Sir Ernst Hans Josef Gombrich (1909-2001), Art historian

Sitter in 8 portraits
Austrian-born art historian. After studying at university in Vienna, he emigrated to London in 1936, when he joined the staff of the Warburg Institute. He was the Director and Professor of History of the Classical Tradition there from 1959 to 1976. His book The Story of Art (1950) became one of the most widely-read and influential general introductions to art history; his later works include Art and Illusion (1960), a study of the psychology of pictorial representation, Norm and Form (1966) and The Sense of Order (1979). He was knighted in 1972 and awarded the Order of Merit in 1988.