Gertrud Bing
{{infobox person
|name=Gertrud Bing
|birth_date={{birth date|1892|6|7|df=y}}
|birth_place=Hamburg, German Empire
|death_date={{death date and age|1964|7|3|1892|6|7|df=y}}
|death_place= University College London, London, United Kingdom
|nationality=German
|occupation={{flatlist|
- Art historian
- director
}}
}}
Gertrud Bing (7 June 1892 – 3 July 1964) was a German art historian and director of the Warburg Institute.{{cite news |title=Prof. Gertrud Bing |work=The Times |page= 12 |date= 5 July 1964}}
Biography
Gertrud Bing was born in Hamburg on 7 June 1892, to Moritz
Bing, a merchant, and Emma Jonas.{{cite ODNB |last1=Frankfort |first1=Enriqueta |title=Bing, Gertrud (1892–1964), scholar |url=https://doi.org/10.1093/ref:odnb/31887 |access-date=2 May 2025 |location=Oxford |date=2004|doi=10.1093/ref:odnb/31887 }} Bing originally trained as a school teacher, and taught for eighteen months during the early 1910s.
Education
In 1916, Bing enrolled at the University of Munich and studied philosophy, German literature, and psychology. Bing returned to teaching in 1918, before resuming her studies at the University of Hamburg in 1919. Gaining her PhD in 1921, Bing's doctoral dissertation focused on the works of Gotthold Ephraim Lessing and Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz, and was supervised by Ernst Cassirer.{{Cite web|url=http://arthistorians.info/bingg|title=Dictionary of Art Historians - Gertrud Bing; Gertrude Bing|website=arthistorians.info|access-date=2016-03-28|archive-date=2019-03-20|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20190320203541/http://arthistorians.info/bingg|url-status=dead}}
Career
=Kulturwissenschaftlichen Bibliothek Warburg=
In 1922, Bing began working as a librarian at the ″Kulturwissenschaftlichen Bibliothek Warburg″, founded by Aby Warburg.
=Warburg Institute=
In December 1933, the ″Kulturwissenschaftlichen Bibliothek Warburg″ was moved to London when the Nazis rose to power, becoming the Warburg Institute. With her partner, Fritz Saxl, the new institute's first director, she settled in Dulwich. Saxl died in 1948, and was succeeded as director by Henri Frankfort.
After the death of Frankfort in 1954, Bing in 1955 became director of the institute and Professor of the History of the Classical Tradition. She held these posts until her retirement in 1959. Gertrud Bing died in 1964 in London, following a brief illness.
Writings
- Fragments sur Aby Warburg. Documents originaux et leur traduction française. Avant-propos de Carlo Ginzburg. Edited by Philippe Despoix and Martin Treml. Paris 2019.
References
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Category:Directors of the Warburg Institute
Category:German art historians
Category:German emigrants to the United Kingdom
Category:German women historians
Category:German women art historians
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