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Art Historians

Willis, Frederick Charles

Full Name: Willis, Frederick Charles

Other Names:

  • Friedrich Carl Willis

Gender: male

Date Born: 1883

Date Died: unknown

Home Country/ies: Germany

Subject Area(s): biography (general genre)

Career(s): art historians, biographers, and publishers

Institution(s): Universitäten Halle


Overview

Assisted in editing the magisterial dictionary of artists, Allgemeines Lexikon der bildenden Künstler.


Selected Bibliography

Allgemeines Lexikon der bildenden Künstler von der Antike bis zur Gegenwart: unter Mitwirkung von 300 Fachgelehrten des In- und Auslandes. 37 vols. Leipzig : E. A. Seemann, 1907-1950.




Contributors: Lee Sorensen


Citation

Lee Sorensen. "Willis, Frederick Charles." Dictionary of Art Historians (website). https://arthistorians.info/willisf/.


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Assisted in editing the magisterial dictionary of artists, Allgemeines Lexikon der bildenden Künstler.

Willis, Browne

Full Name: Willis, Browne

Other Names:

  • Browne Willis

Gender: male

Date Born: unknown

Date Died: unknown

Home Country/ies: United Kingdom

Subject Area(s): architecture (object genre), Medieval (European), and sculpture (visual works)


Overview

Architectural writer who authored surveys and histories with an emphasis on medieval works. He was followed by John Britton and his Cathedral Antiquities of England, 1814-1835.


Selected Bibliography

[with James Bentham] History of Gothic and Saxon Architecture in England.[sl]: [sn], 1798; A Survey of the Cathedrals of York, Durham, Carlisle, Chester, Man, Lichtfield, Hereford, Worcester. London, 1727-1742.


Sources

Bazin 123




Citation

"Willis, Browne." Dictionary of Art Historians (website). https://arthistorians.info/willisb/.


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Architectural writer who authored surveys and histories with an emphasis on medieval works. He was followed by John Britton and his Cathedral Antiquities of England, 1814-1835.

Willigen, Adriaan, van der, Pz. (1810-1876)

Full Name: Willigen, Adriaan, van der, Pz.

Other Names:

  • Adriaan van der Willigen, Pz.

Gender: male

Date Born: 20 September 1810

Date Died: 22 August 1876

Place Born: Hillegom, South Holland Netherlands

Place Died: Rhedersteeg, Gelderland, Netherlands

Home Country/ies: Netherlands

Subject Area(s): Dutch (culture or style)

Career(s): physicians


Overview

Early documents-style scholar of Dutch art, Medical Doctor. His work was succeeded by Frederik D. O. Obreen and Abraham Bredius. Van der Willigen was the son of the protestant minister (preacher) Pieter van der Willigen (1778-1847) and Christina Abigaël van Campen (d. 1827). After his studies in Medicine he settled in Haarlem as a Medical Doctor. From his uncle, Adriaan van der Willigen (1766-1841), he inherited an important art collection and library. Like his uncle, he was a lover of art and art history. In 1845 he married Geertruyda Aletta van Voorthuysen. Van der Willigen had a special interest in the lives of painters and other artists, who had been active in Haarlem from the fifteenth century up to the present. He searched various archives, including those of the Haarlem St. Lucas Guild. He published his notes on Haarlem painters and other artists in 1866, Geschiedkundige aanteekeningen over Haarlemsche schilders en andere beoefenaren van de beeldende kunsten, voorafgegaan door eene korte geschiedenis van het Schilders- of St. Lucas gild aldaar. In 1870 a French translation appeared. In 1872, being in poor health, he retired in Rhedersteeg. In the last years of his life he sold his art collection and his library. With the publication of his notes Van der Willigen intended to correct or to complete the biographies of Haarlem artists existing in compilations, like those written by Karel Van Mander, Arnold Houbraken, and Christiaan Kramm.


Selected Bibliography

“Nader berigt wegens A. van der Willigen en zijne geschriften” Kunst en Letterbode (1841); Geschiedkundige aanteekeningen over Haarlemsche schilders en andere beoefenaren van de beeldende kunsten, voorafgegaan door eene korte geschiedenis van het Schilders- of St. Lucas gild aldaar. Haarlem: De Erven F. Bohn, 1866, French: Les artistes de Harlem. Notices historiques avec un Précis sur la Gilde de St. Luc. Harlem: Les héritiers F. Bohn, 1870; Naamlijst van Nederlandsche kunst-catalogi, veelal met derzelver prijzen en namen, van af 1731-1861, welke de verzameling uitmaken van Dr. A. van der Willigen. Haarlem: De Erven Loosjes, 1873.


Sources

“Abraham Bredius, A Biography.” Museum Bredius (website) http://www.museumbredius.nl/biography.htm; Van der AA, A. J. Biografisch Woordenboek der Nederlanden. 7 (1852): 89; Hoogeveen “Willigen (Adriaan van der) Pzn.” in Blok, P. J. and Molhuysen, P. C. Nieuw Nederlandsch biografisch woordenboek. 10 (1937): 1217-1218; Vosmaer, C. “Dr. A. Van der Willigen” in De Nederlandse Spectator (1876): 309.



Contributors: Monique Daniels


Citation

Monique Daniels. "Willigen, Adriaan, van der, Pz. (1810-1876)." Dictionary of Art Historians (website). https://arthistorians.info/willigena/.


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Early documents-style scholar of Dutch art, Medical Doctor. His work was succeeded by Frederik D. O. Obreen and Abraham Bredius. Van der Willigen was the son of the protestant minister (preacher) Piet

Willigen, Adriaan, van der (1766-1841)

Full Name: Willigen, Adriaan, van der

Other Names:

  • Adriaan van der Willigen

Gender: male

Date Born: 12 May 1766

Date Died: 17 January 1841

Place Born: Rotterdam, South Holland, Netherlands

Place Died: Haarlem, North Holland, Netherlands

Home Country/ies: Netherlands


Overview

Coauthor of lexicon of artists, Geschiedenis der vaderlandse schilderkunst, sedert de helft der XVIII eeuw. Van der Willigen took the initiative to write the history of artists living in the Netherlands from the middle of the eighteenth century up to his time. In search for information on artists he published, in 1814, a request in the Algemeene konst- en letterbode. Among those who responded was Roeland van Eynden, who subsequently became the coauthor of the project. Both Van Eynden and Van der Willigen were members of the Koninklijk Nederlandsch Instituut and generally involved with the cultural life of the Netherlands. Van der Willigen, who served briefly in the army, was an art lover who had published his travels in France and England as well as a treatise on national history painting in 1806. The two men published Geschiedenis der vaderlandse schilderkunst, sedert de helft der XVIII eeuw, a four-volume work, completed with engravings. The book was written to add to earlier biographical dictionaries of artists such as those written by Karel Van Mander, Arnold Houbraken, and Johan Van Gool. Its content, however, is broader than the title indicates. The book goes back to the sixteenth century, covering sculptors, engravers, and architects in addition to painters. Van Eynden provided most of the content of the first volume, which appeared in 1816. It deals in chronological order with artists not mentioned by their predecessors. The second volume (1817) largely written by Van der Willigen, deals with the lives of painters already mentioned in Van Gool’s 1750-1751 Nieuwe Schouburg, continuing with artists born after that date. Van Eynden, already in poor health during the second volume’s appearance, died in 1819. The third volume (1820) contains biographies of contemporary artists, and information on art collections, cabinets, art schools, academies, exhibitions etc. A fourth volume appeared in 1840, which acted as an appendix. His nephew was the documents-style scholar of Dutch art, Adriaan van der Willigen (1810-1876). The Geschiedenis provides information on more than 1500 artists and art collectors. The authors deliberately refrained from writing slanderous anecdotes on artists, as had been done in earlier publications. Van der Willigen and Van Eynden had access to excellent libraries, searched archives, and gathered firsthand information on contemporary art. They primarily focused on the Dutch school of artists, but when the southern Netherlands were united with the northern Netherlands under King Willem I in 1815, they began including Flemish artists. In 1997, and index to the Geschiedenis was published by Ton Geerts, making it still a useful reference work on the history of Netherlandish art.


Selected Bibliography

and Van Eynden, Roeland. Geschiedenis der vaderlandse schilderkunst, sedert de helft der XVIII eeuw. 4 vols. Haarlem: A. Loosjes Pz., 1816-1840.


Sources

Van der Willigen Pz., Adriaan. “Nader berigt wegens A. van der Willigen en zijne geschriften” Kunst en Letterbode (1841); Van der AA, A. J. Biografisch Woordenboek der Nederlanden. 7 (1852): 88-89; Zuidema, R. “Willigen (Adriaan van der)” in Blok, P. J. and Molhuysen, P. C. Nieuw Nederlandsch biografisch woordenboek. 10 (1937): 1216-1217; Van Beek, Pierre. “Adriaan van der Willigen” Het Nieuwblad van het Zuiden January 6, February 10, May 8, 1973;



Contributors: Monique Daniels


Citation

Monique Daniels. "Willigen, Adriaan, van der (1766-1841)." Dictionary of Art Historians (website). https://arthistorians.info/willigena1766/.


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Coauthor of lexicon of artists, Geschiedenis der vaderlandse schilderkunst, sedert de helft der XVIII eeuw. Van der Willigen took the initiative to write the history of artists living in the Netherlands from the middle of the eighteenth c

Williams, Sylvia H.

Full Name: Williams, Sylvia Hill

Other Names:

  • Sylvia Louise Hill
  • Sylvia Hill
  • Sylvia Williams

Gender: female

Date Born: 10 February 1936

Date Died: 28 February 1996

Place Born: Lincoln, Allegheny, PA, USA

Place Died: Washington, DC, USA

Home Country/ies: United States

Subject Area(s): African (general, continental cultures), artifacts (object genre), Central African (cultural or regional style), connoisseurship, and found objects

Career(s): art collectors, art historians, curators, directors (administrators), and museum directors

Institution(s): National Museum of African Art at the Smithsonian


Overview

Museum director, curator, art historian, and scholar of African art. Williams was born and grew up in Lincoln, Pennsylvania. Her father was a professor of English and dean at Lincoln University. She married Charlton E. Williams (1925-2002) a short time before receiving a B.A. in art history from Oberlin College in 1957. She worked initially for the Museum of Modern Art in New York and then was a secretary for the African-American Institute in Lagos, Nigeria. She was also an escort for the State Department and arranged programs for Latin American students in the international exchange program of the National Social Welfare Assembly.

Williams began her career as a museum curator at the Brooklyn Museum in 1973 where she worked in the Department of African, Oceanic, and New World Cultures. During her time there, she directed an aesthetically-oriented reinstallation of the permanent African collection, one of the oldest in the country, and organized several traveling exhibitions. She received an M.A. in art history from New York University’s Institute of Fine Arts in 1975. Williams also studied at the Columbia University School of Library Science, and at the École Pratique de l’Alliance Française in Paris. In 1983, Williams was appointed Director of the National Museum of African Art (NMAfA) at the Smithsonian Institution in Washington, D.C, succeeding Warren Robbins (1923-2008) and was the first African American to hold that position. That same year she also received a Candace Award for History from the National Coalition of 100 Black Women. Williams oversaw the NMAfA’s move in 1986 to an underground location on the Mall, where it was twinned with the Arthur M. Sackler Gallery in a $73.2 million museum and research complex. She was one of the few women, and the only African American woman, serving at the time as director of a major American museum. In 1989, she was awarded an honorary Doctor of Humane Letters by Amherst College, and the following year she received an honorary Doctor of Fine Arts by Oberlin College.

In the early 1990’s, Williams began to focus on collecting contemporary African art, including photography. Williams’s 1991 exhibition, The Art of the Personal Object, highlighted the aesthetic value of utilitarian objects in African cultures. The well-received show included 122 bowls, stools, baskets, beer straws, combs, and snuff spoons, many of which were acquired under the direction of Williams and the NMAfA’s curator, Philip Ravenhill. From 1994 to 1995, she served as president of the Association of Art Museum Directors (AAMD). She also served as the NMAfA’s curator of an exhibition of etchings by Mohammed Omer Khalil (b. 1936) and sculptures by Amir I. M. Nour (1936-2021). Williams analyzed acquisitions based on their aesthetic qualities in an effort to emphasize the importance of connoisseurship in the appreciation and display of African art. Her dedication to elevating the museum’s reputation led to the acquisition of 845 works during her tenure. In addition to her duties as museum director, she was also an adjunct assistant professor at the Graduate School of Arts and Sciences of New York University, and president of the Association of Art Museum Directors (AAMD) from 1994-95. She died in Washington D.C. at age 60 from complications with a brain aneurysm. In October of the following year, the National Museum of African Art of the Smithsonian Institution launched the exhibition The Poetics of the Line: Seven Artists of the Nsukka group, which was also the inaugural exhibition of the Sylvia H. Williams Gallery named in her honor.


Selected Bibliography

  • “African Art at the Brooklyn Museum.” African Arts (1980) 13 (2): 42–88;
  • Speeches Given by Sylvia H. Williams, 1936-1996. Washington, DC: National Museum of African Art, Smithsonian Institution, 1996;
  • and Strongman, Esther Williams. “The National Museum of African Art: a New Center for the Exchange of Ideas Between Cultures.” Washington, DC: United States Information Agency No. 149, (1983): 62-65;
  • “The Central African collection, 1922-82.” Apollo 115, no. 242, (1983): 264-267;
  • and Khalil, Mohammad Omer; Nour, Amir I. M. Mohammad Omer Khalil, Etchings, Amir I.M. Nour, Sculpture. Washington, DC: National Museum of African Art, Smithsonian Institution, 1994;
  • and MacGaffey, Wyatt, Harris, Michael D., Driskell, David C. Astonishment & Power: The Eyes of Understanding: Kongo Minkisi / The Art of Renee Stout. Washington, DC: National Museum of African Art, Smithsonian Institution, 1993.

Sources


Archives


Contributors: Alana J. Hyman and LaNitra Michele Walker


Citation

Alana J. Hyman and LaNitra Michele Walker. "Williams, Sylvia H.." Dictionary of Art Historians (website). https://arthistorians.info/williamss/.


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Museum director, curator, art historian, and scholar of African art. Williams was born and grew up in Lincoln, Pennsylvania. Her father was a professor of English and dean at Lincoln University. She married Charlton E. Williams (1925-2002) a short ti

Williams, Jane Welch

Full Name: Williams, Jane Welch

Gender: female

Date Born: 1931

Date Died: 1998

Place Born: Los Angeles, CA, USA

Place Died: Tucson, Pima, AZ, USA

Home Country/ies: United States

Subject Area(s): art theory, Marxism, and Medieval (European)


Overview

Medievalist of Marxist revisionist methodology. Welch attended Bennington College in Vermont, but left school before graduating in order to marry and raise a family. As the wife of a successful businessman, she developed the recreational passions of deep-sea fishing and wine connoisseurship. After her family was raised, she returned to college in her forties, graduating from the University of California, Los Angeles, in 1973. At UCLA, she studied under the methodologically-Marxist social art historian O. K. Werckmeister, who suggested her master’s thesis topic, a study of the windows representing the trades at Chartres cathedral. She received her A. M. in 1978, continuing on for her Ph.D. under Werckmeister. After working as a teaching assistant, 1977-1979, at UCLA, she secured a Dickson Travel Fellowship in 1980 to research in France and Austria. She returned as a visiting Assistant professor at the University of Chicago for the 1984-1985 academic year. Williams completed her dissertation under Werckmeister at UCLA, on the trade windows at Chartres, in 1987. After teaching a year at the University of Illinois, Chicago, 1987-1988, she was appointed assistant faculty at the University of Arizona, Tucson in 1989. In 1993 she was diagnosed with brain cancer and died the same year. In 1999, the 34th International Congress on Medieval Studies in Kalamazoo, Michigan was dedicated to her, “Abbey and Cathedral Towns: Papers in Honor and in Memory of Jane Welch Williams.” Williams’ work focused on the forty-two thirteenth-century stained-glass windows depicting tradesmen at work. William’s argued that the cathedral, contrary to modern assumption, was not created by a mutual harmonious relationship of bishop and burghers, but rather developed under anti-clericalism and urban conflict (Crossley). She determined that the windows served as propaganda in a long-running, (and frequently violent) struggle for power between the cathedral clergy, the counts of Chartres and tradespeople who were more and more encouraged to give money. She analyzed the records of three trades, the baking, tavern, and money changing concerns represented in the windows. Using both medieval texts and modern studies of medieval economic and religious practices, she outlined how the obligatory payments to the church and clergy–often presented during masses–by the trades, followed into the larger struggle between secular and religious goals within the cathedral building.


Selected Bibliography

[dissertation:] The Windows of the Trades at Chartres Cathedral. Ph.D., University of California, Los Angeles, 1987; Bread, Wine & Money: the Windows of the Trades at Chartres Cathedral. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1993; and Dowell, Susan. Bread, Wine & Women: the Ordination Debate in the Church of England. London: Virago Press, 1994.


Sources

Crossley, Paul. “Introduction: Frankl’s Text: Its Achievement and Significance.” Frankl, Paul and Crossley, Paul. Gothic Architecture. 2nd ed. New Haven: Yale University Press, 2000, p. 26; [obituaries:] Drell, Adrienne. “Jane Welch Williams, Medieval Art Historian.” Chicago Sun-Times May 13, 1998, p. 82.




Citation

"Williams, Jane Welch." Dictionary of Art Historians (website). https://arthistorians.info/williamsj/.


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Medievalist of Marxist revisionist methodology. Welch attended Bennington College in Vermont, but left school before graduating in order to marry and raise a family. As the wife of a successful businessman, she developed the recreational passions

Willett, Frank

Full Name: Willett, Frank

Gender: male

Date Born: 1925

Date Died: 2006

Place Born: Bolton, Manchester, City and Borough of, England, UK

Place Died: Glasgow, Scotland, UK

Home Country/ies: United Kingdom


Overview

Scholar of the art of the Ilfe civilization and Director of the Hunterian Museum & Art Gallery, 1976-1990. Willett was educated at Bolton Municipal Secondary School and then at University College, Oxford. He then gained a diploma in Anthropology intending on foreign service. However, at the outbreak of World War II, Willett studied Japanese and joined the RAF. After the war, he became Keeper of the Department of Ethnology and General Archaeology at Manchester Museum. He married his wife, Connie, in 1950. Willett made trips to Nigeria where he collected objects for the Manchester Museum. His skill and understanding in this area lead to an appointment as the Honorary Surveyor of Antiquities for the Nigerian Federal Government in 1956, followed by an appointment as Nigeria Government Archaeologist, heading the Ife Museum in Southern Nigeria. Willet made Ife, one of the earliest and most important cities in West Africa, a life interest and research focus. Willet moved back to Oxford in 1963 to become a research fellow at Nuffield College. Northwestern University in Evanston, Illinois, then building a superior department in African Studies, hired Willett as Professor of Art History, African Studies and Interdisciplinary Studies in 1966. During this time, Willett published his Ife in the History of West African Sculpture. He followed this in1971 with African Art: An Introduction, one of the most well-received surveys of African art of that decade. Willent returned to England to become the first Director of the Hunterian Museum at the University of Glasgow in 1976. As faculty in the department of Archaeology he lectured widely. As director of the Museum he opened the Hunterian Art Gallery and the rebuilt Charles Rennie Mackintosh house. He co-organized the “Treasures of Ancient Nigeria” exhibition which traveled the United States in 1980. Willett was appointed Vice-Chair of the Scottish Museums Council in 1986 (to1989). He was awarded a CBE in 1985. Willett retired from the Museum in 1990. He served as Curator of the Royal Society for five years between 1992-1997. His introductory African art book was continuously updated and reissued until 2002. In 2004 published The Art of Ife: a Descriptive Catalogue and Database, a catalog on all known Ilfe objects, including descriptions of archaeological investigations of Ife sites, evidence for dating, as well as the social role of the sculpture and the hands of the artists. The CD-ROM product won the Amoury Talbot Prize. Willett was a pioneering scholar of African art and archaeology. As the first Director of the Hunterian Museum, he set a standard for its place in the University. He was a patient teacher whose students became the next generation of Africanists. Willet’s scholarship focused on the realism of the Ilfe bronze portrait heads dating to the twelfth century A. D. His studies of these and other types of West African brass and bronze castings was done in tandem with the Smithsonian Institution, the British Museum and other major research institutions.


Selected Bibliography

African Art, an Introduction. New York: Praeger, 1971; Baubles, Bangles and Beads: Trade Contracts of Mediaeval Ife. Edinburgh: University of Edinburgh for the Centre of African Studies, 1977; Ife in the History of West African Sculpture. New York: McGraw-Hill, 1967; and Ekpo Eyo. Treasures of Ancient Nigeria. New York: Knopf/Random House, 1980; and Blackmun, Barbara Winston. The Art of Ife: a Descriptive Catalogue and Database [CD-ROM]. Glasgow: Hunterian Museum and Art Gallery, 2004.


Sources

[obituary] Hunterian Museum Website, http://www.hunterian.gla.ac.uk:443/museum/events/event.php?eventID=45




Citation

"Willett, Frank." Dictionary of Art Historians (website). https://arthistorians.info/willettf/.


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Scholar of the art of the Ilfe civilization and Director of the Hunterian Museum & Art Gallery, 1976-1990. Willett was educated at Bolton Municipal Secondary School and then at University College, Oxford. He then gained a diploma in Anthropology i

Wilkinson, Charles

Full Name: Wilkinson, Charles

Gender: male

Date Born: unknown

Date Died: unknown

Home Country/ies: United States

Subject Area(s): ancient, Early Western World, Egyptian (ancient), Mediterranean (Early Western World), and Near Eastern (Early Western World)

Institution(s): Metropolitan Museum of Art


Overview

Founder of the Department of Ancient Near Eastern Art at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York. Wilkinson began as an assistant (copyist) to Albert M. Lythgoe in his Egyptian excavations for the Metropolitan Museum of Art.



Sources

Tomkins, Calvin. Merchants and Masterpieces: The Story of the Metropolitan Museum of Art. 2nd. ed. New York: Henry Holt, 1989, p. 137.



Contributors: Lee Sorensen


Citation

Lee Sorensen. "Wilkinson, Charles." Dictionary of Art Historians (website). https://arthistorians.info/wilkinsonc/.


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Founder of the Department of Ancient Near Eastern Art at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York. Wilkinson began as an assistant (copyist) to Albert M. Lythgoe in his Egyptian excavations for the Metropolitan Museum of Ar

Wildenstein, Georges

Full Name: Wildenstein, Georges

Gender: male

Date Born: 1892

Date Died: 1963

Place Born: Paris, Île-de-France, France

Place Died: Paris, Île-de-France, France

Home Country/ies: France

Subject Area(s): connoisseurship

Career(s): art dealers


Overview

Art dealer, connoisseur and art historian. Wildenstein was the son of Nathan Wildenstein (1851-1934), the founder of the art gallery that bore their name. The younger Wildenstein began working in his father’s firm in 1910, assuming the head in 1934 at his father’s death. Wildenstein added masterworks of the Impressionists and post impressionists to the gallery’s holding, developing vast holdings from which top collectors could chose. He also developed the firm’s legendary art reference libraries, considered to be among the finest in the world. Wildenstein took over as publisher of the Gazette des Beaux Arts from Théodore Reinach (1860-1928). In 1924 he founded his own weekly serial, Arts. Though Wildenstein was less interested in twentieth-century art, he assisted the Surrealists in the 1930s, lending them a gallery in which to stage their International Surrealist exhibition. In 1932 Wildenstein hired architect Horace Trumbauer to design the New York galleries at East 64th Street, in a regal five storey building. As an art dealer, Wildenstein was famous for turning a profit on great works of art. Between 1923 and 1955, Wildenstein sold one Toulouse Lautrec painting five times, its price having jumped from $1800 to $275,000. In 1956 he appointed the curator of prints at the Bibliothèque nationale, Jean Adhémar, to be editor of the Gazette, a brilliant move who expanded the scope of the journal. Wildenstein was an authority on Gauguin and wrote knowledgeable texts on Ingres and Chardin. At his death in 1963 the Gazette and the firm were taken over by his son, Daniel Wildenstein. The (London) Times‘ obituary described Wildenstein as Duveen’s heir, not entirely a complement. Wildenstein’s heirs have had to fend off accusations that the elder man accepted stolen paintings from the Nazis during the French occupation to sell for them.


Selected Bibliography

Ingres. London: Phaidon, 1954; Ingres. London: Phaidon Press, 1956; Manet. Paris: Les Beaux-arts, édition d’études et de documents, 1932; Chardin. Zürich: Manesse, 1963; Gauguin. Paris: Beaux-Arts, 1964.


Sources

Bazin, Germain. Histoire de l’histoire d l’art; de Vasari à nos jours. Paris: Albin Michel, 1986, pp. 246-251; [Obituary] Gazette des Beaux-Arts 62 Series 6 (July 1963): p. supplement I-II




Citation

"Wildenstein, Georges." Dictionary of Art Historians (website). https://arthistorians.info/wildensteing/.


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Art dealer, connoisseur and art historian. Wildenstein was the son of Nathan Wildenstein (1851-1934), the founder of the art gallery that bore their name. The younger Wildenstein began working in his father’s firm in 1910, assuming the head in 193

Wildenstein, Daniel

Full Name: Wildenstein, Daniel

Gender: male

Date Born: 1917

Date Died: 2001

Place Born: Verrières-le-Buisson, Île-de-France, France

Place Died: Paris, Île-de-France, France

Home Country/ies: France

Subject Area(s): Impressionist (style)

Career(s): art dealers


Overview

Impressionist scholar and gallery dealer. Wildenstein was born to a family of art dealers. His grandfather, Nathan Wildenstein, began the business Wildenstein & Cie., in the 1870s selling 18th-century and old master paintings. In the early twentieth century, the business expanded to London and New York where their clients included Henry Clay Frick and J. P. Morgan. The younger Wildenstein was educated at the Sorbonne and spent his early professional years as the exhibitions director of the Musée Jacquemart-Andre, Paris, and the Musée Chaalis in the north of France. He was the publisher of the respected Gazette des Beux-Arts, which he took over from his father, Georges Wildenstein. In 1959 Wildenstein took over the gallery business from his father, closing the Paris location in the 1960s and making New York its main office. Always a secretive business, Wildenstein was reputed to have large, unseen holdings of Impressionist masters. In 1978, the “Vault”, as the New York storeroom is called, included 20 Renoirs, 25 Courbets, 10 Van Goghs, 10 Cezannes, and 10 Gauguins; 2 Boticellis, 8 Rembrandts, 8 Rubens, 9 El Grecos and 5 Tintorettos among a total inventory of 10,000 paintings. In 1993 a subsidiary of Wildenstein joined forces with Pace Gallery to become PaceWildenstein, a Manhattan gallery specializing in high-end contemporary art. Wildenstein set up a foundation, called the Wildenstein Institute, to issued catalogues raisonnés of major French artists. The Institute issued the definitive catalog on Monet, which Wildenstein personally oversaw. He was also responsible for founding the American Institute of France in New York. The end of Wildenstein’s days, however, were clouded by lawsuits and accusations that his father collaborated with the Nazis during the occupation of France to gain art treasures seized from Jews. The French government dismissed two libel lawsuits by Wildenstein for damages by author Hector Feliciano in his book, The Lost Museum, in 1999. Partially to counteract this, Wildenstein published Marchand d’Art (1999), a series of interviews. In a second case, family members of Alphonse Kahn sought to recover illuminated manuscripts stolen by the Germans and erroneously returned after the war to Wildenstein. At the time of his death, the Wildenstein Institute was embroiled in lawsuits by collectors of Kees van Dongen and Amedeo Modigliani paintings whose works had were being excluded from the forthcoming catalogues raisonnés.


Selected Bibliography

Bibliograpy: [bibligraphy until 1952:] Studies aangeboden aan prof. Dr. Gerard Brom. Utrecht: 1952, pp. ix-xx; Van Helvoort, A. A. J. Bibliografie Gerard Brom: een volledig overzicht van zijn publicaties. Best: s.n., 1987; [dissertation Utrecht:] Vondels bekering. Amsterdam: E. Van der Vecht, 1907; Romantiek en Katholicisme. 1. Kunst. Groningen: J. B. Wolters, 1926; Hollandse schilders en schrijvers in de vorige eeuw. Rotterdam: W. L. & J. Brusse, 1927; Java in onze kunst. Rotterdam: W. L. & J. Brusse, 1931; Herleving van de kerkelijke kunst in katholiek Nederland. Leiden: Ars Catholica, 1933; Schilderkunst en literatuur in de zestiende en zeventiende eeuw. Utrecht: Het Spectrum, 1957; Schilderkunst en literatuur in de negentiende eeuw. Utrecht: Het Spectrum, 1959.


Sources

Rubenstein, R. “Daniel Wildenstein, 1917-2001.” Art in America 89 no. 12 (December 2001): 134. Claude Monet: biographie et catalogue raisonné. Paris: La Bibliothèque des arts, 1974-1985; and Ananoff, Alexandre. François Boucher. Lausanne: La Bibliothèque des arts, 1976; and Rouart, Denis. Édouard Manet: catalogue raisonné. Lausanne: Bibliothèque des arts, 1975; Documents complémentaires au catalogue de l’œuvre de Louis David. Paris: Fondation Wildenstein, 1973; Gauguin: premier itinéraire d’un sauvage: catalogue de l’oeuvre peint, 1873-1888. Paris: Wildenstein Institute, 2001; Inventaires après décès d’artistes et de collectionneurs françaís du XVIIIe siécle. Paris: les Beaux-arts, 1967; Marchands d’art. Paris: Plon, 1999; Chardin. Greenwich, CT: New York Graphic Society, 1969, French edition, 1963.




Citation

"Wildenstein, Daniel." Dictionary of Art Historians (website). https://arthistorians.info/wildensteind/.


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Impressionist scholar and gallery dealer. Wildenstein was born to a family of art dealers. His grandfather, Nathan Wildenstein, began the business Wildenstein & Cie., in the 1870s selling 18th-century and old master paintings. In the ea