George Haydn Huntley became an Assistant Professor of Art History and Departmental Counselor at the University of Chicago in 1938. He arrived at the University of Chicago from the University of Washington, Saint Louis, where he accepted his first position in 1932 before completing his PhD at Harvard University in 1933. He later served as an Associate Professor and Professor of Art at Northwestern University from 1946 until his retirement in 1973. Huntley’s research addressed the Italian Renaissance and traced stylistic developments from the eighteenth- to nineteenth-centuries.

Ulrich A. Middeldorf was a German scholar of Renaissance art and history who emigrated to the United States in 1935. His scholarship spans the late medieval period to the Renaissance with a focus on 15th century Italian sculpture. While many of his contemporaries were focusing on monographic projects, Middeldorf spent his career publishing articles and catalogues on a great variety of objects, including stucco reliefs and paintings by unknown artists. His object-centered methodology emphasized artwork over artist.

Joining the Department of Art in 1935, Ludwig Bachhofer was one of the first refugees from Nazi Germany to secure faculty appointments at the University of Chicago. Bachhofer belonged to the early generation of art historians in the West who dedicated their entire careers to the study of Asian art.  He wrote widely on topics such as Japanese woodblock prints, Indian sculpture, Buddhist art, and Chinese bronzes.