Henri Focillon (7 September 1881 – 3 March 1943) was a French art historian. He was the son of the printmaker Victor-Louis Focillon. He was Director of the Musée des Beaux-Arts in Lyon. Professor of Art History at the University of Lyon, at the Ecole des Beaux-Arts in Lyon, at the Sorbonne, at the Collège de France and then in the United States, where he went into exile and taught at Yale University. A poet, printmaker, and teacher, Focillon trained generations of art historians, including George Kubler. He remains best known for his works on medieval art, most of which were translated into English.Annamaria Ducci, Henri Focillon en son temps. La liberté des formes, translated by Sara Longo, revised by Elise Koering, Strasbourg, Presses Universitaires de Strasbourg, 2021, (Historiographie de l'art, 2).Henri Focillon, 1881-1943< at classiques.uqac.ca
Partial bibliography
Vie des formes (1934, "The Life of Forms") Éloge de la main Benvenuto Cellini
Medieval Art Art des sculpteurs romans (1932) Art d'occident 1 : Moyen Âge roman et gothique Art d'occident 2 : Moyen Âge gothique (1938) Moyen Age. Survivances et réveils (1943) Piero della Francesca (1951) L'An mil (1952)
Painting La peinture au XIXe et XXe siècles (1927-1928, "Painting in the 19th and 20th Centuries") De Callot à Lautrec: Perspectives de l’art français ("From Callot to Lautrec: Perspectives on French Art")
Prints Giovanni-Battista Piranesi (1918)
East Asia L'art bouddhique (1921, "Buddhist Art") Hokusai (1914)
References