Schoenberg, (the anglicized form of Schönberg—Schoenberg changed the spelling officially when he became a U.S. citizen) (September 13, 1874 – July 13, 1951) was a composer, born in Vienna, Austria. ... Mahler refers to: Alma Maria Mahler-Werfel, or Alma Maria Schindler-Mahler Anna Mahler Arthur Mahler, Austrian archeologist Bruce Mahler, actor David Mahler, composer Eduard Mahler, Austrian astronomer; born in Hungary Gustav Mahler, Bohemian-Austrian composer and conductor Halfdan T. Mahler, Director-General of the World Health Organization (WHO) from... Johannes Brahms Johannes Brahms (May 7, 1833 – April 3, 1897) was a German composer of classical music. ... Rudolf Serkin (March 28, 1903 – May 8, 1991) was an Austrian pianist. ... “Wien” redirects here. ... The University of Vienna (German: Universität Wien) was founded in 1365 by Rudolph IV and hence named Alma mater Rudolphina. ... The Warburg Institute is a research institution associated with the University of London. ... The University of London is a university based primarily in London. ...

During World War II, he worked for the BBC World Service, monitoring German radio broadcasts. When in 1945 an upcoming announcement was prefaced by a Bruckner symphony written for Wagner's death, Gombrich guessed correctly that Hitler was dead, and promptly broke the news to Churchill. He returned to the Warburg Institute in November 1945 where he became Senior Research Fellow (1946), Lecturer (1948), Reader (1954) before eventually becoming Professor of the History of the Classical Tradition and its director (1959–72). He was elected a Fellow of the British Academy in 1960, made CBE in 1966, knighted in 1972, and appointed a member of the Order of Merit in 1988. He was the recipient of numerous additional honours Combatants Allied powers: China France Great Britain Soviet Union United States and others Axis powers: Germany Italy Japan and others Commanders Chiang Kai-shek Charles de Gaulle Winston Churchill Joseph Stalin Franklin Roosevelt Adolf Hitler Benito Mussolini Hideki Tōjō Casualties Military dead: 17,000,000 Civilian dead: 33,000... For other uses, see BBC (disambiguation). ... The Warburg Institute is a research institution associated with the University of London. ... The British Academy is the United Kingdoms national academy for the humanities and the social sciences. ... The Most Excellent Order of the British Empire is a British order of chivalry established on 4 June 1917 by King George V. The Order includes five classes in civil and military divisions; in decreasing order of seniority, these are Knight Grand Cross or Dame Grand Cross (GBE) Knight Commander... The silver Anglia knight, commissioned as a trophy in 1850, intended to represent the Black Prince. ... For other Orders see Order of Merit (disambiguation). ...

Gombrich's first book was Eine kurze Weltgeschichte für junge Leser (the only book he did not write in English), published in Germany in 1936. It was very popular and translated into several languages, but was not available in English until 2005 when a translation of a revised edition was published as A Little History of the World. A Little History of the World (originally in German, Eine kurze Weltgeschichte für junge Leser) was written in 1935, by Vienna native Ernst Gombrich (then 25 years old), who is now best known as an art historian and for his classic work, The Story of Art (first published in...

The Story of Art, first published in 1950 (currently in its 16th edition) is widely regarded as a seminal work of criticism and one of the most accessible introductions to the visual arts. Originally intended for adolescent readers, it has sold millions of copies and been translated into more than 30 languages. Other major publications include Art and Illusion (1960), regarded by critics to be his most influential and far-reaching work, and the papers gathered in Meditations on a Hobby Horse (1963) and The Image and the Eye (1981). Other important books are Aby Warburg: An Intellectual Biography (1970), The Sense of Order (1979) and The Preference for the Primitive (posthumously in 2002). A complete list of his publications was published by J.B. Trapp, E.H. Gombrich: A Bibliography in 2000. The Story of Art is an introduction to art, written by E. H. Gombrich. ... The Mona Lisa is one of the most recognizable artistic paintings in the Western world. ...

Family

Gombrich was the son of Karl Gombrich and Leonie Hock. Gombrich married Ilse Heller, an accomplished concert pianist, in 1936. (Ilse was a pupil of Ernst's mother, herself a distinguished concert pianist.) Ernst and Ilse's only child, Richard, went on to become a noted Indologist and scholar of Buddhist Studies, acting as the Boden Professor of Sanskrit at Oxford University from 1976 to 2004. Richard Francis Gombrich (born 17 July 1937) is a British Indologist and scholar of Sanskrit, Pāli, and Buddhist Studies. ...

Influence

Gombrich was close to a number of Austrian emigres who fled to the West prior to the Anschluss, among them Karl Popper (to whom he was especially close) and Friedrich Hayek. He was instrumental in bringing to publication Popper's magnum opus The Open Society and Its Enemies. Both knew the other only fleetingly in Vienna, as Gombrich's father (a lawyer) was apprenticed to Popper's father Simon Popper (also a lawyer). They became lifelong friends in exile, both eventually settling in Britain. German troops march into Austria on 12 March 1938. ... Sir Karl Raimund Popper, CH, FRS, FBA, (July 28, 1902 – September 17, 1994), was an Austrian and British[1] philosopher and a professor at the London School of Economics. ... Friedrich August von Hayek, CH (May 8, 1899 in Vienna – March 23, 1992 in Freiburg) was an Austrian-born British economist and political philosopher known for his defense of liberal democracy and free-market capitalism against socialist and collectivist thought in the mid-20th century. ... The Open Society and Its Enemies, Volume Two The Open Society and Its Enemies is an influential two-volume work by Karl Popper written during World War II. Failing to find a publisher in the United States, it was first printed in London, in 1945. ...

Further reading

Sheldon Richmond, Aesthetic Criteria: Gombrich and the Philosophies of Science of Popper and Polanyi. Rodopi, Amsterdam/Atlanta, GA, 1994, 152 pp. ISBN 90-5183-618-X.

Richard Woodfield, Gombrich on Art and Psychology. Manchester University Press, Manchester and New York, 1996, 271pp. ISBN 0-7190-4769-2.

External links

• The Gombrich Archive
• BBC Radio 4 interview about A Little History of the World