Peter H. Feist

His father Georg H. Feist was a surgeon and in 1926 he moved with his wife from Prague to Warnsdorf, where he took over the management of the municipal hospital.

Peter's mother, Isolde Feist née Sojka, was a nurse who as a so-called half-Jewish woman converted to Lutheranism before her marriage in 1923; her father was a wealthy wine and spirits merchant from Reichenberg.

In his diploma thesis he wrote about Untersuchungen zur Bedeutung orientalischer Einflüsse für die Kunst des frühen Mittelalters (Investigations on the meaning of oriental influences for the art of the early Middle Ages).

On 11 March 1958 he received his doctorate there with the thesis Die Stilstruktur von der altorientalischen bis zur romanischen Kunst (Style Structure from Ancient Oriental to Romanesque Art).

Before he moved with his family to East-Berlin in 1962, he first worked from 1958 as a senior assistant and preceptor at the Humboldt University of Berlin (HUB).

He obtained his habilitation on 14 November 1966, after submitting a thesis on Bereicherung und Begrenzung der Malerei durch den französischen Impressionismus.

Feist undertook many study trips and conference visits beginning in 1950, as well as delivering lectures in most European countries (including London, Lund, Moscow, Munich, Paris, Prague, Sofia, Stockholm, Uppsala) Burma, India and the USA.