Richard Arthur Wollheim (5 May 1923 − 4 November 2003) was a British philosopher noted for original work on mind and , especially as related to the , specifically, painting. Wollheim served as the president of the British Society of Aesthetics from 1992 onwards until his death in 2003.
Biography
Richard Wollheim was the son of Eric Wollheim, a
theatre impresario, and Constance (Connie) Mary Baker, an
actress who used the stage name Constance Luttrell.
He attended Westminster School, London, and Balliol College, Oxford (1941–2, 1945–8), interrupted by active military service in World War II for which he volunteered. He obtained two first class BA degrees, one in History in 1946, the other in Philosophy, Politics and Economics in 1948.
The same year, he began teaching at University College London, where he became Grote Professor of Mind and Logic and Department Head from 1963 to 1982.
He retired from that position to take up a professorship at Columbia University (1982–85).
He was elected as a fellow of the British Academy in 1972 and of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences in 1986.
Wollheim gave several distinguished lecture series. He delivered the William James Lectures at Harvard in 1982, published as The Thread of Life (1984) and the Ernst Cassirer Lectures at Yale in 1991, upon which were based his On the Emotions (1999).
In 1962, Wollheim published an article "A paradox in the theory of democracy",[In , edited by Peter Laslett and W.G. Runciman, published by Basil Blackwell, 1962. pp. 71-87.] in which he argued that a supporter of democracy faces a contradiction when he votes. On the one hand he wants a particular party or candidate to win, but on the other hand he wants whoever wins the most votes to win. This has become known as Wollheim's paradox.
His Art and its Objects (1968) had a significant impact upon both aesthetics and the philosophy of art.
In a 1965 essay, 'Minimal Art', he coined the term Minimalism.
As well as for his work on the philosophy of art, Wollheim was known for his philosophical treatments of depth psychology, especially that of Sigmund Freud, to whose work he had been introduced by his father.
Wollheim was an honorary affiliate of the British Psychoanalytical Society, to whom he gave an Ernest Jones lecture in 1968 and in 1991 he was given an award for his services to psychoanalysis by the International Psychoanalytical Association.
Personal life
Wollheim married Anne Barbara Denise (1920–2004), daughter of Lieutenant-Colonel George Powell, of the
Grenadier Guards, after her divorce from her first husband, the literary critic
Philip Toynbee.
[ , Isaiah Berlin, ed. Henry Hardy, Random House, 2012, end note no. 361] They had twin sons, Bruno and Rupert. Their marriage was dissolved in 1967. Wollheim married Mary Day Lanier, stepdaughter of
Dwight Macdonald, in 1969; their daughter is Emilia.
Publications
For an extensive bibliography of Richard Wollheim's publications by a professional bibliographer, see Eddie Yeghiayan's UC-Irvine site.
See also the 'Philweb' listing.
Many of Richard Wollheim's publications are outside academic categories. Besides books, he published many articles, in journals and edited collections, book reviews, and gallery catalogues for shows. He also left writings in manuscript, letters and recordings of his talks.
Books and monographs (selected)
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. Harmondsworth; Baltimore: Penguin, 1959. 2d edition, 1969.
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' Socialism and Culture'. (Fabian Tract, 331.) London: Fabian Society, 1961.
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.: (An inaugural lecture delivered at University College London 1 December 1964) London: University College, 1965. Repr. in On Art and the Mind.
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. New York: Harper & Row, 1968. Harmondsworth: Penguin Books, 1970. As Harper Torchbook, 1971.
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. 2d edition. Cambridge, New York: Cambridge University Press, 1980.
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A Family Romance. London: Jonathan Cape, 1969. New York: Farrar, Straus, Giroux, 1969 (novel).
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(Fontana Modern Masters.) London: Collins, 1971. Paperback, 1973. American and later Cambridge University Press (1981) eds. titled Sigmund Freud.
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. Cambridge, Massachusetts: Harvard University Press,1972.
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'The Good Self and the Bad Self: the Moral Psychology of British Idealism and the English School of Psychoanalysis Compared' Dawes Hicks Lecture (1975)—repr. in The Mind and Its Depths, 1993.
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'The Sheep and the Ceremony' The Leslie Stephen Lecture, 1979 —repr. in The Mind and Its Depths, 1993.
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The Thread of Life. Cambridge, Massachusetts: Harvard University Press, 1984.
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Painting as an Art. Andrew M. Mellon Lectures in Fine Arts, National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C. Cambridge, Massachusetts: Harvard University Press, 1987.
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The Mind and Its Depths. Cambridge, Massachusetts: Harvard University Press, 1993 (essays).
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On the Emotions. New Haven and London: Yale University Press, 1999.
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Gary Kemp and Elisabetta Toreno (eds.) Uncollected Writings: Writing on Art, Oxford, 2025
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Jonathan Wolff (ed.) Uncollected Writings: Writing on Political Philosophy, Oxford, 2025
Edited books
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London: Collins, Fontana Library , 1968
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The Image in Form: Selected Writings of Adrian Stokes, 1974
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Freud: A Collection of Critical Essays (1974), reprinted as (1977)
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includes Wollheim's "Introduction" and "Imagination and Identification"
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Philosophical Essays on Freud, with James Hopkins. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1982.
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includes Wollheim's "The bodily ego".
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, with Richard Morphet. London: Tate Publishing, 1994.
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includes Wollheim's "Kitaj: Recollections and Reflections"
Selected articles
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" Review of H. B. Acton's The Illusion of the Epoch: Marxism-Leninism as a Philosophical Creed,. New Statesman and Nation (April 16, 1955), 49(1258): 548, 550.
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Review of C. H. Rolph, ed. Does Pornography Matter? New Statesman (November 3, 1961), 62(1599): 656, 658.
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, Encounter, vol. 13, no. 5 (November 1959), pp. 34–40.
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"Minimal Art", Arts Magazine (January 1965): 26–32. Repr. in (1968) and On Art and the Mind.
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"On the Theory of Democracy" in Bernard Williams and Alan Montefiore (eds.), (London/New York: Routledge & Kegan Paul; Humanities Press, 1966), pp. 247–66
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"Nelson Goodman's Languages of Art", The Journal of Philosophy: 62, no. 16 (Ag. 1970): 531.
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"Philosophy and the Arts" (Conversation with Richard Wollheim).In Bryan Magee, ed., , 1971.
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, Times Literary Supplement (17 February 1978): 207–209.
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(review of Michael Levey's The Case of Walter Pater (1978), The Times Literary Supplement (22 September 1978): 1045
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"Art as a Form of Life." In Ted Honderich and Myles Burnyeat, eds., , 1979
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“Pictorial Style: Two Views.” In , edited by Berel Lang, 129-148, 1979.
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"The Cabinet of Dr Lacan", Topoi: 10 no. 2 (1991): 163–174.
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target="_blank" rel="nofollow"> "A Bed out of Leaves", London Review of Books 25, no. 23 (4 December 2003).
Notes
Sources
External links
