Joseph Koerner

June 17, 1958

Pittsburgh, Allegheny County, United States of America

He is currently a Victor South. Thomas Professor of the History of Art and Architecture at Harvard University. Specializing in Northern Renaissance and 19th-century art, Koerner is perhaps best known for his work on German art After teaching at Harvard from 1989 to 2000, he moved to London, where he taught at University College, London and the Courtauld Institute before returning to Harvard in 2007. He served as Director of Undergraduate Studies in the History of Art and Architecture department until 2012. His senior thesis, published in 1983 in German titled Die Suche nach dem Labyrinth ("In Quest of the Labyrinth"), treated the myth of Daedalus and Icarus from Ancient Greek art and literature through James Joyce. In articles written while in graduate school, on topics ranging from early Chinese bronzes through Renaissance painting to contemporary art, Koerner focused on problems of meaning and developed his distinctive technique: fine-grained analysis of the effect images have on the beholder. Caspar David Friedrich and the Subject of Landscape became the third volume of Koerner’s trilogy on German art The first volume, The Moment of Self-Portraiture in German Renaissance Art (1993), studied Albrecht Dürer’s self-portraits and their distortion by Dürer’s disciple, Hans Baldung Grien. While writing the latter book, Koerner collaborated with Bruno Latour and Peter Weibel on the 2002 exhibition Iconoclash at the Zentrum für Kunst und Medientechnologie in Karlsruhe. He has also curated exhibitions of his father’s work, including a 1997 retrospective at the Austrian National Gallery. In Great Britain, Koerner is known for his work as writer and presenter of the Northern Renaissance (2006) and Vienna: City of Dreams (2008). A popular speaker, Koerner has delivered the Slade Lectures at Cambridge (2003), the Getty Lectures at University of Southern California (2005), the Bross Lectures at University of Chicago (2007), the Mellon Lectures at the National Gallery (2008), and the Tanner Lectures in Human Values at Cambridge (2012). Koerner’s most recent publications concern the theme of enmity in the art of Hieronymus Bosch. Koerner serves on the Board of Visitors of Ralston College, a new liberal arts college in Savannah.

Joseph Koerner

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historian art historian

Background

Son of the Vienna-born American painter Henry Koerner, Joseph Koerner was raised in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, and Vienna, Austria.

Education

He attended Yale University where received his Bachelor of Arts in History, the Arts, and Letters in 1980. After an Master of Arts in English at Cambridge University (Master of Arts 1982) and a year studying philosophy at Heidelberg University (1983), Koerner received his Doctor of Philosophy in art history at the University of California, Berkeley in 1988.

Career

He is currently a Victor South. Thomas Professor of the History of Art and Architecture at Harvard University. Specializing in Northern Renaissance and 19th-century art, Koerner is perhaps best known for his work on German art After teaching at Harvard from 1989 to 2000, he moved to London, where he taught at University College, London and the Courtauld Institute before returning to Harvard in 2007.

He served as Director of Undergraduate Studies in the History of Art and Architecture department until 2012.

His senior thesis, published in 1983 in German titled Die Suche nach dem Labyrinth ("In Quest of the Labyrinth"), treated the myth of Daedalus and Icarus from Ancient Greek art and literature through James Joyce. In articles written while in graduate school, on topics ranging from early Chinese bronzes through Renaissance painting to contemporary art, Koerner focused on problems of meaning and developed his distinctive technique: fine-grained analysis of the effect images have on the beholder.

Caspar David Friedrich and the Subject of Landscape became the third volume of Koerner’s trilogy on German art The first volume, The Moment of Self-Portraiture in German Renaissance Art (1993), studied Albrecht Dürer’s self-portraits and their distortion by Dürer’s disciple, Hans Baldung Grien.

While writing the latter book, Koerner collaborated with Bruno Latour and Peter Weibel on the 2002 exhibition Iconoclash at the Zentrum für Kunst und Medientechnologie in Karlsruhe.

He has also curated exhibitions of his father’s work, including a 1997 retrospective at the Austrian National Gallery. In Great Britain, Koerner is known for his work as writer and presenter of the Northern Renaissance (2006) and Vienna: City of Dreams (2008). A popular speaker, Koerner has delivered the Slade Lectures at Cambridge (2003), the Getty Lectures at University of Southern California (2005), the Bross Lectures at University of Chicago (2007), the Mellon Lectures at the National Gallery (2008), and the Tanner Lectures in Human Values at Cambridge (2012).

Koerner’s most recent publications concern the theme of enmity in the art of Hieronymus Bosch.

Koerner serves on the Board of Visitors of Ralston College, a new liberal arts college in Savannah.

Achievements

Koerner used this technique most extensively in the opening chapters of his first art history book, Caspar David Friedrich and the Subject of Landscape (1990, Winner of the 1992 Mitchell Prize)—written while the author was a Junior Fellow at Harvard’s Society of Fellows. In 2009, Koerner was one of three recipients of the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation"s Distinguished Achievement Award, which funds a current film project on Vienna.

Works

Other Work
- The Moment of Self-portraiture in German Renaissance Art (Paperback) - Common
  (In this study, Joseph Koerner establishes the character o...)
- Joseph Leo Koerner: The Reformation of the Image (Paperback); 2008 Edition
- The Moment of Self-portraiture in German Renaissance Art by Joseph Leo Koerner (6-Feb-1997) Paperback
- Joseph Leo Koerner: The Moment of Self-Portraiture in German Renaissance Art (Paperback); 1997 Edition

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Joseph Koerner

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Guggenheim Fellowship