William S. Heckscher
In 1932–1933, Heckscher lived in New York where he worked as Panofsky's assistant. During this time, he enrolled in the Graduate Department of Art History at the Institute of Fine Arts at New York University to study American art history. Heckscher returned to Germany to continue his studies in 1934. He and his mother were detained by the Gestapo and interrogated for ten days after being accused of having pacifist connections.
William S. Heckscher
Heckscher was commissioned in 1931 to paint a portrait of Gustav Pauli, the director of Kunsthalle Hamburg. While at work in Pauli's office, they were interrupted by a strange little man unknown to Heckscher. The man, apparently a colleague of Pauli, immediately launched into some Dürer problem that was troubling him. The stranger's animated discussion with Pauli left Heckscher astounded at the depth of the man's insight. Intrigued, Heckscher followed Panofsky to his office and all but begged to study under him. Panofsky was thoroughly unimpressed by Heckscher's education—he had never finished high school—but Heckscher persisted, and Panofsky eventually relented, telling him of a program to support gifted students who had not completed high school. Heckscher passed the rigorous examination and was accepted into the University of Hamburg, but was only grudgingly given a seat in the back of Panofsky's seminar.