Daniela Hammer-Tugendhat

Daniela Hammer-Tugendhat was a renowned Austrian art historian, born in 1946 in Caracas, Venezuela, to a family of Jewish-Czech textile manufacturers who had escaped the Nazi occupation of Czechoslovakia. Following the war, her family attempted to reclaim their property in Czechoslovakia but ultimately settled in St. Gallen, Switzerland, in 1950. This unique blend of cultural influences would later shape her academic pursuits.

Hammer-Tugendhat's academic career was marked by a deep passion for art, inspired by her mother's love of the subject. She went on to study art history and archaeology at the University of Bern and the University of Vienna, culminating in the completion of her PhD in 1975. Her expertise led to a long-standing tenure at the University of Applied Arts Vienna, where she taught until her retirement in 2012, leaving a lasting legacy in the field of art history. Daniela Hammer-Tugendhat passed away in 2025, at the age of 79.