August L. Mayer (Griesheim, 1885 – Auschwitz, 1944) was the first art historian to approach the analysis of Spanish painting from a modern methodology, contributing decisively to its international recognition. He was the victim of a terrible campaign to discredit him launched by a group of German professors and museum directors in 1930, and both he and his academic authority have been unjustly clouded until now since the Second World War.

This book however reconstructs the biography of the German Hispanist through letters, testimonies of contemporaries, press notices, records and copious archival documentation.

The author also evaluates Mayer’s contribution to the study of Spanish painting, analysing his seminal work on four artists who successively focused his attention as creators of personal aesthetic languages out of the Spanish pictorial tradition, and who later had wide influence on modern art: Ribera, Goya, El Greco and Velázquez.

Teresa Posada Kubissa holds a Doctorate in History of the Universidad Complutense de Madrid, and in 1986 entered the Professional Association of Museum Curators. She has pursued her career in the Museo de Arte Contemporáneo of Madrid, and since 1992 in the Museo Nacional del Prado, where she was in charge of the Flemish Paintings and the Northern Schools.

“El admirable trabajo de Teresa Posada nos aporta no sólo el estudio de la obra de August L. Mayer como pionero en la aplicación de un método científico para el estudio de la historia del arte español, sino toda esa desconocida trama de persecuciones a las que fue sometido y que nos estremecen y escandalizan”, Francisco Calvo Serraller, Babelia

“Esta visión sobre la vida y la obra de Mayer pretende acercarnos con objetividad y rigor a las aportaciones, los problemas y la trascendencia de la importante producción de este hispanista alemán”, Benito Navarrete Prieto, Goya

“With this thoroughly researched study, Posada Kubissa has achieved her goals—to provide a comprehensive assessment of Mayer’s substantial contribution to our current understanding of Spanish art and to bring renewed attention to the remarkable career of this unfairly marginalized scholar”, Ellen Prokop, caa.reviews

“Für die Geschichte der Kunstgeschichte in Deutschland wäre es sicher ein Gewinn, wenn der spanischen Ausgabe eine vielleicht […] überarbeitete deutsche Publikation folgen würde”, Sylvaine Hänsel, Carl Justi Vereinigung Mitteilungen