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Art Historians

Reid, George William

Full Name: Reid, George William

Gender: male

Date Born: 1819

Date Died: 1887

Home Country/ies: United Kingdom

Subject Area(s): drawings (visual works) and prints (visual works)

Career(s): curators


Overview

Curator of Prints and Drawing, British Museum. He commissioned Frederic George Stephens to write the initial volumes of the collection, which began appearing in 1870.


Selected Bibliography

British Museum. Department of Prints and Drawings. Title: Catalogue of prints and drawings in the British Museum : Division I. Political and personal satires (no.1-15496). Published: [London] : Printed by order of the Trustees, 1870-1952.





Citation

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Curator of Prints and Drawing, British Museum. He commissioned Frederic George Stephens to write the initial volumes of the collection, which began appearing in 1870.

Reichhold, Karl W.

Full Name: Reichhold, Karl W.

Other Names:

  • Karl Reichhold

Gender: male

Date Born: 1902

Home Country/ies: Germany

Subject Area(s): ancient, archaeology, ceramic ware (visual works), Classical, painting (visual works), pottery (visual works), vase, and vase paintings (visual works)


Overview

Archaeologist and historian of classical vase painting. In 1900 he and Adolf Furtwängler renewed the excavations at the temple of Aphaia in Aigina. Reichhold and Furtwängler’s Griechische Vasenmalerei raised the standard for accurate drawings of vase paintings to an exceptional level.


Selected Bibliography

Skizzenbuch griechischer Meister; ein Einblick in das griechische Kunststudium auf Grund der Vasenbilder. Munich: F. Bruckmann, 1919; edited, Furtwängler, Adolf. Griechische Vasenmalerei: eine Auswahl hervorragender Vasenbilder aus dem gleichnamigen grossen Werke. Munich: F. Bruckmann, 1924.


Sources

[mentioned] Rouet, Philippe. Approaches to the Study of Attic Vases: Beazley and Pottier. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2001.




Citation

"Reichhold, Karl W.." Dictionary of Art Historians (website). https://arthistorians.info/reichholdk/.


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Archaeologist and historian of classical vase painting. In 1900 he and Adolf Furtwängler renewed the excavations at the temple of Aphaia in Aigina. Reichhold and Furtwängler’s Griechische Vasenmalerei raised th

Reich, Sheldon

Full Name: Reich, Sheldon

Gender: male

Date Born: unknown

Date Died: unknown

Subject Area(s): catalogues raisonnés and stylistic analysis


Overview

The authoritative study of Marin is Sheldon Reich’s John Marin: A Stylistic Analysis and Catalogue Raisonne (2 vols., 1970).






Citation

"Reich, Sheldon." Dictionary of Art Historians (website). https://arthistorians.info/reichs/.


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The authoritative study of Marin is Sheldon Reich’s John Marin: A Stylistic Analysis and Catalogue Raisonne (2 vols., 1970).

Regteren Altena, I. Q., van,

Full Name: Regteren Altena, I. Q., van,

Other Names:

  • I. Q. van Regteren Altena

Gender: male

Date Born: 1899

Date Died: 1980

Place Born: Amsterdam, North Holland, Netherlands

Place Died: Amsterdam, North Holland, Netherlands

Home Country/ies: Netherlands

Subject Area(s): connoisseurship, drawings (visual works), and prints (visual works)

Career(s): curators


Overview

Connoisseur of drawings, curator of various print rooms, professor of art history. Van Regteren Altena studied at the Academy for Visual Arts at Amsterdam and spent two years in Italy, intending to be a painter. Visits to Raimond van Marle in Perugia and G. J. Hoogewerff in Rome changed his mind to art history. Upon his return in The Netherlands, he became an assistant of Frits Lugt, who was commissioned to compile the inventory of Dutch and Flemish drawings in the Louvre. He enrolled at Utrecht University, studying under Willem Vogelsang. In 1935, he obtained his doctorate with a dissertation on the drawings of Jacques de Gheyn II: Jacques de Gheyn: an Introduction to the Study of his Drawings (1935). Campbell Dodgson, in the Burlington Magazine, praised this piece, published in 1936. It was to be followed by a catalog and plates, but soon Altena was overburdened with various other obligations. During his active life, Altena held various positions. Between 1932 and 1937, he served as curator of the municipal Fodor collection in Amsterdam. In 1937, he became Professor of Art History at the University of Amsterdam, a position which he held until his retirement in 1969. Altena remain in the Netherlands during World War II and the Nazi occupation. He was one of a number of eminent art historians swayed by the opinion of Abraham Bredius that a newly discovered painting of “Christ at Emmaus” was by Vermeer. During the War, however, he was among the first to declare that another newly discovered Vermeer, Christ’s Washing of the Feet was a fake [painted 1942-1943]. Both paintings turned out to be the work of celebrated forger Han van Meegeren (1889-1947). The painting was ultimately identified as the work of the noted Vermeer forger. Between 1948 and 1962, Altena was the director of the Print Room of the Rijksmuseum in Amsterdam. There he regrouped the collections and broadened their scope with great insight. He acquired drawings of Dutch and Flemish masters, including Rembrandt and Rubens, and at the same time he wanted to build up a broader European collection in which Italian and French drawings would have a prominent place. In his capacity as curator of the Teyler Foundation in Haarlem (1952-1973), Altena compiled two catalogues of the drawings from this collection which were on display in 1970 in the Victoria and Albert Museum in London, and in 1972 in the Louvre in Paris. The Italian drawings of the collection of the Teyler Foundation enjoyed his special interest. Altena himself was the collector of a private “Kabinet van tekeningen” (cabinet of drawings). In 1967-1968, he was appointed a visiting professor at Harvard University. He was an editor of Oud Holland, frequently writing on the origins and development of Rembrandt’s oeuvre. He returned to the topic of the work of Jacques de Gheyn II the last two years of his life, now with support of the Netherlands Organization for the Advancement of Pure Research (Z.W.O.), to complete his magnum opus: Jacques de Gheyn, Three Generations. Altena died without seeing its publication. His wife and his son became the final editors of the book, published in 1983 in three volumes. His students include Hans Rookmaaker. As professor and connoisseur, Altena taught his students to look at works of art in order to get thoroughly acquainted with them and at the same time to study them in their art-historical context. In addition to his merits as a teacher, his work as curator of various print rooms has been beneficial to the Dutch museum world. Altena wrote many books and articles on sixteenth- and seventeenth Dutch painting and graphic arts, particularly on drawings. He published extensively in Oud Holland between 1946 and 1972.


Selected Bibliography

for a complete list of publications between1920 and 1968, see: Van der Vossen-Delbrück, E. “Lijst van publikaties van I.Q. van Regteren Altena” in Miscellanea I.Q. van Regteren Altena 16/V/1968. Amsterdam: Scheltema & Holkema, 1969: 236-240; Jacques de Gheyn: An Introduction to the Study of his Drawings. (Dissertation) Translated by D. Kuenen-Wicksteed. Amsterdam: Swets & Zeitlinger, 1935; The Drawings of Jacques de Gheyn. Vol.1: An Introduction. Amsterdam: Swets & Zeitlinger, 1936; De opdracht. Inaugurele rede (inaugural lecture) Universiteit van Amsterdam. Haarlem: Joh. Enschede en Zonen, 1937; “De aanloop tot de Nederlandse schilderkunst van de zeventiende eeuw” Jaarboek van de Maatschappij der Nederlandse Letterkunde te Leiden, 1969-1970: 57-75; “Grotten in de tuinen der Oranjes” Oud Holland 85 (1970): 33-44; and Ward-Jackson, P.W. Drawings from the Teyler Museum, Haarlem. London, Victoria & Albert Museum, 1970; Cent dessins du Musée Teyler Haarlem. Paris, Musée du Louvre, 1972; “Een drieluik van Jacques de Gheyn” in Album Amicorum J.G. van Gelder. The Hague: Martinus Nijhoff, 1973: 253-259; “Jacques de Gheyn” in ZWO Jaarboek 1974. The Hague, 1975: 96-98; “Un incunable de la connaissance des graveurs et des monogrammes” in Bijdragen tot de geschiedenis van de grafische kunst opgedragen aan Prof. Dr. Louis Lebeer, Antwerp, 1975; Peter Paul Rubens. Tekeningen naar Hans Holbeins Dodendans/Dessins d’après la Danse de la Mort de Holbein/Drawings after Holbein’s Dance of Death. Amsterdam: H.D. Pfann, 1977; Jacques de Gheyn, Three Generations. 3 Vols. Edited by A.L.W. van Regteren Altena – van Royen and Jean François van Regteren Altena. Translated by Mary Charles. The Hague-Boston-London, 1983.Festschrift: Miscellanea I.Q. van Regteren Altena 16/V/1969. Amsterdam: Scheltema & Holkema, 1969.


Sources

Boon, K.G. “Bij het afscheid van J.Q. van Regteren Altena.” Bulletin Rijksmuseum, 10 (1962): 52-55; Coremans, Paul B. Van Meegeren’s Faked Vermeers and De Hooghs: a Scientific Examination. Amsterdam: J. M. Meulenhoff, 1949, pp. 36-37; [obituaries:] Boon, K.G. “I.Q. van Regteren Altena (1899-1980).” The Burlington Magazine 123, (1981): 359-360; Oud Holland 95, (1981): 1-2.



Contributors: Monique Daniels


Citation

Monique Daniels. "Regteren Altena, I. Q., van,." Dictionary of Art Historians (website). https://arthistorians.info/regterenaltenai/.


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Connoisseur of drawings, curator of various print rooms, professor of art history. Van Regteren Altena studied at the Academy for Visual Arts at Amsterdam and spent two years in Italy, intending to be a painter. Visits to Raimond

Reff, Theodore

Full Name: Reff, Theodore

Other Names:

  • Theodore Franklin Reff

Gender: male

Date Born: 1930

Place Born: New York, NY, USA

Home Country/ies: United States

Subject Area(s): French (culture or style), nineteenth century (dates CE), and painting (visual works)


Overview

Degas and late-19th century French painting scholar; professor of art history at Columbia University, 1964-. Reff’s father was Irving Reff and his mother Alice Pinkowitz (Reff). Reff attended Columbia University receiving his B.A. in 1952. He moved to Harvard University where his M.A. was awarded in 1953. Using Harvard’s Edward Bacon fellowship, he traveled to Europe between 1955 and 1956. In 1957 he began at Columbia as an instructor in art history. His Ph.D. was granted in 1958 with a dissertation topic on the drawings of Cézanne under Frederick B. Deknatel. He married Arlene Gottesman in 1961, advancing to assistant professor the same year. Reff was a member of Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton, N. J., in 1963, organizing a show on Cézanne’s watercolors jointly with Columbia’s Department of Art History and Archaeology and the Knoedler Gallery in New York. In 1964 he was appointed associate professor and professor of art history in 1967. Reff received a Guggenheim fellowship for the 1967-1968 year. He was visiting professor at Johns Hopkins University in 1970, heading the A. Kingsley Porter Prize committee between 1970 and 1972 for the College Art Association. A second Guggenheim was awarded him for 1974-1975. In 1976 he organized a major Degas exhibition for the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, “Degas: the Artist’s Mind.” The same year he authored the volume on Manet’s “Olympia” for the Art in Context series commissioned by Penguin. He joined the board of directors of College Art Association in 1977. The same year he contributed essays for the “Cézanne: Late Work” exhibition organized by William S. Rubin at the Museum of Modern Art, New York. He was appointed director of College Art’s board beginning 1978 (though 1980). In 1982, Reff launched the exhibition, “Manet and Modern Paris” at the National Gallery of Art in Washgington, D. C. He and Philippe Brame wrote the supplement to the catalogue raisonné of Degas originally written by Paul-André Lemoisne shortly after World War II. His studented included Norma Broude, Judy Sund and Alessandra Comini. Methodologically, Reff studied the interactions of art and literature, frequently applying psychoanalytical models. His studies of Degas employed archival materials weaving it with circumstances of the painter’s social circle.


Selected Bibliography

[dissertation:] Studies in the Drawings of Cézanne. Harvard, 1958; “Cézanne’s Bather with Outstretched Arms.” Gazette des Beaux Arts 59, 6th series (1963): 173-79; and Rubin, William. Cézanne: the Late Work : Essays. New York: Museum of Modern Art, 1977; Cézanne Watercolors. M. Knoedler and Company/Wittenborn, 1963; Degas: the Artist’s Mind. New York: Metropolitan Museum of Art, 1976; Manet and Modern Paris: One Hundred Paintings, Drawings, Prints, and Photographs by Manet and his Contemporaries. Washington: National Gallery of Art, 1982; Manet, Olympia. New York: Viking Press, 1977, (copyrighted 1976); edited, The Notebooks of Edgar Degas: a Catalogue of the Thirty-eight Notebooks in the Bibliothéque Nationale and Other Collections. 2 vols. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1976.P.A. Lemoisne, Degas et son oeuvre, 4 vol. (1947-48, reprinted 1984); and in Philippe Brame and Theodore Reff (compilers), Degas et son oeuvre: A Supplement (1984).


Sources

Kleinbauer, W. Eugene. Research Guide to the History of Western Art. Sources of Information in the Humanities, no. 2. Chicago: American Library Association, 1982, p. 105 mentioned; Kleinbauer, W. Eugene. Modern Perspectives in Western Art History: An Anthology of 20th-Century Writings on the Visual Arts. New York: Holt, Rinehart and Winston, 1971, p. 76 cited;




Citation

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Degas and late-19th century French painting scholar; professor of art history at Columbia University, 1964-. Reff’s father was Irving Reff and his mother Alice Pinkowitz (Reff). Reff attended Columbia University receiving his B.A. in 1952. He move

Redslob, Edwin

Full Name: Redslob, Edwin

Other Names:

  • "Edi"

Gender: male

Date Born: 1894

Date Died: 1973

Place Born: Weimar, Thuringia, Germany

Place Died: Berlin, Germany

Home Country/ies: Germany


Overview

Reichskunstwart (federal art commissioner) during the Weimar Republic, 1919, and rebuilder of German art world post-World War II. His colleagues during this time at Heidelberg included Rosa Schapire, Walter Kaesbach, Emil Waldmann, and Ernst Kühnel.



Sources

Wendland, Ulrike. Biographisches Handbuch deutschsprachiger Kunsthistoriker im Exil: Leben und Werk der unter dem Nationalsozialismus verfolgten und vertriebenen Wissenschaftler. Munich: Saur, 1999, vol. 2, pp. 537-541; Sterne, Margaret Heiden. The Passionate Eye: the Life of William R. Valentiner. Detroit: Wayne State University Press, 1980, p. 40




Citation

"Redslob, Edwin." Dictionary of Art Historians (website). https://arthistorians.info/redslobe/.


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Reichskunstwart (federal art commissioner) during the Weimar Republic, 1919, and rebuilder of German art world post-World War II. His colleagues during this time at Heidelberg included Rosa Schapire,

Redgrave, Samuel

Full Name: Redgrave, Samuel

Gender: male

Date Born: 1802

Date Died: 1876

Place Born: Pimlico, London, England, UK

Place Died: Kensington, Kensington and Chelsea, London, England, UK

Home Country/ies: United Kingdom


Overview

Bureaucrat who wrote art history reference works in retirement. Redgrave was the son of William Redgrave (1775-1845), a manufacturer, and Mary Redgrave (d.1814?). He attended school in Chelsea were he studied art and did architectural drawing under John Powell. Redgrave joined the Home Office as a clerk in 1818 at the age of fifteen, where he spent his entire professional life. Concomitantly, Redgrave began studying architecture. He entered the Royal Academy Schools in 1833. During those years he was a founding member of the Etching Club (1837), which he held for life, and after 1842, its secretary. In 1838 he was appointed assistant secretary to the colonial secretary, Lord John Russell. These led to various important civil service positions under Fox Maule and Henry Fitzroy. He married Amelia Ann Sarah Orlebar, in 1839. After completion of his architectural studies in 1843, he served in the Society of Arts. As part of his professional duties, he wrote, Murray’s Handbook of Church and State (1852). Redgrave retired from the civil service in 1860, and alone (his wife had died in 1845 and his only daughters died 1856 and 1859) began his second career as an art historian. He organized exhibitions for the South Kensington Museum (later Victoria and Albert Museum) as well as the Royal Academy of Arts. In 1862 he worked on the international exhibitions in London. In 1866, Regrave and his brother, Richard (1804-1888), published the first edition of his A Century of Painters of the English School, a landmark book for British painting. It remained in print, re-edited, until 1981. Redgrave again participated in the 1867 international exhibition in Paris. In 1874, he brought out his Dictionary of artists of the English school, a work lasting in revisions until 1970. He was working on his Descriptive Catalogue of the Historical Collection of British Paintings in Water-colours in the South Kensington Museum, at the time of his death. It appeared posthumously the following year in 1877. Redgrave is buried in the cemetery of Holy Trinity (Brompton) London. His brother, Richard, was a painter and early art-education reformer. Regrave’s art histories are primarily biographical. His style was immediately accessible to an art-learning British public and yet authoritative. His Descriptive catalogue of the historical collection of British paintings…in the South Kensington Museum outlined the history of the British watercolor in its preface. His books were standards of English art history reference for generations.


Selected Bibliography

and Redgrave, Richard. A Century of Painters of the English School: with Critical Notices of their Works, and an Account of the Progress of Art in England. 2 vols. London: Smith, Elder, 1866; A Dictionary of Artists of the English School: Painters, Sculptors, Architects, Engravers and Ornamentists. London: Longmans, Green, 1874; A Descriptive Catalogue of the Historical Collection of Water-colour Paintings in the South Kensington Museum. London: Chapman and Hall, 1876; Catalogue of the First Special Exhibition of National Portraits . . . on Loan to the South Kensington Museum. London: Printed by Strangeways and Walden, 1866 [exhibitions of the second and third exhibition, also by Redgrave, were published through 1868].[collections:] Catalogue of the valuable collection of pictures, drawings, miniatures and other objects of art formed by that well-known connoisseur, S. Redgrave, esq. (1877) Christies auction catalog, 23-4 March 1877.


Sources

Heleniak, Kathryn Moore. “Redgrave, Samuel (1802-1876).” Oxford Dictionary of National Biography; Codell, J. F. “Righting the Victorian Artist: the Redgraves’ A Century of Painters of the English School, and the Serialization of Art History.” Oxford Art Journal 23 no. 2 (2000): 95-120.




Citation

"Redgrave, Samuel." Dictionary of Art Historians (website). https://arthistorians.info/redgraves/.


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Bureaucrat who wrote art history reference works in retirement. Redgrave was the son of William Redgrave (1775-1845), a manufacturer, and Mary Redgrave (d.1814?). He attended school in Chelsea were he studied art and did architectural drawing unde

Redgrave, Richard

Full Name: Redgrave, Richard

Gender: male

Date Born: 1804

Date Died: 1888

Place Born: London, Greater London, England, UK

Place Died: Kensington, Kensington and Chelsea, London, England, UK

Home Country/ies: United Kingdom

Subject Area(s): education

Career(s): activists


Overview

Surveyor of the Queen’s Pictures,1857-1880 and art education reformer. Redgrave was the son of William Redgrave (1775-1845) and Mary Redgrave (d.1814?). His father was in manufacturer of wire fencing. Redgrave was educated at home and then at school in Chelsea. He joined his father’s firm, but convinced he should be an artists, began to paint. He entered the Royal Academy Schools in 1826, showing regularly thereafter at the Royal Academy exhibitions. During these years, Redgrave painted subjects largely drawn from literature. He was elected an associate at the Royal Academy in 1840. Redgraved married Rose Margaret Bacon (1811-1899) in 1843. His themes in his painting changed to that of the working poor. In 1847 he was hired as botanical teacher for the Government School of Design (later Royal College of Art: botanical teacher (1847), advancing to headmaster in 1848. He became a full member of the Royal Academy in 1851 and rose in to art superintendent of the College in 1852. Devoted to the improvement of craftpeople in England, he himself produced a notable design for the duke of Wellington’s funeral carriage in 1852. Redgrave organized the British art section for both the Universal Exhibition in Paris in 1855. In 1857 he became inspector general for art, allowing him to reform art education by formulating a national art curriculum. The same year Redgrave was appointed surveyor of the queen’s pictures, a part-time position. Redgrave and Henry Cole worked to make museums appeal to the general public and the lower classes in general As such, they oversaw the new South Kensington Museum (today Victoria and Albert Museum). Redgrave designed the Museum’s art gallery displaying British art donated in 1857 by John Sheepshanks, another liberal populist. He coordinated the exhibition of British art for the International Exhibition in London in 1862. He resigned from the surveyorship in 1880 and was created a CB. Redgrave wrote a catalog of the paintings in the Royal Collection, remaining in manuscript form, reaching 34 volumes. Together with his brother Samuel Redgrave, he published the first edition of A Century of Painters of the English School in 1866, a landmark book for British painting. It remained in print, re-edited, until 1981. Redgrave became increasingly blind in his later years. He died at home in 1888 and is buried in Brompton cemetery. Oliver Millar, his successor at the Royal Collection a century later, continued to hold respect for Redgrave’s work. A modest man dedicated to the welfare of the pictures, his professionalism manifested itself in Redgrave’s approach to conservation and display.


Selected Bibliography

A Catalogue of the Pictures, Drawings, Etchings &c. in the British Fine Art Collections Deposited in the New Gallery at South Kensington. London: Printed by George E. Eyre and William Spottiswoode, 1860; and Redgrave, Samuel. A Century of Painters of the English School: with Critical Notices of their Works, and an Account of the Progress of Art in England. 2 vols. London: Smith, Elder and Co., 1866;


Sources

Heleniak, Kathryn Moore. Dictionary of National Biography; Redgrave, Frances Margaret. Richard Redgrave, C.B., R.A.: a Memoir Compiled from his Diary, London: Cassels, 1891; “The Autobiography of Richard Redgrave, A.R.A.” Art Journal 12 (1850): 48-49; Casteras, Susan P., and Parkinson, Ronald. Richard Redgrave, 1804-1888. New Haven: Victoria and Albert Museum/Yale Center for British Art, Yale University Press, 1988; Codell, J. F. “Righting the Victorian Artist: the Redgraves.” A Century of Painters of the English School, and the Serialization of Art History. Oxford Art Journal 23 no. 2 (2000): 95-120; Corby, Tom. “Sir Oliver Millar: Eminent Art Historian who Nurtured the Queen’s Paintings but was Caustic about Some of Them.” Guardian (London) May 17, 2007, p. 36.




Citation

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Surveyor of the Queen’s Pictures,1857-1880 and art education reformer. Redgrave was the son of William Redgrave (1775-1845) and Mary Redgrave (d.1814?). His father was in manufacturer of wire fencing. Redgrave was educated at home and then at scho

Reber, Franz von

Full Name: Reber, Franz von

Gender: male

Date Born: 1834

Date Died: 1919

Home Country/ies: Germany


Overview

Art historian for the Alte Pinakothek in Munich. Co-authored catalogs with the connoisseur Adolf Bayersdorfer a catalog of the Alte Pinakothek as well as the series of Klassischer Bilderschatz (beginning in 1889) and Klassicher Skulpturenschatz (beginning 1896). His book, The History of Ancient Art (1882) was the first book to be listed in the course catalog as a text for the art history classes of Princeton University.


Selected Bibliography

Geschichte der neueren deutschen kunst vom ende des vorigen jahrhunderts bis zur Wiener ausstellung 1873. Stuttgart: Meyer & Zeller’s Verlag, 1876; Album der Alten Pinakothek zu München: mit begleitenden Texten und einer historischen Einleitung. Leipzig: E.A. Seemann, 1918; History of Mediaeval Art, New York: Harper & brothers, 1887; Kunstgeschichte des Alterthums. Leipzig: T. O. Weigrl, 1871; English: History of Ancient Art. New York: Harper & brothers, 1882; Geschichte der Malerei vom Anfang des 14. bis zum Ende des 18. Jahrhunderts. Munich:: Verlagsanstalt für Kunst und Wissenschaft, 1894; Geschichte der Baukunst im Alterthum. Leipzig: T.O. Weigel, 1866; Geschichte der neueren deutschen Kunst. Leipzig: H. Haessel, 1884; and Bayersdorfer, Adolf. Klassischer Bilderschatz [series]. Munich: Verlagsanstalt für Kunstund Wissenschaft, 1889-1900; and Bayersdorfer, Adolf. Klassicher Bilderschatz. [series]. Munich: Verlagsanstalt für Kunst und Wissenschaft, 1893-1895.





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Art historian for the Alte Pinakothek in Munich. Co-authored catalogs with the connoisseur Adolf Bayersdorfer a catalog of the Alte Pinakothek as well as the series of Klassischer Bilderschatz (beginning in 18

Rebay von Ehrenwiesen, Hildegard

Full Name: Rebay von Ehrenwiesen, Hildegard

Other Names:

  • Hildegard Rebay
  • Hilla Rebay
  • Baroness Rebay von Ehrenwiesen
  • Hildegard, Baroness Rebay von Ehrenwiesen

Gender: female

Date Born: 1890

Date Died: 1967

Place Born: Strasbourg, Grand Est, France

Place Died: Franton Court, Westport, CT, USA

Home Country/ies: Germany and United States

Subject Area(s): Modern (style or period)

Career(s): art collectors

Institution(s): Museum of Non-Objective Painting and Solomon S. Guggenheim Museum


Overview

Collector and first director of the Guggenheim Museum, New York, 1939-1951. Rebay was born into an aristocratic Bavarian family in what was then Strassburg, Germany. Her father, Franz Josef Rebay von Ehrenwiesen, was a career army officer of Bavaria serving in the Prussian army, stationed in Strassburg. She was born in Strassburg, Germany, which is present-day Strasbourg, France. She studied painting at the universities in Cologne, Paris and Munich and briefly tried a career as a concert pianist. In Berlin in 1917, she met the artist Rudolf Bauer (1889-1953) and became his lover. Bauer and the work of Wassily Kandinsky influenced both her painting style and vision of modern art throughout her life. She maintained a studio in Berlin in the 1920s where she entertained the bohemian artist community. In 1925 she met Solomon R. Guggenheim in Berlin. They became lovers and he commissioned her to paint his portrait. She moved to New York in 1927 where Rebay exposed Guggenheim and his wife, Irene, to the work of Kandinsky and Bauer. By 1929 she insisted as part of her continuing association with Guggenheim, of building a large collection of abstract painting including Mondrians, Légers, Chagalls, Klees, Picassos, Modiglianis and Seurats which would someday become Guggenheim’s museum. Rebay made agreements with the living artists the museum patronized as well as building a personal collection of modern art of her own. She championed the work and assisted the artist Lazlo Maholy-Nagy. Rebay was named director of the Guggenheim Foundation in 1937, organized to establish a new museum. When the Museum of Non-Objective Painting, the Guggenheim’s original name, opened in 1939 in a converted car dealership, Rebay was its first director and curator. As director, she oversaw the development of the museum from its first location at 24 East 54th street to it’s permanent home on 88th Street, designed at her suggestion, by Frank Lloyd Wright, beginning in 1943. She was arrested in the United States during World War II on charges of being a Nazi sympathizer (which were later dropped), and for hoarding rationed foodstuffs, charges which were sustained. Rebay was responsible for the first full-text English translation of Kandinsky’s über die Geistige in der Kunst, published in 1946. She continued to advise on acquisitions as well as installing the permanent collection and curating the sporadic loan exhibitions the Guggenhiem hosted. In later years she claimed to have given Jackson Pollock his start by providing him a job at the museum so that he could devote more hours to painting. What is certain is that at a time when other museums were ignoring American abstract artists, Rebay was offering them opportunities. Guggenheim died in 1949 before the museum’s present form was established. As a gallery director, she was often short with her staff and demanding of her Board. Rebay began suffering from mental disease. Guggenheim was succeeded by his son, Harry Guggenheim (1890-1970), who ultimately asked for Rebay’s resignation in 1951. Rebay was succeeded by James Johnson Sweeney. The present Frank Lloyd Wright building was completed in 1959. She died of a heart attack at home in 1967 and is buried in Germany. Her collection and archives form part of the Guggenheim Museum. She created the Hilla von Rebay Foundation to for her papers and art collection. Strong willed and confident, Rebay was formed part of a coterie of art directors who brought European modern art in the United States. Somewhat immodestly, she hung her own paintings (and a large number of her ex-lover, Bauer’s) among the giants of modernism in the museum’s gallery. She was arrested in 1963 for tax evasion, having grossly overvalued the worth of he paintings which she had donated to the Guggenheim. Her catalogs were criticized for the fuzzy nonsense speak that often accompanied early analysis of non-objective art. Her vision for the Guggenheim was one strictly of non-objective art, which subsequent museum directors did not follow. Somewhat ironically, she doubted the value of non-objective sculpture while championing painting and American artists complained that their modern art was often ignored in favor of European artists.


Selected Bibliography

“Non-objectivity is the Realm of Spirit,” Third Enlarged Catalogue of the Solomon R. Guggeneheim Collection of Non-objective Paintings [Gibbes Memorial Art Gallery, Charleston, South Carolina.] New York: Bradford Press/Solomon R. Guggenheim Foundation, 1938, pp. 3-14; Art of Tomorrow, Fifth Catalogue of the Solomon R. Guggenheim Collection of Non-objective Paintings. New York: Museum of Non-objective Paintings, 1939; In Memory of Wassily Kandinsky: the Solomon R. Guggenheim Foundation Presents a Survey of the Artist’s Paintings and Writings. New York: Museum of Non-Objective Paintings, 1945; translated, Kandinsky, Wassily. On the Spiritual in Art, First Complete English Translation. New York: Solomon R. Guggenheim Foundation/Museum of Non-objective Painting, 1946.


Sources

Ashton, Dore. “Naissance d’une grand musée.” XX siècle (December 1968): 137-39; Campbell, Lawrence. “The Museum of Non-Objective Painting Revisited.” Art News (December 1972): 40-41; Kuh, Katherine. “The Vision of Hilla Rebay.” New York Times May 7, 1972, p. 21; Joan M. Lukach, Hilla Rebay: In Search of the Spirit in Art. New York: G. Braziller, 1983; Robson, A. Deirdre. Dictionary of Art; Snyder, Gary. Hilla Rebay and the Museum of Non-Objective Painting. New York: DC Moore Gallery, 2005; Vrachopoulos, Thalia, and Angeline, John. Hilla Rebay: Art Patroness and Founder of The Guggenheim Museum of Art. Lewiston, NY: Mellen Press, 2005; Vail, Karole, ed. Museum of Non-Objective Painting: Hilla Rebay and the Origins of the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum. New York: Guggenheim Museum, 2009; [obituary:] “Hilla Rebay Dies, Artist Curator. Baroness Gave Guggenheim Advice on Collection.” New York Times September 29, 1967, p. 47.




Citation

"Rebay von Ehrenwiesen, Hildegard." Dictionary of Art Historians (website). https://arthistorians.info/rebayh/.


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Collector and first director of the Guggenheim Museum, New York, 1939-1951. Rebay was born into an aristocratic Bavarian family in what was then Strassburg, Germany. Her father, Franz Josef Rebay von Ehrenwiesen, was a career army officer of Bavaria