Oskar Hagen (art historian)

Oskar Leonhard Frank Hagen ( born October 14, 1888 in Wiesbaden, † October 5, 1957 in Madison, Wisconsin) was a German art historian and founder of the Handel Festival in Göttingen.

Life

Hagen studied from 1908 musicology and art history. In 1913 he moved to Halle ( Saale) and received his PhD in 1914. After his habilitation in 1918, he worked in Göttingen as a lecturer in art history. As an amateur musician, he was there the first who brought back a Handel opera to the stage after nearly two hundred years. By edited by him music and German text Rodelinde (1920 ), Otto and Theophano (1921) and Julius Caesar (1922 ) were performed.

His two most important works as an art historian were Matthias Grünewald (1919) and German vision ( 1920), both of which experienced several editions.

1924 Hagen received a calling to Madison in the United States. In English language appeared Patterns and Principles of Spanish Art (1936) and The Birth of the American tradition in Art ( 1940).

Hagen was married to Thyra Leisner and is the father of Holger Hagen and Uta Hagen.