Friedrich Winkler was born at his family's farm in Prehna, a hamlet of
Lumpzig, Germany, in 1888. He studied art history at the
University of Vienna, the
University of Berlin, and the
University of Freiburg, where he studied under
Wilhelm Vöge. His
thesis Der Meister von Flemalle und Rogier van der Weyden, written in 1912, was published in 1913. He then started working as the editor of the
Lexikon der bildenden Künstler by
Ulrich Thieme and
Felix Becker, for which he wrote 34 entries. He also worked as a volunteer at the
Gemäldegalerie Alte Meister in
Dresden, but then joined the army during
World War I. He left the army in 1915 to become the director of the
Kunstbibliothek Berlin. he wrote a work on Early Netherlandish
miniatures, and in 1924 reworked
Die Altniederländisch Malerei von 1400–1600, originally written by
Max Jacob Friedländer. In 1925 appeared
Die Flämische Buchmalerei, about Flemish miniature painting. In this period he married Hermina Christina Schützinger. Winkler then started working on the
catalogue raisonné of the drawings by
Albrecht Dürer, which was started by
Friedrich Lippmann (1838–1903). Winkler wrote the final two volumes of the catalog and a book about Dürer, which were published in the late 1920s. In 1933 he succeeded the deceased
Elfried Bock as head of the
Kupferstichkabinett Berlin. Between 1936 and 1939 he published a new catalogue of the drawings of Dürer in 4 volumes. In 1942 he published a work on the drawings of
Hans von Kulmbach and
Hans Leonhard Schäufelein, both pupils of Dürer. In 1947 he became a lecturer at the
Humboldt University of Berlin and in 1951 he switched to Western Germany and the
Free University of Berlin, until he retired in 1957. That year he wrote
Leben und Werke, a biography of Dürer. After another work on Hans von Kulmbach, he published his final major work in 1964,
Das Werk des Hugo van der Goes. In 1950 he was made a corresponding member of the
Bavarian Academy of Sciences and Humanities. A heart attack late in 1964 led to his death in February 1965. ==Bibliography==