Lothar Ledderose (born July 12, 1942 in Munich) is a German professor of the History of Art of Eastern Asia at the University of Heidelberg and dean of its Philosophical-Historical Faculty. A renowned authority in his field, he received the prestigious Balzan Prize in 2005.
After graduating from the prestigious Apostelgymnasium of Cologne he studied East-Asian as well as European History of Art, Sinology and Japanology at the universities of Cologne, Bonn, Paris, Taipei and Heidelberg.
He did postgraduate research at Princeton University and Harvard University (1969–1971) and worked as a translator at Taipei's National Palace Museum (1971–1972). He then became a researcher at Tokio University's Oriental Cultural Institute (1973–1975) and at the Museum of East Asian Art in Berlin. (1975–1976). He successfully submitted his habilitationsschrift at the University of Cologne in 1976.
He is, as of 1984, a corresponding member of the Deutschen Archäologischen Instituts (German Archeological Institute) and the British Academy (as of 1996) as well as, since 1986, a full member of the Heidelberger Akademie der Wissenschaften. He has been a board member of the Deutschen Morgenländischen Gesellschaft (German Oriental Society) and, in 1986, president of the ICANAS (International Congress of Asian and North-African Studies) in Hamburg
He was fellow and visiting professor at a great number of academic institutions, among which should be mentioned: Fellow of the Wissenschaftskolleg in Berlin (1983–1984), Senior Mellon Fellow at the Center for Advanced Study in the Visual Arts in Washington (1990–1991), Slade Professor at the University of Cambridge (1992), Murphy Lecturer at the University of Kansas (1994), visiting professor at the Universities of Chicago (1996), Taiwan (1997) and Kyoto (1997), as well as Mellon Lecturer at the National Gallery of Art in Washington (1998) and Scholar at the Getty Research Institute in Los Angeles (2000–2001).
Professor Ledderose is editor of various academic journals, including "Arts Asiatiques" in Paris, "Meishushi yanjiu jikan" in Taipei , "Bulletin of the Museum of Far Eastern Antiquities" in Stockholm and "Scuola di Studi sull'Asia Orientale" in Kyoto
On the occasion of Ledderose's retirement in 2010, an international conference was held from 10 to 12 July at the Cluster of Excellence "Asia and Europe in a Global Context" at Heidelberg University. Under the title "Living Legacies: The History of East Asian Art Reconsidered", experts from Harvard, Princeton, Cambridge, Oxford and other renowned Universities discuss about theoretical and methodological developments in the History of East Asian Art.
In his "Ten Thousand Things: Module and Mass Production in Chinese Art," Ledderose argues that modular production systems were the basis for a wide range of Chinese art, including bronzes, terra-cotta figurines, lacquer, porcelain, architecture, printing, and painting.
An author of more than 170 books and articles, among Ledderose's most notable works are:
His most important scholarly articles are: