Sturla Gudlaugsson

Sturla Jonasson Gudlaugsson (born June 16, 1913 in Skagen , Denmark , † March 3, 1971 in Rotterdam ) was a Dutch art historian and museum director.

Sturla Gudlaugsson was the only son of the Icelandic writer Jonas Gudlaugsson (1887-1916). His mother Maria Ingenohl came from a Dutch family with whom he spent his childhood in Kleve after his father's death . He attended a grammar school in Berlin and studied art history at the universities of Munich and Berlin . Wilhelm Pinder and Oskar Fischel were among his formative professors . Gudlaugsson worked from 1936 as a volunteer under Robert Schmidt at the Palace Museum of the State Museums in Berlin , where the collections of handicrafts were exhibited. He received his doctorate in 1938 under Pinder with a dissertation on Dutch painting and theater.

At the beginning of the Second World War , Gudlaugsson left Berlin as a Danish citizen in 1939 and moved to Denmark. He became an assistant at the Danish National History Museum in Frederiksborg Castle in Hillerød . In 1942 he moved to The Hague and initially took on a brief job at the Gemeentemuseum Den Haag . A year later he became an employee at the Rijksbureau voor Kunsthistorische Documentatie (RKD), where he was appointed director in 1965 to succeed Horst Gerson . This academic activity at the RKD, which lasted more than 25 years, has shaped Gudlaugsson significantly. In June 1970 he was appointed director of the Mauritshuis in The Hague to succeed Ary Bob de Vries , but died surprisingly the following year.

As one of the main works of his research, Gudlaugsson left the two-volume monograph on the Dutch painter and draftsman Gerard ter Borch , written in German . For this work he received the Karel van Mander Prize in 1960 . In addition, he published important contributions to iconography in Dutch painting, in which he particularly portrayed its close relationship to poetry and theater.

Works

• Iconographic studies on Dutch painting and the theater of the 17th century , Berlin (diss.), Würzburg 1938.
• De komedianten bij Jan Steen en zijn tijdgenoten , The Hague 1945.
• Een ruiterstuk van Gerard Ter Borch. In: Kunsthistorische Mededelingen van het Rijksbureau voor Kunsthistorische Documentatie, 2, 1947, p. 19 ff.
• Another ruiterstuk van Gerard Ter Borch. In: Kunsthistorische Mededelingen van het Rijksbureau voor Kunsthistorische Documentatie, 2, 1947, p. 40 ff.
• Bredero's Lucelle door eenige zeventiende eeuwsche meesters uitgebeeld. In: Nederlands Kunsthistorisch Jaarboek 1, Den Haag 1947, pp. 183–185.
• De catering van de signage van Gerard Ter Borch. In: Nederlands Kunsthistorisch Jaarboek 1948–1949, Den Haag 1949, pp. 235 ff.
• Gerard Ter Borch , The Hague 1959/1960 (two volumes).

literature

• Horst Gerson : mortuary tablet - Sturla J. Gudlaugsson †. In: Zentralinstitut für Kunstgeschichte (Ed.): Kunstchronik 24, Nürnberg 1971, p. 274 ff.
• Horst Gerson: Sturla Jonasson Gudlaugsson. In: Jaarboek van de Maatschappij der Nederlandse Letterkunde te Leiden 1971–1972 , pp. 150–164. - Dutch
• Ary Bob de Vries : SJ Gudlaugsson. In: The Burlington Magazine 113, 1971, pp. 742 f. - engl.
• In memoriam SJ Gudlaugsson. In: Oud Holland 86, 1971, p. 1 f.
• Jan Emmens : In Memoriam Dr. Sturla Gudlaugsson. Simiolus 4, 1970-1971, p. 123.
• I. Bergström: In memoriam Sturla J. Gudlaugsson 1913–1971. In: Konsthistorisk Tidskrift 42, 1973, p. 67. - Danish.
• Cornelius Müller Hofstede , Weltkunst 41, 1971, p. 350.

Web links

• Dictionary of Art Historians - Gudlaugsson, Sturla - engl.