Short Biography

Born in 1964 in Berlin. 1985–1992 studies in Journalism and German Studies in Berlin and Paris, M.A. (“Der Allgemeine Deutsche Nachrichtendienst ADN”). 1993–1994 traineeship at the German Press Agency (dpa). 1995–1999 freelance journalist in London.

2004–2012 part-time studies in Art History and Medieval / Early Modern History in Frankfurt am Main, M.A. (“On the Reception of Dürer’s Theory of Proportions: Jointed Mannequins as Ideal Human Figures”).

2004–2008 research assistant at the University Archive of Goethe University Frankfurt, supporting the teaching activities of Dr. Michael Maaser.

2012–2022 research associate and press officer in the administration of the State Palaces and Gardens of Hesse.

Since 2023 research associate at Leibniz University Hannover, field of teaching: History of Landscape Architecture and Garden Heritage Conservation; Managing Director of the Centre for Garden Art and Landscape Architecture.

2025/2026 doctoral project under the supervision of Prof. Dr. Jochen Sander (Goethe University Frankfurt) and Junior Professor Dr. Markus Rath (University of Trier): “Calculated Beauty. Receptions of Albrecht Dürer’s Theory of Proportions, with a Case Study on the Work of Master IP.”Theory of Proportions with a case study on the work of Master IP". 

In addition to my career, I research the significance and application of measurement-aesthetics in German Renaissance art. This is generally met with scepticism and avoided. Yet the findings of my master’s thesis showed that the Early Modern Period’s scientification of art also found resonance among German artists. This is true at least of the Master IP from Passau.

Several museums have made it possible for me to measure intricately carved articulated mannequins considered to have been produced by the sculptor himself. It can be verified that the small sculptures were created in accordance with the norm specifications of some of the body models in Dürer’s Four Books on Human Proportion (1528). The Master IP adopted Dürer’s suggestion "Without the right measure no one will realise anything good" literally. [1] The value of Dürer’s art theory for artistic praxis had previously been doubted or even denied.

/   The examination of Dürer’s head constructions assumes that the artist placed greater value on idealising strategies than has formerly been supposed. The Head of a Man in any case proves to be an experimental field of geometric form definition. The comparison with other heads yielded further evidence and prompted more thorough research.

Over the course of his intensive studies of proportion, Dürer long sought a reproducible schema for the construction of heads. In his proportion treatise of 1528, quite simple variants ultimately were used as teaching examples. But in his actual artistic praxis he apparently took a different path, for over three decades.  

[1] “Und ohne rechtes Maß wird niemand etwas Gutes erzielen.” Dürer in the so-called Aesthetic Discourse: Albrecht DÜRER / Berthold HINZ, Vier Bücher von menschlicher Proportion (1528). Mit einem Katalog der Holzschnitte, ed. and trans. into modern German with commentary by Berthold Hinz (Berlin, 2011), fol. T4v, 233.