Hans Himmelheber

African Arts, Spring, 2004 by Lorenz Homberger

Last November 27 the eminent German anthropologist Hans Himmelheber peacefully passed away at the age of 95 in his home in Heidelberg. Scholars and lovers of African art owe him much gratitude.

In fourteen expeditions Hans Himmelheber focused his research on the artistic skills of traditional African sculptors. As early as 1933, while studying anthropology in Munich, Berlin, and Tubingen, he pursued his first research among Guru and Baule sculptors of central Cote d'Ivoire. In 1935 he completed his doctoral examinations with the dissertation "Negerkunstler: Ethnographische Studien uber den Schnitzkunstler bei den Stammen der Atutu und der Guru im Innern der Elfenbeinkuste." Extended interviews with seventeen individual local artists enabled him to acquire information important to African art historical studies. Dr. Himmelheber sought not only to understand the personalities and techniques of traditional woodcarvers but also, and for the first time in Africa, to raise questions about indigenous aesthetic values and ideals, art for art's sake, and the nature of portraiture. He insisted that African sculpture be understood as art, and he celebrated its makers as true artists. In 1935 this was an extremely unusual approach. His dissertation could not have been appreciated in official Berlin!

Following two expeditions to central Cote d'Ivoire, Hans Himmelheber's inquiries continued in a completely different region of the world. After a lecture tour in the United States in 1936, on the advice of Franz Boas he went to Alaska for ten months, where he pursued the questions that he had asked in West Africa, but now among traditional sculptors and painters on the island of Nunivak. The result of this fieldwork was first published in 1938 as Eskimokunstler and recently in English as Eskimo Artists (University of Alaska Press, 1993). His other ethnographic studies were translated into English and edited by Anne Fienup-Riordan (Where the Echo Began, University of Alaska Press, 2000).

In 1938 Dr. Himmelheber went on another extended journey to Cameroon, Gabon, and the Congo. All his prewar expeditions were basically supported by the ethnographic museums in Basel, Munich, and Geneva. In return, he offered them remarkable collections of ethnographic and art historical interest. To express his gratitude for being allowed to do field research as a German citizen in what was then a French territory (Cote d'Ivoire), Himmelheber donated to the French governor what he considered to be his finest acquisition, which is now celebrated as one of the most important Baule works of art, a figurative divination pot. This great sculpture, published in at least thirty publications on African art, eventually went to the Music de l'Homme and is now permanently exhibited in the recently opened wing of the Louvre.

Surprised by the outbreak of World War II, Himmelheber was forced to return from the Congo to Germany and serve in the army. During the war he was ordered to study medicine at the University of Freiburg; he finished his degree in 1949 at the University of Heidelberg with a dissertation, in dermatology, on the tattooing tradition of the Inuit people. That same year, together with his wife, Ulrike, he returned to West Africa, this time to the Liberian hinterland. The result of their ethnographic research was a monograph on the Dan people, published in 1959. In 1960, with the publication Negerkunst und Negerkunstler, Himmelheber became the most respected historian of African art in the German-speaking world.

In later years Dr. Himmelheber shared his research with his stepson, Eberhard Fischer. As director of the Museum Rietberg from 1972 to 1997, Fischer invited his stepfather to join him as guest curator for a number of exhibitions, such as "The Arts of the Dan," "Die Kultur der Baule," "Gold in der Kunst Westafrikas," "Zaire 1937/38," and "Masken der Dan und We." All these projects involved not only masks and figurative sculptures collected by Himmelheber but also his abundant archive of excellent field photographs. These precious prewar documents are proof of the author's very personal and respectful relationship with the people with whom he lived and worked.

As a freelance art anthropologist, Hans Himmelheber's connoisseurship and knowledge, acquired through fieldwork in many parts of Africa, was highly respected. Collectors of the "first generation," such as Eduard vonder Heydt, sought his services and the support of his research. Himmelheber never intended to work on a permanent basis in a governmental institution or museum. He preferred to be free to pursue his research interests. His numerous publications are proof of this independence. As a guest professor, he lectured on African art at American universities, including Columbia University in New York. There he taught a number of students who eventually became professionals in the fields of African art and anthropology. He was also a member of the highly respected Heidelberg Academy of Science.