BIEBER, MARGARETE

BIEBER, MARGARETE (1879–1979), archaeological scholar and teacher. Born in Schoenau, West Prussia, she studied at Bonn, and then was for some years an assistant at the German Archaeological Institute in Athens. On her return to Germany she worked at the archaeological museum in Cassel until 1919, when she joined the University of Giessen, where she was appointed professor in 1931. She left Germany in 1933, and after a period at Oxford settled in New York, where she first lectured at Barnard College and then became associate professor in the Fine Arts department of Columbia University. After her retirement she was a visiting lecturer at Princeton (1949–51). She was a member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. Bieber concentrated on Classical and Hellenistic art, and was distinguished for her profound knowledge of Greco-Roman sculpture and her penetrating insight into archaeological problems. During the first phase of her career her publications included the catalog of the Cassel Museum (1915) and two handbooks, Die Denkmaeler zum Theaterwesen im Altertum (1920; The History of Greek and Roman Theater, 1939), and Griechische Kleidung (1928), on ancient Greek dress. In America, her books include German Readings in the History and Theory of the Fine Arts (1946), and the monumental Sculpture of the Hellenistic Age (1955). Bieber's last work, Copies: a Contribution to the History of Graeco-Roman Sculpture, was published in 1977 when she was 96 years of age. She was buried as a Christian. (Penuel P. Kahane (2nd ed.)