Peter Lasko

Peter Erik Lasko CBE FBA (5 March 1924 – 18 May 2003) was a British art historian, Director of the Courtauld Institute, London, from 1974 to 1985 and a Fellow of the British Academy.

Life

Lasko grew up in Berlin, where his father Leo Lasko worked in the film industry as a director and screenwriter. The family moved to England in 1936. He attended Saint Martin's School of Art, but soon switched to art history, studying at the Courtauld Institute from 1946. In 1950 he became assistant keeper in the Department of British and Medieval Antiquities at the British Museum, where he remained for 15 years.

In 1965, he became the first professor of art history at the University of East Anglia. After eight years in the position left to become Director of the Courtauld Institute, succeeding Anthony Blunt.

In 1972 his book Ars Sacra, dealing with works made for church treasuries between 800 and 1200, was published as part of the Pelican History of Art.

Following his retirement from the Courtauld he devoted much of his time to the "Corpus Of Romanesque Sculpture In Great Britain And Northern Ireland", a project he took over from George Zarnecki, and a book on German expressionist art, which was published after his death.

Publications

• The Kingdom of the Franks: North-west Europe Before Charlemagne. (1971)
• Ars Sacra: 800-1200 (1972)
• Medieval Art in East Anglia, 1300-1520 (1973).
• The Painting Collections of the Courtauld Institute of Art (1979).
• The Expressionist Roots of Modernism (2003).

References

Academic offices
Preceded by Anthony Blunt	Director of the Courtauld Institute of Art 1974 to 1985	Succeeded by Michael Kauffmann