The KU mourns the loss of art historian Professor Michael F. Zimmermann

Until shortly before his death, Zimmermann was a guest - once again - as a "Distinguished Professor" at the Scuola Normale Superiore in Pisa, where he gave a lecture on "The Representation of Time in Art from the Renaissance to Video Art". His courses in Eichstätt would have started again after Easter. Among other things, an introduction to art history, a seminar on "Paris as a center of art and politics since the Enlightenment" and a field trip to the French capital were planned for the summer semester. It now became known that Michael Zimmermann passed away on April 9. 

Michael F. Zimmermann was born in Münster in Westphalia in 1958. He studied art history, philosophy and history at the University of Cologne – combined with stays abroad, first in Rome at the Bibliotheca Hertziana of the Max Planck Institute for Art History and at La Sapienza University, then in Paris at the Sorbonne. In 1985, Zimmermann received his doctorate with a study on "Seurat. His work and the art-theoretical debate of his time". He then worked as a research associate at the Free University in Berlin and at the German Art History Institute in Florence. In 1991, Michael Zimmermann became Second Director of the Central Institute for Art History in Munich. There, the already internationally renowned artist also worked on his habilitation on the "Industrialization of the imagination. The construction of modern Italy and the media system of the arts, 1875-1900". 

In 2001, he was nominated by the Conseil National des Universités as part of an international competition for a list of candidates qualified for French professorships. In the same year, he taught as a visiting professor at the University of Paris X and as "Robert Sterling Clark Visiting Professor" at Williams College Williamstown in Massachusetts. In 2002, Zimmermann was appointed Professor of Modern and Contemporary Art History at the University of Lausanne. Two years later, he moved to the Catholic University of Eichstätt as Chairholder of Art History. Here, too, he maintained his international network: Amsterdam, Berlin, Milan, Paris, Pisa, Trento – as a visiting professor, he traveled through Europe almost every year. 

Zimmermann's research interests focused in particular on the visual arts of the 19th and 20th centuries in France, Italy and Germany. Caspar David Friedrich, Gustave Courbet, Édouard Manet, Edgar Degas, Paul Cézanne, Van Gogh, Claude Monet – almost all the great names appear in his essays. He worked intensively with Impressionism – but also with current and historical theories of the image. Most recently, he worked on studies on visual narratology ("Why images not only show what is, but also make it possible to imagine what is happening") and dealt with the sea as a "place of longing, economic space, refuge and still life". In addition to his habilitation thesis, his long list of publications includes a volume on "19th Century Art. Naturalism - Impressionism - Symbolism" (as part of a 12-volume series on the history of art, published by Beck in 2011), an account of painting, the illustrated press and the media system of the arts at the end of the 19th century in Italy ("Industrialization of the Imagination", Deutscher Kunstverlag 2006) or a book on Lovis Corinth, a leading representative of German Impressionism (Beck 2008).

Michael Zimmermann has been a member of the Bavarian Academy of Sciences and Humanities since 2008 and became a member of the Academia Europaea in 2012. For many years, he was the spokesperson for the Master's degree program "Aisthesis. Historical Art and Literature Discourses" in the Elite Network of Bavaria. Zimmermann was also involved in many different ways at the KU, whether as Vice Dean, member of the Senate or spokesperson for the "Dialog Cultures" research training group. Most recently, he was involved in the DFG-funded research training group "Practicing Place - Sociocultural Practices and Epistemic Configurations". 

Michael Zimmermann was also an exceptional teacher, a caring and close companion to his students and doctoral candidates, witty, humorous and kind. He combined profound scientific knowledge of his subject with interdisciplinary vision. He equipped his students with a solid foundation in art history and its methods, while at the same time infecting them with his passion for art. His lectures and field trips were journeys into cultural and social history that went far beyond the expected horizons of his subject. 

With Michael Zimmermann, the Catholic University of Eichstätt-Ingolstadt has lost an enthusiastic teacher, an outstanding researcher and a unique, warm-hearted person. It is saddened by the untimely death of Professor Zimmermann and will honor his memory.

Obituary of the Chair team
Obituary of the Central Institute for Art History Munich

A memorial service at the KU is currently being planned.