David Kunzle obituary
My uncle David Kunzle, who has died aged 87, was an art historian known for his writing on the history of the comic strip, but whose work also ranged widely and fluently across many fields, including early modern Dutch and Flemish painting, 19th-century Swiss, French, German, English and North American graphics, Victorian and Edwardian clothing and fetishism, and 20th-century protest posters.
In all he wrote, edited, and/or translated 24 books and 150 essays. He also curated a dozen exhibitions that drew upon his fluency in Latin, German, Dutch, Schweizerdeutsch, French, Italian and Spanish.
David Kunzle wrote three volumes on the history of the comic strip
David was born in Birmingham to Swiss parents, Aline (nee Roesli) and her husband, Edward Kunzle, who worked for his family’s confectionery firm. After attending Oundle school in Northamptonshire he went to Gonville & Caius College, Cambridge, where he studied French, German and literature.
Obtaining a doctorate in art history from the Courtauld Institute at the University of London in 1964, he used his thesis as the foundation on which to write three books on the history of the comic strip, the first volume in 1973, the second in 2012 and the final one in 2021.
After his PhD David taught at the National Gallery in London, at the University of Toronto in Canada and at UC Santa Barbara in the US, before joining the department of art history at UCLA, where he remained for more than 30 years as a tenured professor.
Over the years his eclectic academic writing also encompassed the history of Nicaraguan murals, Vietnamese lacquered panels, Chinese Maoist comics, and images in multiple media of Che Guevara. But above all he was interested in graphic narratives and comic strips – in any jurisdiction and from the 1400s onwards.
In retirement from 2009, David launched himself on to the stage, performing in a number of significant roles in local and regional theatres around Los Angeles. A British university gymnastics champion when he was young and an acrobat in mid-life, he continued into his 80s to enjoy cycling, hiking, tennis and squash, along with occasional bouts of paragliding and bungee-jumping.
A soft-Marxist, he also continued to delight in political discussion.
David is survived by his wife, Marjoyrie, a second cousin who shared his surname and whom he married in 1987, Marjoyrie’s children, Amy and Daniel, from a previous marriage, his nephew Adrian and me.