Artist Antony Gormley – whose interest in art was inspired at a young age by reading Gombrich’s best-selling work in school – will unveil the Blue Plaque on the Hampstead house where Gombrich lived for almost half a century.

Published by Phaidon in 1950, The Story of Art shaped a generation’s understanding of art history and it remains a standard introductory text – it has been translated into 34 languages, is in its 16th continuous edition, with worldwide sales estimated at over six million. Its birth was by no means easy: pushed for time, Gombrich tried to return the publisher’s advance for it, and dictated the text largely from memory, using illustrations culled from works on his own bookshelves.

The Story of Art was conceived as a book for older children and throughout his life, Gombrich remained convinced that “it should be possible to explain anything in language that can be understood by a child.” Born in Vienna in 1909, Gombrich’s own interest in prehistory and art was inspired by visits as a child to the Kunsthistoriches Museum near his home. In 1935, his history of the world for children appeared and it was an unexpected success.

A year later, Gombrich moved to London and joined the Warburg Institute; he would later become the Institute’s Director. During the Second World War, he worked at BBC monitoring stations as a translator of German broadcasts and claimed the distinction of having relayed news of Hitler’s death, via telegraphy, to Winston Churchill – the broadcast of funereal music by Bruckner had alerted Gombrich to a likely announcement.

A Renaissance expert, The Story of Art was a game-changer for Gombrich. Before it, he was, in his own words, “just a poor foreign scholar, who had not contacts in the great world and knew nobody there.” As well as Director of the Warburg Institute, he was Slade Professor of Fine Art at Oxford and at Cambridge, and Lethaby Professor at the Royal College of Art. His key academic texts include Art and Illusion: A Study in the Psychology of Pictorial Representation (1960) and The Sense of Order A Study in the Psychology of Decorative Art (1979).

The English Heritage Blue Plaque is at 19 Briardale Gardens in Hampstead. Gombrich moved there with his wife Ilse and their son Richard in May 1952 and it was there that he died nearly half a century later in November 2001. The semi-detached house was built by the architect Charles H. B. Quennell, who was responsible for around a hundred houses in the area, which been called ‘Quennell-land’. Gombrich’s admiration for Quennell’s work was one reason for his choosing the house, to which he welcomed “an endless stream of students and colleagues, friends and admirers, from many countries.”

Somewhat surprisingly, the house’s interior was filled with musical scores rather than art: Gombrich was never a collector, reasoning that the best was available to him to enjoy at the National Gallery.

Peter Bazalgette, English Heritage Blue Plaque panel member, said: “Ernst Gombrich opened the eyes of a generation to art, inspiring and challenging us to look at paintings and sculpture in new ways. He left Austria for London before the Second World War and our English Heritage Blue Plaque not only remembers this great populariser of art but celebrates his link with this city and underlines the huge contribution made to Britain by Jewish immigrants of the 1930s.”

The English Heritage London Blue Plaques scheme is generously supported by David Pearl, the Blue Plaques Club, and members of the public.