Philipp Fehl

Philipp Pinchas Fehl (May 9, 1920 – September 11, 2000) was an Austrian born American artist and art historian.

Fehl was born in Vienna, Austria, to Hugo Fehl and Friederike "Frieda" Fehl (née Beck - previous married name Singer).

He was the cousin of the renowned ballet photographer Fred Fehl.

His older cousin, Paul Eisler, attended Gymnasium, and Fehl determined that he also wanted this classical higher education for gifted students.

Fehl became a refugee in 1938, eventually emigrating to the United States in 1941.

He became an artist, author and lecturer at several universities.

He worked for a time in Birmingham as an apprentice commercial artist with the firm Stagg Displays before immigrating to the United States of America in 1940, becoming a citizen in 1943.

From 1940 to 1942, Fehl attended the School of the Art Institute of Chicago, where he studied painting.

From 1941 through 1942 he attended the School of the Art Institute of Chicago in Fine Arts, Painting.

In 1943, he transferred to Stanford University, where he got his B.A. in Romance Languages.

In 1943 he enrolled in the US Army.

From 1945 to 1946 he worked as instructor to the Office of the Provost Marshal General's re-educational program for German Prisoners of War at Camp Butner, North Carolina.

In 1945 he married Raina Fehl daughter of the writer Erich Fritz Schweinburg, also born in Vienna.

After his discharge from the Army, he and Raina were given appointments as interrogators at the Nuremberg War Crimes Tribunal (1946–1947).

Through his work at the trials, he became well acquainted with a number of war criminals who had exercised direct influence on German art as well as others who committed crimes against humanity.

He gives detailed descriptions of his work at the trials in the portion of his memoirs entitled "The Ghosts of Nuremberg",

In 1948, Fehl received his M.A. in History of Art from Stanford University.

Fehl was at the University of Chicago from 1948 to 1952.

He was one of the graduate students participating in the Committee on Social Thought.

His Master's Thesis, "A Stylistic Analysis of Some Propaganda Posters of World War II", 1948, showed the existence, and defined the formal manifestations of the international "Blut und Boden" style which governed the propaganda art of countries confronting each other in World War II.

In 1948 he moved back to Chicago, where he continued his studies at the University of Chicago in painting and graphic arts as well as history of art.

At the University of Chicago, he was friends with the now renowned philosopher, Seth Benardete and the comedians Severn Darden, Elaine May and Mike Nichols.

While studying he also began to teach, 1949–1950 photography with the Youth Program of Temple Sinai, Chicago, 1951–1952 as director of The Bateman School, Chicago, 1951–1954 as a lecturer in art at University College, University of Chicago ("Experimental figure drawing according to 18th century methods") and 1951–1963 as an instructor in Home Studies, University of Chicago ("Elementary Figure Drawing in the Academic Tradition").

He started academic teaching in 1951 as a lecturer at the University of Chicago and, after holding a number of other academic appointments and receiving numerous honours (see list), retired in 1990 as Professor Emeritus from the University of Illinois.

In 1963 he received g a Ph.D. with a dissertation on "The Classical Monument: Reflections on the Connection Between Morality and Art in Greek and Roman Sculpture."

In 1963 he obtained his Ph.D. from the University of Chicago; Philipp Fehl was one of the graduate students participating in the Committee on Social Thought, and his thesis, The Classical Monument: Reflections on the Connection Between Morality and Art, was written under the committee's aegis (his thesis was partly published in 1972 as "The Classical Monument", see bibliography).

In 1972 a version of this study was published by the New York University Press.

The Atlantic Monthly, vol. 229, no. 3, March 1972, 70–80.

He returned to Stanford University, taking a B.A. in Romance Languages, French, and an M.A. in History of Art.

He retired as Professor Emeritus from the University of Illinois at Champaign-Urbana in 1990.

In the same year he and his wife the classicist Raina Fehl, initiated the Cicognara Project at the Vatican Library.

From childhood on he drew and painted whenever possible.

He was accepted and attended Bundes Real Gymnasium and continued to attend school after the Anschluß.

After Matura, (graduation), he emigrated to England.

He and his work are discussed in the comic-philosophical novel Harmony Junction by Goddard Graves (2009, privately published).

He began to make pen and ink drawings of bird like characters (who closely resembled him physically) dressed in the peruke and trousers of the 18th century.

He called these drawings "capricci".

The bulk of these capricci are now preserved in the Exile's archives at the German National Library, Deutsche Nationalbibliothek.

College Art Association of America, Renaissance Society of America, South Eastern Renaissance Society, Central Renaissance Society, American Society for Aesthetics and Art Criticism, Midwest Art History Society, Midwest Medieval Society of America, International Survey of Jewish Monuments.

Fehl was married to classicist Raina Fehl.