Ettlinger , Leopold David , 1913-1989 , art historian and curator

Leopold David Ettlinger was born in Königsberg (now Kaliningrad, Russia), where his father was the university librarian, 1913. He studied at the Universities of Halle and Marburg, receiving his doctorate in 1937. He left Germany in 1938 because of his Jewish background and settled in England, working at the Warburg Institute under Fritz Saxl. With other Warburg staff, he was briefly interned on the Isle of Man in 1940 and became a member of the Institute on his release. During 1941-1948 Ettlinger worked as a schoolteacher in Birmingham, before returning to the Warburg Institute as Assistant to the Curator of the Photographic Collection (1948-1950); subsequently he was Assistant Curator (1950-1953) and Curator (1953-1956) of the Photographic Collection, and then a Lecturer at the Institute (1956-1964). From 1959 he was also a Professor at the Slade School of Art, becoming chair of the department in 1966. In 1970 Ettlinger left England for the University of California at Berkeley, where he remained until his retirement in 1980. He died in 1989. His research covered many aspects of art history.