Lotte Brand Philip

Lotte Brand Philip (May 27, 1910 – May 2, 1986) was a German art historian, professor and expert on Netherlandish art, one of the most notable and incisive experts on 14th- and 15th-century art to have studied under Erwin Panofsky. Born a Christian of Jewish descent, she resisted state intimidation to leave Germany, only moving to the United States in 1941. She began her new life as a jewelry designer, before establishing a career as an art historian and writer, and taking professorship at a number of universities, including New York University and Queens College, Flushing. During her long career, Brand wrote highly regarded books and monographs on artists such as Jan van Eyck, Albrecht Dürer and Hieronymus Bosch, and in 1980 became emeritus at Queens. Brand Philip died on May 2, 1986 in New York City.

Lotte Johanna Friederike Brand was born in Altona, Hamburg, Germany, on May 27, 1910, to Friedrich Wilhelm Brand and Anna Majud. She studied at the Technische Hochschule in Munich and at the University of Heidelberg. As a doctoral student at the University of Hamburg, Brand studied under Erwin Panofsky. She wrote her doctoral thesis in 1937 at the University of Freiburg under Kurt Bauch, on the topic of Stefan Lochner's altarpiece Altar of the City Patrons.

Brand, a Christian of Jewish extraction, studied in Munich and Hamburg with a number of Jewish PhD students of art history. During Nazi rule she was advised to leave Germany, but refused and stayed through the first wave of immigration of her family and peers. She was forced out in 1941, and emigrated to the United States, arriving on April 28 aboard the MS Hikawa Maru. Although she held a doctorate in art history, she lacked significant teaching experience and had difficulty acquiring an academic position in the US. She took work as a jewelry designer in Rhode Island and New York, conducting her scholarly research during trips to Germany after the war. She married Herbert Leopold Wolfgang Philip (1909 Hamburg – 1988 Queens) around 1942; and thereafter published under the name Lotte Brand Philip.

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