Kurt Weitzmann was born in Klein Almerode (Witzenhausen, near Kassel) on May 7, 1904 and died in Princeton, New Jersey on June 7, 1993. He was a highly influential art historian who studied Byzantine and medieval art. He attended the universities of Münster, Würzburg and Vienna before moving to Princeton in 1935, due to Nazi persecution. He is well known for the time he spent researching the icons and architecture at Saint Catherine's Monastery in Egypt.