Michael Kauffmann was born into a Jewish family in Frankfurt, Germany on 5 February 1931. Fleeing Nazi persecution, Kauffmann and his family moved to England in 1938 where he studied History of Art at the Warburg Institute, University of London and subsequently held posts at Manchester City Art Gallery and the Victoria and Albert Museum. From 1985-95 he was the Director of the Courtauld Institute of Art and Professor of History of Art, University of London.
Professor Michael Kauffmann was born into a Jewish family in Frankfurt, Germany on 5 February 1931. His father, Arthur Kauffmann, was an art dealer and managing director of the Frankfurt branch of Germany’s foremost auction house, Hugo Helbing. In order to escape Nazi persecution, in September 1938, with the assistance of London art dealer, Spink and Son, Arthur Kauffmann and his family moved to England and settled initially in Burnley, Lancashire and then in London: first, in Lexham Gardens in South Kensington; then, at the suggestion of their friend Robert Frank (uncle of diarist Anne Frank), in St James's Street in the West End; and, finally, in April 1939, at Grafton Street in Mayfair.
Michael Kauffmann was educated at Merton College, Oxford (1950–53) and after graduation he took up a Junior Research Fellowship at the Warburg Institute, University of London, completing his PhD in the History of Art in 1957. He worked as an assistant at the Warburg Institute Photographic Collection (1957–58) and subsequently held posts at Manchester City Art Gallery as an assistant keeper (1958–60) and in the Prints and Drawings Department at the Victoria and Albert Museum, first as an assistant keeper and then as keeper (1960–85), during which time he curated the catalogue of foreign paintings in two volumes (1975). His many publications included The Baths of Pozzuoli: a Study of the Medieval Illuminations of Peter of Eboli's Poem (1959, published in Oxford by émigré publisher, Bruno Cassirer); The Barbizon School (1965); Catalogue of Paintings in the Wellington Museum (1982); John Varley, 1778-1842 (1984); and Biblical Imagery in Medieval England, 700-1550 (2003). More recently, he published Eve’s Apple to the Last Supper: Picturing Food in the Bible (2017). From 1985 until 1995 he was the Director of the Courtauld Institute of Art and Professor of History of Art, University of London. Kauffman was elected a Fellow of the British Academy (FBA) in 1987 and has been member of various committees and boards, including the Art Fund (previously the NACF, 1987–2005). In summer 2018 Kauffmann lectured on the contribution of refugee dealers to the art market in England for newly founded The International Art Market Studies Association (TIAMSA), focusing in particular on his father’s colleagues Grete Ring, Alfred Scharf, Franz Drey, Herbert Bier and Robert Frank. The following year he reprised the subject in Germany as part of the Hugo Helbing Lecture: Exploring the Art Market in Munich.
Following his retirement from teaching, Kauffmann remained Professor Emeritus of the History of Art, University of London. He was also elected an Honorary Fellow of the Warburg Institute. Michael Kauffmann died in London, England on 30 June 2023.