WULFF, OSKAR. — Archaeologist, born on 6 June 1864 in St Petersburg to a family of German and Protestant origin, died in Berlin on 23 January 1946.
From 1876 to 1882 he attended the Reval Gymnasium and pursued his studies in classical philology, archaeology, and art history at the Universities of Dorpat (1882–86), Berlin (1888–89), and Leipzig (1892–94). In 1895 he entered the Russian Archaeological Institute of Constantinople (1895–98), where he began his profound studies of Byzantine art under Uspenskij, also undertaking journeys in Asia Minor, to Mount Athos, and in Greece. In 1895 he became an inspector at the Kaiser-Friedrich-Museum, and in 1902 a Privatdozent at the University of Berlin, where he prepared his catalogue of the collection of Early Christian, Byzantine, and medieval Italian art (1909 and 1911). He was subsequently secretary at the German Institute in Florence. He returned to Berlin in 1905 as a professor at the University (1917); he was then promoted to director of the Kaiser-Friedrich-Museum, a position he held until 1926, when he retired, while remaining a professor at the University. O. W. was the first in Germany to devote himself to the study of Byzantine art and, through his handbook (I. Die altchristliche Kunst, 1913–14 and II. Die byzantinische Kunst, 1915), he disseminated the study of this discipline. His principal publications were: Chernobim, Throne und Seraphim (diss., Altenburg 1894); Spätanthe und koptische Stoffe (in collaboration with W. F. Volbach, Berlin 1926); Denkmäler der Ikonenmalerei in kunstgeschichtlicher Folge (Dresden 1925); Giovanni d'Antonio di Banco (in Jahrb. der kgl. preuss. K.-Samml., 1913); Donatello (Leipzig 1922); Die neureussische Kunst (Augsburg 1932); Grundlinien und kritische Erörterungen zur Principienlehre der bildenden Kunst (Stuttgart 1917); Die Kunst des Kindes (ibid. 1927).