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Born in Budapest, 1891; educated at the State Gymnasium in Budapest, University of Budapest, 1909-1914; studied art, archaeology and philosophy, University of Vienna, 1915-1917, under Max Dvorák; awarded the degree Doctor Philosophiae by Vienna University for his thesis 'Die Anfange der italienischen Radierung', 1918; Assistant Keeper, Museum of Fine Arts in Budapest, 1918-1922, where he gained his interest in the study of Old Master drawings, assisted in organising the sequestration of works of art considered of national importance, collaborated with Karl Swoboda on the collected works of Dvorák; Assistant Keeper, then Keeper, Kunsthistorisches Museum, Vienna, 1923-1938; developed the use of x-rays to discover the condition of paintings and the artists' creative process; fearing for the safety of his Hungarian-Jewish wife, they left to visit Holland, 1939, then to England as guests of Sir Kenneth Clark; went to Aberystwyth to look after Count Antoine Seilern's pictures, and assisted with cataloguing the National Gallery's pictures in store there; approached by Arthur Ewart Popham, Keeper of Prints and Drawings at the British Museum, to help write a catalogue of Old Master drawings at Windsor Castle, 1939; interned and deported to a concentration camp in Canada, 1940-1941; allowed to return to England, 1941, resumed his work on the Windsor Castle catalogue and began lecturing at the Courtauld Institute; reader in the History of Art, London University, 1947; Deputy Director of the Courtauld Institute of Art, 1948-1958; Professor of History of Art, 1950; fellow of the British Academy, 1951; published his catalogue of the Michelangelo drawings in the British Museum, 1953; CBE, 1955; member of the Reviewing Committee on the Export of Works of Art, 1957-1963; Serena medal of the British Academy, 1963; died in Dulwich, London, 1970.
Publications: Kunstgeschichte als Geistesgeschichte. Studien zur abendländischen Kunstentwicklung, etc Max Dvorák [edited by Carl M Swoboda and Johannes Wilde](München, 1924); 'Michelangelo and his Studio' by Johannes Wilde (translated by J A Gere and T H Scrutton) 1953, in Italian Drawings in the Department of Prints and Drawings in the British Museum (London, 1950-62); The Italian Drawings of the XV and XVI Centuries ... at Windsor Castle By A E Popham and Johannes Wilde [A catalogue, with reproductions. The sections relating to Michelangelo and his school by J Wilde, translated by J Leveen] (Phaidon Press, London, 1949); Michelangelo's 'Victory' (Oxford University Press, London, 1954); Venetian art from Bellini to Titian (Oxford, Clarendon Press, 1974); Michelangelo: six lectures by Johannes Wilde edited by John Shearman and Michael Hirst (Oxford University Press, 1978); 'The Decoration of the Sistine Chapel' (1958), in Art and Politics in Renaissance Italy: British Academy Lectures edited by George Holmes, (Oxford University Press, 1993); Michelangelo: Selected Scholarship in English [5 volumes], edited by William E Wallace (New York: Garland Publishing Inc, 1995). Includes [volume 1] 'Michelangelo, Vasari, and Condivi' (1978), 'The Hall of the Great Council of Florence' (1944), 'Michelangelo and Leonardo' (1953), [volume 2] 'The Decoration of the Sistine Chapel' (1958), [volume 3] 'Michelangelo's Designs for the Medici Tombs' (1955), 'Notes on the Genesis of Michelangelo's "Leda"' (1957), 'Michelangelo's "Victory"' (1954).