Peter Selz

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Peter Howard Selz (* 27. March 1919 in Munich , † 21st June 2019 ) was an American art historian , museum director, curator emeritus professors of the University of California, Berkeley German origin.

life and work

Peter Howard Selz (originally Hans Peter Selz) was born in Munich as the son of the Jewish ophthalmologist Eugen Selz (1871–1947) and his wife, Edith, divorced Weil, née Drey. With him and their older son Edgar Selz (Munich 1915–2009 Fullerton, Orange, CA, USA), the couple emigrated from Germany to the United States in 1936 in view of the Nazi hostility to Jews .

From 1941 to 1946 Peter Selz served in the United States Army . He was naturalized in 1942. His first marriage was to Thalia Cheronis (1925–2010) from 1948 to 1965, and his second marriage from 1983 to Carole Schemmerling.

academic career

Selz attended Columbia University in New York City from 1937 to 1938 . During this time he also made contact with his distant relative, the influential artist, gallery owner and patron Alfred Stieglitz , who introduced him to many New York and European exiled artists.

After the war, he enrolled at the University of Chicago and received his master's degree (AM) in 1949. A first Fulbright scholarship enabled him to spend one year at the Université de Paris and the École du Louvre from 1949 to 1950 .

Returning to Chicago , he worked on his dissertation on the topic proposed by Ulrich Middeldorf , German Expressionism . A second Fulbright grant in 1953 enabled him to continue his studies at the Musées Royaux d'Art et d'Histoire in Brussels . In 1954 he received his doctorate with the degree of Ph.D. with Joshua Charles Taylor on the topic of German Expressionist Painting from its Inception to the First World War . At the same time, from 1950 to 1955, he was already teaching at the Institute of Design in Chicago , Illinois Institute of Technology .

Museum career

In 1955 he moved to Claremont , California and took over the management of the art department at Pomona College there and the management of the art gallery for three years.

As early as 1958, he was appointed curator at the renowned Museum of Modern Art (MoMA) in New York for the field of painting and sculpture exhibitions. At MoMA he curated the famous exhibition “Homage to New York” by the artist Jean Tinguely with the self-destructive sculpture, as well as Auguste Rodin's first retrospective and in 1965 a comprehensive exhibition of the works of Alberto Giacometti .

In 1965 he was appointed founding director of the Berkeley Art Museum at the University of California, Berkeley, and headed the museum until 1973. Here he curated a. a. 1966 the exhibition "Directions of Kinetic Sculpture".

In addition to his museum work, he taught art history, e. B. 1976 as visiting professor at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem as part of the Sam and Ayala Zacks Visiting Lectureship or 1987 at the City University of New York . He also worked on committees (Advisory Council of the Archives of American Art, the National Endowment for the Humanities, etc.).

In 1988 he retired from Berkeley University.

Art-historical work

Selz had the fortunate advantage of being able to interview the German Expressionists or their descendants himself in the 1950s. He was one of the first art historians to examine German Expressionism (" Die Brücke ", " Der Blaue Reiter ") not only from the formalistic aspect of a sequence of styles, but also as a result of political conditions. His work German Expressionism was one of the first in this area of ​​art history to emerge from an English-speaking institution.

His interest in looking at art and politics together remained constant in his studies, most recently in his work Art of engagement (2006). On the other hand, he also contributed to the understanding of American art in Europe. The compilations of artistic positions edited with the art historians Chipp, Taylor and Stiles became standard reference works.

Still in old age, he conveyed his decades of experience and his role as professor at the New Bauhaus School of László Moholy-Nagy , as curator of the monumental Jean, in a lecture at The Art, Technology, and Culture Colloquium on February 23, 2004 in Berkeley -Tinguely exhibition "Homage to New York" in 1960 at MoMA New York, as founding director of the Berkeley Art Museum and as curator of the groundbreaking exhibition "Directions of Kinetic Sculpture" in 1966.

Peter Selz published around 20 books on the art of the twentieth century as well as numerous reviews and articles.

Honors

Fonts

  • German expressionist painting. University of California Press, Berkeley 1957. (At the same time: University of Chicago, Ph.D., 1954 under the title: German expessionist painting from its inception to the First World War. ).
  • New images of man. With statements by the artists. [Arno Press, New York 1959] (Reprinted 1969).
  • Art Nouveau. Art and design at the turn of the century. Museum of Modern Art, New York 1959 (Reprints: 1972, 1975).
  • The work of Jean Dubuffet . With texts by the artist. Museum of Modern Art; Doubleday, Garden City, NY [1961]. (Reprinted 1980, ISBN 0-405-12892-4 ).
  • Herschel B. Chipp , Peter Selz, Joshua C. Taylor: Theories of modern art. A source book by artists and critics. University of California Press, Berkeley 1968. Preview on Google Books
  • Sam Francis . With an essay on his prints by Susan Einstein. Abrams, New York [1975], ISBN 0-8109-0265-6 . (Reprint: 1982, ISBN 0-8109-0928-6 ).
  • Art in our times. A pictorial history, 1890–1980. Abrams, New York 1981, ISBN 0-15-503473-1 (Paperback).
  • Art in a turbulent era. UMI Research Press, Ann Arbor, Michigan 1985, ISBN 0-8357-1678-3 .
  • Chillida . Abrams, New York © 1986, ISBN 0-8109-0799-2 .
  • Max Beckmann. The self-portraits. Gagosian Gallery, Rizzoli, New York 1992, ISBN 0-8478-1640-0 .
  • Peter Selz, Fred Licht , Rodolfo Balzarotti: William Congdon . Jaca Book, Milan 1995, ISBN 8-8166-0166-3
  • Kristine Stiles , Peter Selz: Theories and documents of contemporary art. A source book of artists' writings. University of California Press, Berkeley © 1996, ISBN 0-520-20253-8 (Paperback). (Bibliography pp. 897–956) Preview on Google Books .
  • Beyond the mainstream. Essays on modern and contemporary art. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge / New York 1997, ISBN 0-521-55624-4 (Paperback).
  • Kind of engagement. Visual politics in California and beyond. University of California Press, Berkeley; San Jose Museum of Art, San Jose 2006. ISBN 0-520-24053-7 . (Published in conjunction with an exhibition at the San Jose Museum of Art).
  • Matthew Kangas, Peter Selz: Relocations. Selected art essays and interviews. Midmarch Arts Press, New York, NY 2008, ISBN 978-1-877675-69-0 .
  • Fletcher Benton . The kinetic years. Essays by Peter Selz, Collette Chattopadhyay and Diane Ghirardo. Hudson Hills Press, Manchester, Vt. 2008, ISBN 978-1-55595-295-2 , ISBN 1-55595-295-X .
  • Rudolf Bauer . Works on paper. Weinstein Gallery, San Francisco, CA 2010, ISBN 978-0-9790207-1-1 .

Essays (selection)

  • Peter Selz: School of Paris in mid-century. In: Explorations in the city of light. African-American artists in Paris, 1945–1965. Studio Museum in Harlem, New York, NY © 1996.
  • Peter Selz: Notes on realism (s) and the painting of Raimonds Staprans. In: Karl J. Karlstrom: Raimonds Staprans . Art of tranquility & turbulance. University of Washington Press, Seattle © 2005, ISBN 0-295-98558-5 (Paperback).
  • Peter Selz: Watercolors from Feininger's American period. In: Ingrid Mössinger, Kerstin Drechsel (eds.): Lyonel Feininger . Loebermann Collection: drawings, watercolors, prints. Prestel, Munich, New York © 2006. ISBN 3-7913-3767-X .
  • Peter Selz: Afterwords. Geometric sculpture in equilibrium: Fletcher Benton. In: Fletcher Benton. An American artist. Hudson Hills Press, Manchester, Vt. © 2008, ISBN 978-1-55595-296-9 .

Curations (catalogs in selection)

  • 15 Polish painters. Doubleday, Garden City, NY [1961]. (Exhibition catalog, Museum of Modern Art, New York).
  • Mark Rothko . Doubleday, Garden City, NY [1961]. (Exhibition catalog, Museum of Modern Art, New York. Reprint: 1972)
  • Emil Nolde . Doubleday, Garden City, NY [1963]. (Exhibition catalog, Museum of Modern Art, New York et al. Reprint: 1980).
  • Max Beckmann . Garden City, NY [1964]. (Exhibition catalog, Museum of Modern Art, New York. Reprinted 1980).
  • Alberto Giacometti . With an introduction by Peter Selz and an autobiographical statement by the artist. Doubleday, Garden City, NY [1965]. (Exhibition catalog, Museum of Modern Art, New York and others).
  • Peter Selz, George Rickey : Directions in kinetic sculptures. [University Art Museum, Berkeley 1966]. (Exhibition catalog, University Art Museum, Berkeley et al.).
  • Wireless. University Art Museum, Berkeley, Calif. [1967]. (Exhibition catalog, University Art Museum, Berkeley).
  • American painting, 1970. [Cincinnati 1970]. (Exhibition catalog, Virginia Museum of Fine Arts, Cincinnati, Ohio).
  • Ferdinand Hodler . [University Art Museum, Berkeley 1972]. (Exhibition catalog, University Art Museum, Berkeley et al.).
  • 2 decades of American painting 1920–1940. Die Kunsthalle, Düsseldorf 1979. (Traveling exhibition 1979: Städtische Kunsthalle Düsseldorf, Kunsthaus Zürich, Palais des beaux-arts, Brussels. Texts: Peter Howard Selz, Dore Ashton).

literature

  • Who's Who in American Art. Vol. 22, 1997/98.
  • Paul Karlstrom: Peter Selz. Sketches of a Life. University of California Press, Berkeley 2012, ISBN 978-0-520-26935-4 . (Biography with bibliography and exhibition history).

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ^ AJ Fox: Peter Selz (1919-2019). In: The Berkeley Daily Planet. June 21, 2019, accessed June 22, 2019 .
  2. ^ Registration documents Eugen Selz : Munich, city archive
  3. ↑ The article in the en: WP gives a different presentation, also unoccupied.
  4. ↑ https://www.legacy.com/obituaries/name/thalia-selz-obituary?pid=143690402
  5. ^ A b c Dictionary of art historians
  6. ↑ Two decades of American painting 1920–1940. Düsseldorf 1979
  7. ↑ Peter Selz, Directions in Kinetic Sculpture: From George Rickey to Jean Tinguely
  8. ↑ 35 min. Video of the lecture February 23, 2004, Berkeley ( Memento from June 20, 2010 in the Internet Archive ) ( MP4 ; 185 MB)
personal data
SURNAME Selz, Peter
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Selz, Peter Howard (full name)
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German-American art historian
DATE OF BIRTH March 27, 1919
PLACE OF BIRTH Munich
DATE OF DEATH June 21, 2019