Hans-Dietrich Gronau (art historian)

Hans-Dietrich Gronau (* 1904 in San Domenico di Fiesole , † January 10, 1951 in London ) was a German-British art historian .

Life

Hans-Dietrich Gronau was the son of the art historian Georg Gronau (1868–1937) and was born in his parents' villa Le Palazzine in San Domenico di Fiesole. When his father became director of the Kassel picture gallery in 1910, the family moved to Kassel. After attending school, he first worked for an art dealer in Berlin. After the family returned to the villa in San Domenico in 1929, he turned to studying art history. He studied in Göttingen and Munich and received his doctorate in 1934 under Georg Vitzthum von Eckstädt in Göttingen.

In 1935 he married the art historian Carmen von Wogau (1910–1999). With her he emigrated to London, where he found work as an advisor in the art trade. During the war he served with the British pioneers and became a British citizen after the war.

In 1945 he succeeded Tancred Borenius as an expert at the Sotheby’s auction house . With the employment of Gronau, the company gained a reputation in the field of auctioning old master paintings. In 1950 he was diagnosed with severe heart disease, he could no longer lift paintings or climb stairs; he died at the age of only 46. His wife Carmen took over his job at Sotheby's.

Gronau's specialty was early Italian Renaissance painting.

literature

• Ulrike Wendland: Biographical handbook of German-speaking art historians in exile. Life and work of the scientists persecuted and expelled under National Socialism. Part 1: A – K. KG Saur, Munich 1999, ISBN 3-598-11339-0 , pp. 247-248.

Web link

• Dictionary of Art Historians .