Hildegard Hammerschmidt-Hummel (January 21, 1944 – May 24, 2024)[1] was a German professor of English, literary critic, Shakespeare scholar and writer who claims to have found conclusive answers to many of the unresolved problems of Shakespeare's life and literary career using trans-disciplinary research methods.
Among the answers she claims to have found are Shakespeare's religion, the identity of the 'Dark Lady' of his sonnets, and the authentic portraits.
[2] Hammerschmidt-Hummel studied at the University of Marburg, earning her PhD in English literature in 1972.
From 1982 to 2005, Professor Hammerschmidt-Hummel was the senior research scholar and editor of the Shakespeare Illustration project, the archives of which she greatly enlarged after the founder of the archive, Professor Horst Oppel, died in 1982.
Tarnya Cooper of the National Portrait Gallery in London stated that Hammerschmidt-Hummel's views are based on a "fundamental misunderstanding of visual art".