George M. A. Hanfmann (November 1911 – March 13, 1986) studied at the University of Jena under Ernst Buschor and Hans Diepolder, and then at the University of Berlin with Werner Jaeger, where he earned his first doctorate. He emigrated to the United States, becoming naturalized in 1940. Hanfmann became a student of David Moore Robinson, earning a second Ph.D. at Johns Hopkins University in 1935. During World War II he served in the Office of War Information in London as radio editor. He returned to Harvard and, from 1949 to 1974, became a curator at the Fogg Art Museum. With his student, Cornelius Vermeule, he organized Harvard's numismatic holdings into the Coin Room. His major exhibitions included "Ancient Art in American Private Collections" (1955); the first exhibition of the Norbert Schimmel Collection (1964); "Master Bronzes from the Classical World" (1967), and "Gods and Heroes: Baroque Images of Antiquity" (1968)

By 1956 he had progressed at Harvard from junior fellow to full professor. Integrating the study of classical art with Greek and Latin literature and ancient history became a unifying concern of George Hanfmann's scholarship and teaching. He trained many doctoral candidates in classical art history and archaeology through his seminars and his course, "Art in the Culture of Classical Greece". In 1958 he began excavations at ancient Sardis and continued there until 1976. In 1978 he received the Gold Medal from the Archaeological Institute of America. He retired from Harvard in 1982.