Wolfgang and Ursula Stechow Papers, 1894-1998 (span)
| Oberlin College Archives
Administrative/Biographical History
Wolfgang (Ferdinand Ernst Günther Wolfgang) Stechow taught art history at Oberlin for twenty-three years. He was born in Kiel, Germany on June 5, 1896 to Waldemar and Berta Deutschmann Stechow. Waldemar Stechow was a State Attorney in Prussia and a musician; Berta Deutschmann Stechow was also a musician. Wolfgang Stechow’s early education was in the humanistic gymnasium in Göttingen, where he studied Latin, Greek, French, English, and mathematics. He spent his spare time in the study of music, accompanying his mother and playing in various chamber groups.
His university career, begun at Frieburg but interrupted by World War I, resumed at Göttingen, where he received his Ph.D. in 1921 in the history of Northern Renaissance and Baroque art. In 1921-22, Stechow was a Voluntary Assistant at the Kaiser Fredrich Museum in Berlin. He was an assistant to Dr. C. Hofstede de Groot in Hague, Holland (1922-23) and to the Institute of Art History at the University of Göttingen (1923). He began teaching at Göttingen as a “Privatdozent” in 1926, rising by 1931 to the rank of Professor Extraordinarius. During his tenure at Göttingen, Stechow was a member of the German Institute of Art History in Florence, Italy, 1927-28, and a guest professor at the Biblical Hertziana in Rome, 1931. Disagreeing with Nazi rule of Germany, Stechow moved overseas and accepted a position as an Acting Assistant Professor at the University of Wisconsin (1936); he was promoted to Associate Professor at Wisconsin the following year. He became a United States citizen in 1942.
Stechow was appointed Professor of Fine Arts at Oberlin in 1940 and retired in 1963, but retained the title of Emeritus Professor until his death. In 1945 he was named the Adelia A. Field Johnston Professor of Fine Arts. He returned to Oberlin College in 1972 as Distinguished Visiting Professor, and, in 1973, became an Honorary Curator of the Allen Art Museum. There, with a 1973 grant from the National Endowment for the Arts, Stechow directed the publication of the first complete catalog of the Allen Art Museum’s collection of European and American painting and sculpture. He also compiled the Museum’s catalog of European and American drawings and served as editor of the Museum’s Bulletin.
After his retirement, Stechow was appointed Visiting Professor at University of Michigan, 1963-64, Robert Sterling Clark Professor of Art at Williams College, 1966-67, William Allan Neilson Chair of Research at Smith College, 1969, Mary Conover Mellon Professor at Vassar College, 1969-70, and Visiting Professor at Yale University, 1971-72. During 1964-66, Stechow served as the Advisory Curator on European Art to the Cleveland Museum of Art. He was also appointed the Kress Professor in Residence at the National Gallery of Art in Washington, D.C. Stechow taught summer sessions at Harvard, New York University, and Middlebury College.
He received an honorary L.H.D. degree from the University of Michigan in 1964. Stechow received an honorary Doctor of Fine Arts degree from Oberlin in 1967, and from Baldwin-Wallace College in 1973. Two days before his death in 1974, Stechow learned he was the recipient of the 1975 Award of Art Dealers Association of America for excellence in art history.
He held research grants from the Institute for Advanced Study at Princeton, the American Philosophical Society, and Oberlin College. He was the director and vice president of the College Art Association of America, trustee of the American Society for Aesthetics, a member of the National Committee on the History of Art and of the advisory councils of the Renaissance Society of America and the Germanic languages at Princeton. He was a member of the Fulbright Selection Committee and the Archeological Institute of America.
Stechow’s list of publications is lengthy. His most notable publications include Dutch Landscape Painting of the Seventeenth Century (1966), Northern Renaissance Art, 1400-1600: Sources and Documents (1967), Rubens and the Classical Tradition (1968) from the Martin Classical Series Lectures, and Pieter Brueghel (1971).
In 1975, the Allen Memorial Art Museum honored Stechow by naming a print study room in the newly remodeled section of the Museum after him.
Stechow married Ursula Hoff (February 15, 1911-January 16, 2008) of Hanover, Germany, a 1942 graduate of Oberlin College, on December 16, 1932. Ursula and Wolfgang met at the University of Göttingen, where Ursula was a student, studying medicine. Wolfgang conducted the orchestra in which Ursula performed. A lifelong music connoisseur, Ursula played the violin and later was a sponsor of the arts in Oberlin.
Ursula Stechow spoke several languages and taught French at Langston Middle School in Oberlin. She was known throughout the community for her dedication and involvement with the arts. She was often called “the bird lady of Oberlin,” a reflection of her compassion for animals.
The couple had three children, Hans Axel Stechow, enrolled at Oberlin College, 1945-53, Barbara Stechow Harris ’60, and Nicola Stechow Memmott ’68.
Wolfgang Stechow died at Princeton Hospital in Princeton, New Jersey, apparently of a heart attack on October 12, 1974. Ursula Stechow died on January 16, 2008 in Oberlin.
Sources Consulted
Faculty File of Wolfgang Stechow, Alumni Records (RG 28/4), and the papers of Wolfgang Stechow (RG 30/238).
Author: Jonathan M. Thurn, Anne Cuyler Salsich Forms of Material (links to similar genres)ephemera - printed ephemera
exhibition catalogs
lecture notes
letters (correspondence)
librettos
manuscripts
music
photographs - photographic prints
photogravures (prints)
plays (performed works)
poems
postcards
prints (visual works)
publications
records (documents)
reproductions
short stories
speeches
translations
Administrative InformationClarence Ward Papers (RG 30/158).
Allen Memorial Art Museum Records (RG 9/3).
Recorded art history lectures by Wolfgang Stechow reside in the Art Department Records (RG 9/28).
Recorded assembly talk by Wolfgang Stechow, “Humanities and Science: Cold War or Alliance?”, 17 May 1962, in Communications Office records (RG 18).
The papers of Wolfgang Stechow and his wife Ursula Hoff Stechow primarily document facets of Wolfgang Stechow’s greatest academic interest—the history of art. His non-textual research and teaching materials, correspondence, and academic papers all serve to enlighten the scholar of Stechow's teaching methods, professional esteem by colleagues, and scholastic topics.
These research and teaching materials, which make up the bulk of the Stechow papers, include photographs, study prints, and postcards of primarily European art from the Renaissance through the 1960s used by Stechow in describing individual works of art and their related styles of composition to students in his art history courses.
Stechow's professional correspondence forms the second largest organizational group in the collection. This correspondence consists of letters, greeting cards and postcards. The majority of these letters come from colleagues with questions pertaining to particular works of art, and are written in both German and English. However, there are few copies of replies from Stechow in the collection. Also of interest, this series includes Stechow's correspondence with Dean Wittke (January 1939 through November 1939) pertaining to Stechow's possible appointment to the art faculty at Oberlin College.
This collection also includes two of Stechow's Senior Assembly Addresses in which he discussed the relationship of scientific or analytic and humanistic or empathic subjects. Several published and unpublished works by Stechow, including two comments on published works, a lengthy art catalog entry, an editorial on the teaching of art history, a paper discussing Giuseppe Cesari's "Christus in Gethsemane" from the Allen Art Museum, and a biography of Johann Sebastian Bach the Younger, reprinted from De Artibus Opuscula XI are included in his writings. Also included are Stechow's annual reports, which document his yearly activities and plans for the upcoming year.
This collection does not fully document Stechow’s wider activities in the community or the college, or his work before and after his tenure at Oberlin. Also, the documentation concerning Stechow's personal life is limited to his faculty file held by the Oberlin College Archives. Similarly, there is very little personal material in Ursula Stechow’s materials.
The collection is divided into two subgroups, one for Wolfgang Stechow and the other for Ursula Stechow. The Wolfgang Stechow materials are organized into the following series: 1. Correspondence; 2. Speeches; 3. Research and Teaching Materials; 4. Writings; 5. Ephemera; and 6. Personal Photographs. The Ursula Stechow materials are organized into three series: 1. General Correspondence; 2. Translations, Research Files, and Associated Correspondence; and 3. Publications.
SUBGROUP AND SERIES DESCRIPTIONS
Subgroup I. Wolfgang Stechow Papers, 1894, 1903-04, 1924-77, 1981, n.d.
(8.26 l.f.)
The bulk of the papers was created and collected by Wolfgang Stechow, organized in six series in subgroup one. The Research and Teaching Materials in series 3 represents by far the greater part of the papers.
Series 1. Correspondence, 1915-73, n.d. (1.45 I.f.)
The Correspondence series consists of letters (mostly incoming), greeting cards, and postcards from relatives and colleagues, many of which are written in German. Many of the letters come from colleagues asking Stechow's opinions regarding a particular piece of art, a photograph of which they sent with the letter. These letters also include Stechow's correspondence with Dean Wittke of Oberlin College (January 1939 through November 1939) regarding Stechow's possible, and later eventual, appointment to the Oberlin College faculty.
Series 2. Speeches, 1960, 1962 (1 folder, 0.01 I.f.)
This small series includes one folder containing two of Stechow's Senior Assembly Addresses. "Communication and Communion" was delivered on 21 April 1960 in Finney Chapel and "Humanities and Science: Cold War or Alliance?" was delivered on 17 May 1962.
Series 3. Research and Teaching Materials, 1894, 1903-04, c. 1926-36,
1939-41, c. 1947, 1953, c. 1955, 1958-60, 1962, n.d. (6.41 l.f.)
The Research and Teaching Materials series include photographs, postcards, and prints used by Stechow in his research and in describing individual works of art and their related styles of composition to students in his art history courses. Some of the materials had been grouped by Stechow in artist, subject, or time period classifications (alphabetical order), but the larger portion of the collection was grouped by medium represented. These materials include photogravures and fine prints of works of art, primarily in black and white. Of special interest in this series is a folder of photographs and descriptive passages where Stechow attached attributive and stylistic information to particular art works. Included among the files are two uncompleted art history tests with handwritten notes on the reverse and programs for Oberlin Musical Union and Vespers performances.
Series 4. Writings, 1924-74, 1981, n.d. (6 folders, 0.30 I.f.)
The Writings series contains Stechow's scholarly articles and publications, other writings Stechow collected, and his yearly reports to the president of Oberlin College. His scholarly articles include "Justice Holmes' Notes on Albert Durer," in The Journal ofAesthetics and Art Criticism, December 1949; an unpublished review of Thomas Munro's The Arts and their Interrelations, 1949; an unpublished catalog entry for A Grand Seaport by Tomas Major; "Art History in America," in The Burlington Magazine, January 1962; an unpublished article entitled "Giuseppe Cesari's 'Christus in Gethsemane' in Allen Memorial Art Museum in Oberlin," in German; and "Johann Sebastian Bach the Younger" in Essays in Honor of Erwin Panofsky, 1961. Also included in this series are Stechow's annual reports, which document his yearly activities and plans for the upcoming year.
Series 5. Ephemera, n.d. (2 items)
Comprises a custom bookplate with Stechow’s name in the design, and an invitation made out to Stechow to a private event at the Galerie Cailleux in Paris, France. The fine art gallery operated from 1912 to 1989.
Series 6. Personal Photograph, c. 1930s (1 item)
Only one personal photograph exists in the papers, and it is an unidentified wedding portrait of a family group outdoors.
Subgroup II. Ursula Stechow Papers, 1932, c. 1940s-50s, 1963-67, 1981, 1985,
1993, 1998, n.d. (0.6 l.f.)
Series 1. General Correspondence, 1956, 1963
Comprises two letters not associated with translation projects.
Series 2. Translations, Research Files, and Associated Correspondence,
c. 1940s-50s, 1964-67, 1981, 1985, 1993, 1998, n.d.
This series holds most of the material originating with Ursula Stechow. It includes material relating to Emmi Bonhoeffer’s visit to Oberlin to give an Assembly Talk in 1950, and correspondence with John Knox Press regarding Ursula’s translation of Bonhoeffer’s “Witnesses in the Auschwitz Trial,” as well as the translation manuscripts. The largest project represented in the papers is a German translation by Stechow of Carl T. Rowan’s Breaking Barriers, A Memoir (1991). Smaller projects include poems, choral works, operas, and short stories or novellas.
Series 3. Publications, 1932, 1985
Comprises only two items in German, an article and a small printed booklet.