Georges Wildenstein

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Nathan and Georges Wildenstein, 1908

Georges Wildenstein (born March 16, 1892 in Paris ; † June 10, 1963 ) was a French art dealer , art historian, art critic and editor of art magazines. After the death of his father Nathan Wildenstein in 1934, he directed the Wildenstein & Company galleries in Paris, London and New York.

Life

Wildenstein Gallery, Paris around 1900
Gimpel & Wildenstein Gallery in New York, 1907

Georges Wildenstein was the son of Nathan Wildenstein (1851–1934). He was the son of a rabbi who had left his place of birth Fegersheim in Alsace as a result of the Franco-Prussian War in 1870 and who settled in Paris after a stay in Carcassonne , where he married. Nathan Wildenstein began trading in antiques and his gallery, founded in 1875, specialized in paintings from the 18th century. In 1903 he opened a second gallery under the name Gimpel & Wildenstein on Fifth Avenue in New York .

Gazette des Beaux-Arts of July 1, 1859

From 1910, Georges Wildenstein worked in his father's gallery at 57 rue La Boétie. The son Daniel was born in the marriage with Jane in 1917 . From 1918 he represented Pablo Picasso worldwide together with the art dealer Paul Rosenberg . They bought a significant number of his paintings each year. Picasso's connection with Wildenstein lasted until 1932, and that with Rosenberg until 1939. Another international expansion followed in 1925 with the establishment of a gallery in London and in 1929 in Buenos Aires . In 1934 he took over the management of the galleries after the death of Nathan Wildenstein; the New York gallery moved to East 64th Street that year.

Wildenstein was editor of the art magazine Gazette des Beaux-Arts from 1929 , founded in 1859 by Édouard Houssaye and Charles Blanc , and founder of Arts in 1924. As a connoisseur of French painting, he published several works on French art and gave complete catalogs on artists such as for example Jean Siméon Chardin , Jean-Honoré Fragonard , Paul Gauguin , Jean-Auguste-Dominique Ingres , Nicolas Lancret , Édouard Manet , Berthe Morisot and Maurice Quentin de La Tour . Although his interests were mainly works of Impressionism and Post-Impressionism as well as works by Pablo Picasso, he supported the surrealist movement and financed their magazine Documents , which was published from 1929 to 1931 . At the beginning of 1938 he made his gallery Beaux-Arts in Rue du Faubourg Saint-Honoré 140 available to the surrealists as an exhibition space for the Exposition Internationale du Surréalisme in Paris.

In 1941, Wildenstein had to emigrate to the USA from France, which was occupied by the National Socialists , because of his Jewish descent . In May of that year his employee Roger Dequoy took over the Paris gallery as a result of the " Aryanization " and had it operated under the name Dequoy & Co., but he was still in contact with Wildenstein. In New York Wildenstein continued the publication of the Gazette des Beaux-Arts . The gallery's success grew in the post-war years and it became an institution in the art trade. In 1945 Wildenstein appointed his friend, the art historian Bernard Berenson , as an expert in Italian Renaissance paintings .

The Wildensteins resumed their work in Paris after the Second World War, but ended in the early 1960s after a dispute with André Malraux , then French Minister of Culture. He had publicly accused Georges Wildenstein of bribing an official from the Ministry of Culture to enable the sale of Georges de la Tour's painting The Fortune Teller abroad. The case did not go to court - the family gave no reason for closing the French company.

Georges Wildenstein was elected a member of the Académie des Beaux-Arts in 1963, the year he died .

Wildenstein & Company and the Wildenstein Institute

Hotel de Wailly

Georges Wildenstein's son Daniel (1917–2001) became his successor in the management of the gallery and as editor of the Gazette des Beaux-Arts . He founded an additional gallery in Tokyo in 1972 . Since the death of Daniel Wildenstein in 2001 and the death of his older son Alec (1940–2008), this and the New York gallery Wildenstein & Company have been run by his son Guy (* 1945) alone. A merger with the Pace Gallery under the name PaceWildenstein in New York in 1993 was canceled with effect from April 1, 2010.

In 1970 the Wildenstein Foundation was set up in memory of Georges Wildenstein, which was transferred to the Wildenstein Institute in 1990 . This is based in the Hôtel de Wailly at 57 Rue La Boétie in Paris, which has been the private residence and gallery of the founder Nathan Wildenstein since 1905. The institute is located next to the private rooms of the Wildenstein family; its library, with around 400,000 volumes and archival material, has more documentation on French art than the Bibliothèque Nationale . The expansion of the library and the creation of catalogs of works are among the main activities of the institute. The publication of the Gazette des Beaux-Arts was discontinued in 2002.

Looted art

The Wildenstein family was accused of doing business with the National Socialists through intermediaries and acquiring works of art of dubious origin. The author Hector Feliciano wrote in his book on looted art - the German translation appeared in 1998 - that Wildenstein had done business with Adolf Hitler's art dealer Karl Haberstock through his middleman Roger Dequoy after his escape in 1941 . A lawsuit initiated by Daniel Wildenstein and his descendants in 1999 for the equivalent of 1.8 million DM in damages went in favor of Feliciano, as his evidence was supported by official documents.

Georges Wildenstein's name is also on a list of the World Jewish Congress , which contains the names of two thousand people who were believed to have been involved in the National Socialist art theft.

Publications (selection)

  • Lancret . Biography et catalog critiques . Les Beaux-Arts, Paris 1924
  • La peinture française au XVIIIe siècle . Braun et Cie, Paris 1937
  • Homage to Paul Cézanne . Wildenstein & Co., Ltd., London 1939
  • La peinture française au XVIIIe siècle . Braun et Cie, Paris 1953 (new edition)
  • Chardin . Manesse, Zurich, 1963
  • Gauguin. I Catalog . Editions Les Beaux Arts, Paris 1964.

literature

  • Albert Laprande: Notices sur la vie et les travaux de Paul Léon (1874-1962) et sur la vie et les travaux de Georges Wildenstein (1892-1963). Paris 1965

Web links and sources

Individual evidence

  1. Harry Bellet: Une dynastie de marchands d'art , lemonde.fr, July 28, 2007, accessed on August 24, 2010
  2. ^ Artforum International, June 22, 1995 , accessed on August 27, 2010
  3. Dawn Andes, Fiona Bradley: A playful museum , guardian.co.uk, May 6, 2006, accessed August 23, 2010
  4. Georges Wildenstein , lostart.de, accessed on May 5, 2015
  5. Ernst Samuels / Jayne Samuels: Bernard Berenson, the Making of a Legend , Harvard University Press 1987, p. 501
  6. Alan Riding: Daniel Wildenstein, 84, Head of Art-Word Dynasty, Dies , nytimes.com, October 26, 2010, accessed August 24, 2010
  7. Lisa Zeitz: Pace and Wildenstein. Separated again in the future , Faz.net. dated April 3, 2010, accessed on August 23, 2010
  8. Angelika Heinick: Wildenstein or not being. The Paris “Wildenstein Institute” , faz.net, January 23, 2005, accessed on August 22, 2010
  9. ^ Hector Feliciano: The Lost Museum. About art theft by the Nazis . Translated from English by Chris Hirte. Aufbau-Verlag, Berlin 1998, ISBN 978-3-351-02475-8 .
  10. Quoted from Holger Christmann: The Wildenstein case , in: Die Welt , June 25, 1999 [1] .