Science & invention / Visual art
Rudolf Arnheim
1904–2007 · art and film theorist, psychologist
German-born theorist of art and visual perception, author of Art and Visual Perception, who spent his last three decades in Ann Arbor and taught at the University of Michigan.
- Born
Berlin, Germany- Died
Ann Arbor, Michigan
aged 102- Detroit years
- 1974–2007
01 / The Detroit story
The Detroit story
Arnheim was born in Berlin in 1904 and studied Gestalt psychology there under Max Wertheimer and Wolfgang Köhler; his 1932 book Film als Kunst was one of the first serious theories of cinema. As a Jewish writer he left Germany in 1933, working in Italy and England before settling in the United States. He taught for many years at Sarah Lawrence College and from 1968 at Harvard. His major work, Art and Visual Perception (1954, revised 1974), applied the psychology of perception to painting and sculpture and was translated into fourteen languages. In 1974 he retired to Ann Arbor with his wife, Mary, and for about ten years he taught as a visiting professor at the University of Michigan. He lived in Ann Arbor until his death in 2007, at 102.
Highlights
- Art and Visual Perception (1954; new version 1974), translated into 14 languages
- Film als Kunst (1932), an early landmark of film theory
- Visual Thinking (1969) and The Power of the Center (1982)
- Visiting professor at the University of Michigan for about ten years after 1974
02 / Their Detroit places
Their Detroit places 1
Where they lived, worked, performed and liked to hang out. Closed and demolished places stay here too, because they are part of the city's history.
Worked here · 1974–1980s
University of Michigan
He taught here as a visiting professor for about a decade after retiring to Ann Arbor.