Prominent British architectural and design historian

Few art historians in the 20th century were as important or influential as Dr Nikolaus Pevsner who died on 18 August, 1983, aged 81.

The German-born Pevsner was devoted to the study of architecture, design and art in his adopted country and many of his publications are regarded as classics in their genre and have been reprinted countless times.

He was a champion of the Modern Movement and his strongly voiced opinions did much to force a sea-change in the architectural climate in Britain in the 1940s.

Dr Pevsner is probably best known today for his monumental 47 volume series, The Buildings of England, a county-by-county guide to English architecture which is widely regarded as one of the great achievements of 20 th century art scholarship.

Nikolaus Bernard Leon Pevsner was born on 30 January, 1902, in Leipzig , Germany , the son of a Jewish merchant. He developed an interest in art and architecture in school and went on to study art history at the Universities of Leipzig, Munich and Frankfurt .

From 1924 to 1928 he worked at the Dresden Gallery and also assisted the director of the Dresden International Art Exhibition in 1925. From 1929 to 1923 he lectured on the history of art and architecture at Gottingen University .

He developed an interest in English architecture and travelled to Britain in 1930. With the growing rise of Nazism, Dr Pevsner, left Germany in 1934 and settled in England , eventually taking British citizenship in 1946.

Working as a lecturer, Dr Pevsner made a name for himself in Britain in 1936 when he published Pioneers of the Modern Movement. The book underwent countless reprints and was translated into many languages. It remains a focal point in debates about the nature and practice of design.

From 1942 to 1945 Pevsner edited the Architectural Review. Under his stewardship it became a force for Modernism and did much to change architectural thinking in Britain.

In 1951 he embarked upon what would become his landmark work. The Buildings of England catalogued and appraised the architecture of England by county and would eventually run to 47 volumes. Dr Pevsner’s marathon undertaking was completed in 1974.

From 1953, Dr Pevsner originated and edited the Pelican History of Art which became one of the most authoritative works on the visual arts in the English language.

After periods as the Slade Professor of Fine Art at both Oxford and Cambridge Universities , he became the first Professor of the History of Art at Birkbeck College, University of London, remaining there until his retirement in 1969. Dr

Pevsner married Karola Kurlbaum, the daughter of a distinguished Berlin lawyer, in 1923 and was distraught when she died suddenly in 1963.

He was appointed a CBE in 1953 and awarded a knighthood in 1969 for ‘services to art and architecture’. Pevsner was also a Gold Medallist of the Royal Institute of British Architects and held many honorary degrees.

Without doubt, Dr Pevsner was the 20 th century’s pre-eminent scholar of art and architectural history. His Buildings of England is a masterpiece in the true sense of the word and will be the definitive authority on English architecture for generations to come.

Jonathon Meades, writing in the Observer in 2001 hailed it as “the greatest endeavour of popular architectural scholarship in the world.”