Curt Valentin

from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Curt Valentin (born October 5, 1902 in Hamburg ; † August 19, 1954 in Forte dei Marmi , Italy ) was a German-American art dealer and publisher. He traded in modern art , especially sculptures . As an emigrant from National Socialist Germany, he opened the Buchholz Gallery Curt Valentin in New York City in 1937 , where he dealt with works of " degenerate art " with the approval of the German authorities . From 1951 the gallery traded under the name Curt Valentin Gallery.

Live and act

Ernst Ludwig Kirchner: Three Bathers, 1913. (1939? / 1951–1955 owned by Curt Valentin's gallery)
Paul Klee: Die Zwitscher-Machine , 1922, acquired in February 1939 from the Museum of Modern Art, New York, through Valentin
Catalog for a Rodin exhibition, 1950/51

After finishing school, Valentin worked at the Kahnweiler gallery in Paris , then at the Commeter gallery in Hamburg . From 1927 he worked for the Alfred Flechtheims gallery in Berlin , where he helped design exhibitions and the art magazine Omnibus . When Flechtheim's galleries went bankrupt in November 1933 because of the Nazi slogans and were closed, Valentin found a job in the newly opened Berlin bookstore owned by Karl Buchholz (1901–1992), Leipziger Strasse 119/120, where he worked in the attached gallery could trade in art again. Buchholz was one of four gallery owners, alongside Ferdinand Möller and Bernhard Böhmer in Berlin and Hildebrand Gurlitt in Hamburg, who were commissioned to sell the confiscated works abroad in Nazi Germany.

Since Valentin could not provide evidence of Aryan - to his astonishment he had four Jewish grandparents, including Julius Stettenheim - he emigrated to New York with the support of Buchholz, where on March 18, 1937 he was at 3 West 46th Street The Buchholz Gallery - Curt Valentin with Sculptures and drawings by Ernst Barlach , Georg Kolbe , Gerhard Marcks , Richard Scheibe and Renée Sintenis opened. In 1939 the gallery moved to 32 East 57th Street in Manhattan.

The Buchholz Gallery or Curt Valentin was used as a middleman for the Museum of Modern Art (MoMA). For example, in April 1939 it acquired five works of art from a National Socialist art auction in Lucerne , including one each by André Derain , Ernst Ludwig Kirchner , Paul Klee and Henri Matisse . In order to facilitate the export of the art that was ostracized in Germany, he had received written permission from the National Socialist Reich Chamber of Fine Arts in 1936 to sell these works in America.

In 1944 the works of art in the gallery were confiscated by the American authorities because they were in the possession of an " enemy alien ".

In 1951 the gallery got its own name, Curt Valentin Gallery. It dealt in works by important artists such as Alexander Calder , Marino Marini , Henry Moore and Auguste Rodin . The selection of works and exhibitions showed Valentin's preference for sculptures. He also published a number of limited edition books with texts by poets and authors, illustrated by contemporary artists.

Curt Valentin died of a heart attack in Italy in 1954 while visiting Marino Marini.

The gallery was closed in 1955, a year after his death, and some works were sold at the Parke-Bernet auction in November of that year. Some of the artists represented by Valentin as well as his assistant Jane Wade joined the Otto Gerson Gallery. After Gerson's death in 1962, the gallery operated under the name Marlborough-Gerson Gallery.

literature

  • In Memory Of Curt Valentin 1902-1954. An Exhibition Of Modern Masterpieces lent by American Museums. October 5 to October 30, 1954. Introduced by Perry T. Rathbone. Curt Valentin Gallery, New York NY 1954.
  • Artist and Maecenas. A tribute to Curt Valentin. Inaugural Exhibition November - December 1963. Introductory texts by Will Grohmann and Ralph Colin . Marlborough-Gerson Gallery, New York NY 1963.
  • Godula Buchholz: Karl Buchholz. Book and art dealer in the 20th century. His life and his bookshops and galleries in Berlin, New York, Bucharest, Lisbon, Madrid, Bogotá. DuMont-Literatur-und-Kunst-Verlag, Cologne 2005, ISBN 3-8321-7943-7 .
  • Anja Tiedemann: The "degenerate" modernity and its American market. Karl Buchholz and Curt Valentin as dealers of ostracized art (= writings of the research center "Degenerate Art." Vol. 8). Akademieverlag, Berlin 2013, ISBN 978-3-05-006127-6 .

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Joan Marter: The Grove Encyclopedia of American Art: Five-volume set. Oxford University Press, 2011, p. 99.
  2. ↑ The Twittering Machine , moma.org, accessed on February 23, 2013
  3. ^ Joan Marter: The Grove Encyclopedia of American Art: Five-volume set. Oxford University Press, 2011, p. 99 f.
  4. ↑ Christine Fischer-Defoy: Good business - art trade in Berlin 1933-1945. Quoted from Marianne Breslauer's autobiography, published in 2009. At gedenkstaettenforum.de, accessed on February 18, 2013
  5. ^ Günter Herzog: From the central archive of the international art trade: 1937 - fateful year of the Berlin art trade. faz.net, accessed February 18, 2013.
  6. ↑ Fred Abrams: Mr. Curt Valentin's Nazi-Looted Art. At assetsearchblog.com, accessed on February 18, 2013.
  7. ^ Curt Valentin Papers in The Museum of Modern Art Archives at moma.org, accessed February 18, 2013.
personal data
SURNAME Valentin, Curt
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German-American art dealer
DATE OF BIRTH October 5, 1902
PLACE OF BIRTH Hamburg
DATE OF DEATH 19th August 1954
Place of death Forte dei Marmi