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Ottley, William Young

Full Name: Ottley, William Young

Gender: male

Date Born: 1771

Date Died: 1836

Place Born: Thatcham, West Berkshire, UK

Place Died: London, Greater London, England, UK

Home Country/ies: United Kingdom

Subject Area(s): Italian (culture or style), Italian Renaissance-Baroque styles, painting (visual works), and Renaissance

Career(s): art collectors


Overview

Collector and early British historian of Italian painting. Ottley was the son of Richard Ottley, a wealthy India plantation owner. He was born near Thatcham, Berkshire, UK. His schooling in Richmond, Northern Yorkshire, included drawing lessons from George Cuitt the elder (1743-1818). Ottley attended Winchester College, entering the Royal Academy Schools at Landon in 1787, studying under the Scottish draughtsman and printmaker John Brown (1749-1787). Ottley traveled throughout Italy for eight years beginning in 1791 in the grand tour manner, drawing and buying art, much of it made available through anxious Italians fearing they would lose in anyway with Napoleon’s invasion in 1796. His acquisitions from this period included Parmigianino drawings from the Zanetti collection, disparate ones from the Galleria degli Uffizi in Florence, and drawings by Michelangelo and Raphael amassed by (and stolen from) Jean-Baptiste Wicar (1762-1834), who had himself received them from the French occupiers. Ottley returned to London in 1799, establishing himself as an art dealer and connoisseur. His first writing on art history was the 1808 The Italian School of Design with both plates and text by Ottley. It was Ottley’s intention to write a history of the “most eminent artists of Italy.” In the interim, Ottley completed the British Gallery of Pictures catalog, a work begun by Henry Tresham, and An Inquiry into the Origin and Early History of Engraving on Copper and Wood, both in 1818. The The Italian School of Design was completed in 1823, marking the first chronological treatment of the Italian schools by a British art historian. In 1826 Ottley brought out his Series of Plates Engraved After the Paintings and Sculptures of the Most Eminent Masters of the Early Florentine School, and A Descriptive Catalogue of Pictures in the National Gallery, commissioned by the President of the Royal Academy, Sir Thomas Lawrence (1769-1830). Ottley’s personal collection included a Rembrandt, Botticelli’s Mystic Nativity (now in the National Gallery, London), Raphael’s Dream of Scipio Africanus (now National Gallery) and a Rape of Europa then ascribed to Titian (now, Wallace Collection, London). His collection, which also including Trecento and Quattrocento works, was one of the better known in England. Ottley began a dictionary of engravers, Notices of Engravers, and their Works, of which only volume one appeared in 1831. By this time Ottley’s fortune was waning, in part because of the abolition of slavery, which had made his West-Indian plantation so profitable. When the Keeper of Prints and Drawings at the British Museum John Thomas Smith died in 1833, Ottley was invited to succeed him. Another publication, An Inquiry into the Invention of Printing, was published posthumously in 1863. The Italian School of Design brought a modern, chronological approach and quality illustrations, some of the first for British art publication. Most Eminent Masters of the Early Florentine School was important for the reassessment of 14th- and 15th-century Italian painting. His book work was selected for inclusion in the Connoisseurship Criticism and Art History in the Nineteenth Century reprint series, selected by Sydney Joseph Freedberg.


Selected Bibliography

A Collection of Fac-similes of Scarce and Curious Prints, by the Early Masters of the Italian, German, and Flemish Schools. London: Longman, Roes, Orme, Brown, and Green, 1826; A Descriptive Catalogue of the Pictures in the National Gallery: with Critical Remarks on their Merits. 3 pts. London: John Murray, 1826; Engravings of the Most Noble the Marquis of Stafford’s Collection of Pictures in London: Arranged According to Schools and in Chronological Order with Remarks on Each Picture. London: Longman, Hurst, Rees, Orme, and Brown, 1818; An Inquiry Concerning the Invention of Printing: in which the Systems of Meerman, Heinecken, Santander and Koning are Reviewed [etc]. London: Joseph Lilly, 1862; The Italian School of Design: being a Series of Fac-similes of Original Drawings, by the Most Eminent Painters and Sculptors of Italy; with Biographical Notices of the Artists, and Observations on their Works. London: Taylor and Hessey, 1823; Notices of Engravers, and their Works, being the Commencement of a New Dictionary, [etc.]. London: Longman, Rees, Orme, Brown, & Green, 1831; and Tresham, Henry.The British Gallery of Pictures: Selected from the Most Admired Productions of the Old Masters in Great Britain, accompanied with Descriptions, Historical and Critical. London: Longman, Hurst, Rees, Orme, and Brown, 1818; A Series of Plates Engraved after the Paintings and Sculptures of the Most Eminent masters of the early Florentine School: Intended to Illustrate the History of the Restoration of the Arts of Ddesign in Italy. London: Colnaghi, 1826.[estate catalogs] The Ottley Collection of Prints: Catalogue of the Very Valuable and Extensive Collection of Engravings. London: Southeby Leigh, 1837; Catalogue of Some Rare and Choice Books together with a Few Manuscripts: to which are Added some Miscellaneous Books and Illumined Miniature Paintings formerly in the Collection of the Late William Young Ottley, Esq. London: S. Leigh Sotheby & Co., 1849.


Sources

Griffiths, Antony. “The Department of Prints and Drawings During the First Century of the British Museum.” Burlington Magazine 136 (August 1994): 531-44; Gere, J “William Young Ottley as a Collector of Drawings.” British Museum Quarterly 18 (1953), pp. 44-53; Waterhouse, Ellis K. “Some Notes on William Young Ottley’s Collection of Italian Primitives.” Italian Studies (1962): 272-80; Rogers, David. “Ottley, William Young.” Dictionary of Art; Scheller, R. W. “Case of the Stolen Raphael Drawings.” Master Drawings 11 no. 2 (Summer 1973):119-37; Herrmann, F. “Dr Waagen’s Works of Art and Artists in England.” Connoisseur 161 (March 1966): 173-7.




Citation

"Ottley, William Young." Dictionary of Art Historians (website). https://arthistorians.info/ottleyw/.


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Collector and early British historian of Italian painting. Ottley was the son of Richard Ottley, a wealthy India plantation owner. He was born near Thatcham, Berkshire, UK. His schooling in Richmond, Northern Yorkshire, included drawing lessons fr

Ostrow, Stephen E.

Full Name: Ostrow, Stephen E.

Other Names:

  • Stephen Ostrow

Gender: male

Date Born: 1932

Place Born: New York, NY, USA

Home Country/ies: United States

Subject Area(s): American (North American), photographs, and prints (visual works)


Overview

Art Museum director and Chief of Prints and Photography, Library of Congress, 1984-1996. Ostrow’s parents were Herman Ostrow, M.D. (1896-1954), a New York eye surgeon and Anne Ostrow, an attorney. He graduated from Oberlin College, continuing at the Institute of Fine Arts, New York University where he received his Ph.D. in 1966 with a dissertation topic of Agostino Carracci. Ostrow was appointed professor at Rutgers University (where he advised James H. Stubblebine on his 1964 book on Guido da Siena) and then at Brown University. At Brown he mounted a 1969 exhibit called “Raid the Icebox,” inviting Andy Warhol to select a show from the University’s art museum. Ostrow became director of the Rhode Island School of Design’s museum in 1971. He joined the Portland (Oregon) Art Association as director. In 1984 the Library of Congress appointed him Chief of the Prints and Photography Department. Ostrow brought the division into the electronic age, modernizing the department and seeking special funds for photography outreach programs. A Stephen Ostrow Distinguished Visitors program was established in 1988 at Reed College Ed and Sue Cooley and John and Betty Gray in honor of his advisory role in the formulation of the Cooley-Gray gift to the College. He retired emeritus from the Library in 1996 and was succeeded by Linda Ayres.


Selected Bibliography

[dissertation:] Agostino Carracci. 4 vols. New York University, 1966; Baroque painting: Italy and her influence. New Haven: Eastern Press, 1968.


Sources

Richard, Paul. “Corcoran Front-Runner.” Washington Post, September 23, 1977, p. C6; Goodwin, George M. “A New Jewish Elite: Curators, Directors and Benefactors of American Art Museums.” Modern Judaism 18, no. 1, (February 1998): ; Olin, Margaret. “C[lement] Hardesh (Greenberg) and Company: Formal Criticism and Jewish Identity.” in Kleeblatt, Norman L. ed. Too Jewish? Challenging Traditional Identities. New York: The Jewish Musuem/New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers University Press, 1996, pp. 39-59.




Citation

"Ostrow, Stephen E.." Dictionary of Art Historians (website). https://arthistorians.info/ostrows/.


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Art Museum director and Chief of Prints and Photography, Library of Congress, 1984-1996. Ostrow’s parents were Herman Ostrow, M.D. (1896-1954), a New York eye surgeon and Anne Ostrow, an attorney. He graduated from Oberlin College, continuing at t

Osthaus, Karl Ernst

Full Name: Osthaus, Karl Ernst

Gender: male

Date Born: 1874

Date Died: 1921

Place Born: Hagen, North Rhine-Westphalia, Germany

Place Died: Merano, Bolzano, Trentino-Alto Adige, Italy [Tyrol region]

Home Country/ies: Germany

Career(s): art collectors


Overview

Founder the Folkwang-Museum in Hagen, Germany, industrialist and collector. Osthaus was born to wealth. His father was the banker financier Ernst Osthaus and his mother, Selma Funcke (Osthaus), the daughter of a textile industrialist. He was raised in the industrial Westphalian town of his birth and studied at various German-speaking universities, as was common in Germany at the time, at Kiel, Munich, Berlin, Strasbourg, Vienna and Bonn. He graduated from the university in Bonn in 1898, making trips to southern Europe and Asia, feeding and interest in Ethnology and collecting folk art. He returned to Hagen, marrying Gertrud Colsmann, daughter of another wealthy factory owner, in 1899. Osthaus, like many industrial barons in Germany, wanted to make his town a place of culture as well as industry. Around 1900 he decided to collect art, acquiring works by Gauguin, Rodin, Degas, Cézanne, Renoir, Corot and van Gogh. He opened a museum in 1902, which included science displays on the lower level. Osthaus named it “Folkwang” borrowed from “Edda Folkvangar” (in German, “Volkshalle” the assembly hall of Freya). The Folkwang was the first museum solely devoted to modern art that was open to the public. Osthaus hired the Belgian architect-designer Henry van de Velde (1863-1957) to design a Jugendstil interior space for his museum (as well as dresses for his and van de Velde’s wife on opening day). In 1906 Van de Velde also designed Osthaus’s villa, called the Hohenhof, in Hagen. He commissioned the Jugenstil and Symbolist artist Jan Thorn Prikker, who had settled in Hagen, and Henri Matisse to provide decoration. Osthaus acquired the German Expressionist work of Die Brücke, giving early exhibitions to many of its principle artists, including Ernst Ludwig Kirchner, Christian Rohlfs and Emil Nolde. Ferdinand Hodler’s famous “The Consecrated One” was installed in a room designed for it in the villa. Osthaus hoped to make Hagen a center of modern architecture as well. In 1909, he began to share his museum space with the Deutscher Werkbund, or German artisan’s guild. Together, they operated the “Deutsche Museum für Kunst in Handel und Gewerbe” (Germany Museum for Art and Trade Works). Osthaus’ civic interest in art and architecture attracted the commissions of other important architects who, in addition to van de Velde, included Richard Riemerschmid, Peter Behrens’ crematorium, and Walter Gropius. Osthaus hoped to build a museum building with the Werkbund, but the first World War prevented this. He himself was pressed into war service. After the war, he received his Ph.D. from Königliche Bayerische Julius-Maximilians-Universität, Würzburg in 1918, writing his dissertation on the topic of stylistic development in art. In 1920 he wrote a biography of van de Velde published by the Museum. Osthaus contracted cancer at age 47 and died. The city of Hagen was unable to raise the funds to buy the Museum’s collection. In 1922 the larger neighboring industrial city of Essen purchased the Osthaus’ collection, setting up the Folkwang Museum there. Ernst Gosebruch became the new museum’s first director, continuing Osthaus’ collecting model. Osthaus’ home town established a museum named for Osthaus after the war, the Karl Ernst Osthaus-Museum, which yearly awards a prize in his memory. During the years of the Third Reich, the Nazis ransacked his home and art. The building was restored as the museum it is today. Osthaus was more than a collector and museum owner. He actively promoted outsider, indigenous, modernist and the craft-arts as art forms deserving to be in a museum setting. Osthaus maintained contact with numerous other progressive museum directors, including the American John Cotton Dana. His museum assisted with Dana’s groundbreaking exhibition, “Modern German Applied Arts,” from the Deutscher Werkbund in 1912.


Selected Bibliography

[dissertation:] Grundzüge der Stilentwicklung. Würzburg, 1918, published, Hagen: Hagener Verlagsanstalt, 1918; Van de Velde: Leben und Schaffen des Künstlers. Hagen: Folkwang, 1920; contributed, Naumann, Friedrich, et al. Der Werkbund-Gedanke in den germanischen Ländern: österreich-Ungarn, Schweiz, Holland, Dnemark, Schweden, Norwegen. 7. Jahresversammlung des Deutschen Werkbundes (meeting, Cologne). Jena: E. Diederichs, 1914.


Sources

Hesse-Frielinghaus, Herta, et al. Karl Ernst Osthaus. Leben u[nd] Werk. Recklinghausen: Bongers, 1971; Biraghi, Marco. “Osthausstadt: Hagen 1898-1920: Karl Ernst Osthaus.” Casabella 64, no. 682 (October 2000): 70-7, 99-100; Werner, Alfred. “Osthaus and the Folkwang Museum.” Arts Magazine 38 (February 1964): 35-41; Emil und Ada Nolde, Karl Ernst und Gertrud Osthaus: Briefwechsel. Bonn: Bouvier, 1985; Vogt, Paul. Museum Folkwang Essen: die Geschichte einer Sammlung junger Kunst im Ruhrgebiet. Cologne: DuMont, 1983.




Citation

"Osthaus, Karl Ernst." Dictionary of Art Historians (website). https://arthistorians.info/osthausk/.


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Founder the Folkwang-Museum in Hagen, Germany, industrialist and collector. Osthaus was born to wealth. His father was the banker financier Ernst Osthaus and his mother, Selma Funcke (Osthaus), the daughter of a textile industrialist. He was raise

Osten, Gert von der

Full Name: Osten, Gert von der

Gender: male

Date Born: 1910

Date Died: 1983

Place Born: Otterndorf, Lower Saxony, Germany

Place Died: Brühl, Baden-Württemberg, Germany

Home Country/ies: Germany

Subject Area(s): museums (institutions)

Career(s): directors (administrators) and museum directors


Overview

Museum director; specialist on German and Dutch Late-Gothic Renaissance. Between 1919 and 1928, Von der Osten attended the Hannover Kaiserin-Auguste-Victoria-Gymnasium, where his father was Oberstudiendirektor. After graduation, he studied art history, archaeology, and history at the universities of Berlin, Munich, Marburg, and Halle. His work as a student volunteer at the Hannover Landesmuseum in 1930 had a decisive influence on his choice to become an art historian. In 1933, he earned his doctoral degree from Halle University with a dissertation on the iconography of the Man of Sorrows, Der Schmerzensmann: Typengeschichte eines deutschen Andachtsbildwerkes von 1300 bis 1600. His adviser was Paul Frankl. After having worked as a volunteer at the Berlin Museums, Von der Osten was appointed, in 1938, a Kustos at the Hannover Landesgalerie. Together with Ferdinand Stuttmann, the director of the Landesgalerie (1937-1962), he worked on late mediaeval sculpture of Lower Saxony, and co-authored in 1940 Niedersächsische Bildschnitzerei des späten Mittelalters. Both authors then were on duty in the German army at the outbreak of World War II. Von der Osten’s wife, Erika von der Osten-Baare, was involved in the final preparations of the publication. In 1941 Von der Osten completed his Habilitation under Wilhelm Pinder with the study, Manierismus in der deutschen Kunst um 1520. As a soldier during World War II, Von der Osten rose to the officer ranks in the Germany army. After the war he spent more than three years in Russia as a detainee. After that dark period he returned, in 1948, to the Hannover Landesgalerie. In 1951 he obtained a position as Privatdozent at the Technische Hochschule. In 1955 he published a monograph on the German painter Lovis Corinth. Von der Osten also was appointed director of the Städtische Galerie, whose works were on display of the Landesmuseum since 1923. Between 1956 and 1957, he enlarged the collection of the Städtische Galerie with twenty important modern sculptures. The modern sculpture section is included in Von der Osten’s 1957 fully-illustrated Katalog der Bildwerke in der Niedersächsischen Landesgalerie Hannover. This critical catalog, which contains 498 works from the Middle Ages up to the contemporary period, was acclaimed in several leading art periodicals, including the Art Bulletin. Von der Osten spent the academic year 1957-58 in Princeton, as a fellow at the Institute for Advanced Study, where he began working on his Pelican History of Art volume, Painting and Sculpture in Germany and the Netherlands, 1500-1600, and where he had useful discussions on the project with Erwin Panofsky. The work on this survey, however, took many years to complete. In 1960 Van der Osten obtained the position of Director-in- chief of the Cologne Museums and, in addition, the directorship of the Wallraf-Richartz-Museum. He broadened its collection with nineteenth-century and contemporary artworks. An important acquisition, in 1968, was the art collection of Peter and Irene Ludwig, known as the “Sammlung Ludwig”. This collection, on display from 1969, gained popularity and attracted many visitors. Van der Osten’s artfully crafted catalog, Kunst der Sechziger Jahre; Sammlung Ludwig im Wallraf-Richartz Museum, Köln, shows his real involvement in the present-day art scene. The huge collection was later housed in the new Museum Ludwig. His Pelican volume finally appeared in 1969 as Painting and Sculpture in Germany and the Netherlands, 1500 to 1600, one-fifth of which was written by Horst Vey, then curator of the Wallraf-Richartz-Museum. In 1970, nine colleagues, including Vey, offered Van der Osten a Festschrift on the occasion of his sixtieth birthday. Van der Osten spent the last years of his life on a major critical study on Hans Baldung Grien, Hans Baldung Grien: Gemälde und Dokumente, which appeared in 1983. In Painting and Sculpture in Germany and the Netherlands Van der Osten highlights the uniqueness of each artwork. The geographically determined sections are set in the framework of their historical and political context. Van der Osten was a critical and many-sided art historian, as well as a gifted writer. Extracts from his reflections and observations on art are quoted by Horst Keller in his Festschrift contribution, “Gert von der Osten schreibend”.


Selected Bibliography

[complete list:] Metzler Kunsthistoriker Lexikon: zweihundert Porträts deutschsprachiger Autoren aus vier Jahrhunderten. Stuttgart: Metzler, 1999, pp. 288-289; Tümmers, Horst-Johs “Bibliographie Gert von der Osten” in Festschrift für Gert von der Osten. (Gert von der Osten zum 60. Geburtstag am 17. Mai 1970 überreicht von seinen Mitarbeitern am Wallraf-Richartz-Museum. Cologne: Verlag M. DuMont Schauberg, 1970, pp. 281-291; [Dissertation Halle:] Der Schmerzensmann: Typengeschichte eines deutschen Andachtsbildwerkes von 1300 bis 1600. Leipzig, 1933, Berlin: Deutscher Verein für Kunstwissenschaft, 1935; and Stuttmann, Ferdinand. Niedersächsische Bildschnitzerei des späten Mittelalters. Berlin: Deutscher Verein für Kunstwissenschaft, 1940; Lovis Corinth. Munich: Verlag F. Bruckmann, 1955; Katalog der Bildwerke in der Niedersächsischen Landesgalerie Hannover. Munich: Bruckmann Verlag, 1957; Kunst der Sechziger Jahre; Sammlung Ludwig im Wallraf-Richartz Museum, Köln. Cologne: Wallraf-Richartz-Museum, 1970; and Vey, Horst. Painting and Sculpture in Germany and the Netherlands, 1500 to 1600. The Pelican History of Art, 31. Baltimore: Penguin Books, 1969, German, Deutsche und Niederländische Kunst der Reformationszeit. Cologne: Verlag M. DuMont Schauberg, 1973; Hans Baldung Grien: Gemälde und Dokumente. Berlin: Deutscher Verein für Kunstwissenschaft, 1983.


Sources

Bier, Justus. [Review:] “Katalog der Bildwerke in der Niedersächsischen Landesgalerie Hannover, bearbeitet von Gert von der Osten” Art Bulletin 41 (1959): 342-344; [biographical contributions by Rudolf Hillebrecht, Herbert von Einem, and Horst Keller in] Festschrift für Gert von der Osten. (Gert von der Osten zum 60. Geburtstag am 17. Mai 1970 überreicht von seinen Mitarbeitern am Wallraf-Richartz-Museum. Cologne: Verlag M. DuMont Schauberg, 1970, pp. 7-16; Metzler Kunsthistoriker Lexikon: zweihundert Porträts deutschsprachiger Autoren aus vier Jahrhunderten. Stuttgart: Metzler, 1999, pp. 287-9; [obituaries:] Budde, Rainer. “In memoriam Gert von der Osten (17. Mai 1910 – 30. November 1983).” Wallraf-Richartz- Jahrbuch (1983): 7-9; Bloch, Peter. “Gert von der Osten.” Zeitschrift des Deutschen Vereins für Kunstwissenschaft 38 (1984): 123.



Contributors: Lee Sorensen and Monique Daniels


Citation

Lee Sorensen and Monique Daniels. "Osten, Gert von der." Dictionary of Art Historians (website). https://arthistorians.info/osteng/.


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Museum director; specialist on German and Dutch Late-Gothic Renaissance. Between 1919 and 1928, Von der Osten attended the Hannover Kaiserin-Auguste-Victoria-Gymnasium, where his father was Oberstudiendirektor. After graduation, he studied art his

Osborn, Max

Full Name: Osborn, Max

Other Names:

  • Heinrich Garbel

Gender: male

Date Born: 10 February 1870

Date Died: 24 September 1946

Place Born: Cologne, North Rhine-Westphalia, Germany

Place Died: New York, NY, USA

Home Country/ies: Germany and United States

Institution(s): Kulturbund Deutscher Juden


Overview

Art critic, journalist, and prolific author with expertise in modern art and architecture, German literature and theater, and Berlin’s history and architecture. He used the pseudonym Heinrich Garbel. Max Osborn was born in Cologne, Germany in 1870 to a father who was a banker and Clotilde Cohn (Osborn). Osborn studied in Cologne at Apostelgymnasium. In 1881, he moved with his family to Berlin, where he continued his studies at Wilhelms-Gymnasium. He received his abitur there in 1888. From 1889-1893, Osborn studied German literature and art history in Heidelberg, Munich, and Berlin under Herman Grimm. He completed his Theatrum Diabolorum dissertation in literature in 1893 under the tutelage of Erich Schmidt (1853-1913), a pioneer in the field of the history of German literature. From 1894-1914, his primary occupations were working as a co-editor of the Jahresberichte für neuere deutsche Literaturgeschichte, which reported on new published German literature, and as a contributor to the Magazin für Literatur und dem Deutschen Reichsanzeiger, which served much the same purpose. In 1896, he married Martha Boas. He started working as an editor on the major pieces featured in the Berliner Nationalzeitung in 1900. Osborn’s most notable piece of literature was published in 1910, Geschichte der Kunst. Eine kurzgefaßte Darstellung ihrer Hauptepochen. Transitioning to a role at Ullstein Publishing House, one of Germany’s largest publishing establishments at the time, Osborn wrote editorial pieces as a theater critic for the B.Z. am Mittag. He accepted an offer to work as an art critic for Vossische Zeitung in 1914. He remained in this position until 1933, and his most important work over this period of his life was most probably done as correspondent to the front lines of World War I. He chaired the Association of German Art Critics after his return from chronicling the experience of German soldiers in World War I. After his work with Vossische Zeitung, he co-founded and was a staff member of Kulturbund Deutscher Juden (later named Jüdischer Kulturbund Berlin), an organization to celebrate the unique talents of Jewish artists. Through this organization, he advised younger Jewish artists, gave lectures, and organized art exhibitions. From 1934-1935, he studied in Palestine but remained closely connected to contemporary German artists. After Kristallnacht in 1938, Osborn greatly reduced the number of public events hosted by Kulturbund Deutscher Juden and chose to publish under the pseudonym Heinrich Garbel. As a result of the Nazi power after Kristallnacht and his having to severely limit the operations of Kulturbund Deutscher Juden, he fled to Paris in 1938. He worked for the Basler Nationalzeitung remotely from Paris until he emigrated to New York in 1941. In the United States, he wrote for several publications, including Aufbau, Congress Weekly, and the Universal Jewish Encyclopedia.

Max Osborn was an expert on the history of Berlin, and as a member of the Art Committee of the City of Berlin, contributed copious amounts of literature on this subject (Obituary NYT). He had a significant impact on the way German literature, theater, and modern art were interpreted in Germany because he was the chief art critic of Ullstein Publications for three decades (Obituary NYT). Overall, his reviews of different art exhibitions and theatrical events exerted great influence on Germany’s artistic life before Hitler rose to power (Obituary NYT).


Selected Bibliography

  • [dissertation:] Theatrum Diabolorum Berlin, 1893;
  • Andreas Musculus. Vom Hassenteufel (1555) Halle, 1894;
  • Die deutsche Kunst im 19. Jahrhundert 1901;
  • Der Holzschnitt Bielefeld, 1905;
  • Moderne Plastik Berlin, 1905;
  • Porträtmalerei Berlin, 1905;
  • Joshua Reynolds Bielefeld, 1908;
  • Geschichte der Kunst. Eine kurzgefaßte Darstellung ihrer Hauptepochen Berlin, 1910;
  • Meisterbuch der Kunst. Eine kurzgefaßte Geschichte der Kunst Berlin 1910;
  • Franz Krüger Bielefeld, 1910;
  • Eugen Bracht Bielefeld, 1911;
  • Ludwig Richter Bielefeld, 1911;
  • Der Märchenbrunnen im Friedrichshain zu Berlin Berlin, 1914;
  • Drei Straßen des Krieges 1916;
  • Gegen die Rumänen. Mit der Falkenhayn-Armee bis zur Sereth Berlin, 1917;
  • Emil Orlik Berlin, 1920;
  • Max Pechstein Berlin, 1922;
  • Der Maler Christian Schad Berlin, 1927;
  • Irma Stern Leipzig, 1927;
  • Jean Kraemer Berlin, 1927;
  • Die Kunst des Rokoko Berlin, 1929;
  • Leonid Pasternak Warschau, 1932;
  • Der Bunte Spiegel: Erinnerungen aus dem Kunst-, Kultur- und Geistesleben der Jahre 1890 bis 1933.  New York:  Verlag Friedrich Krause, 1945.

Sources

  • Osborn, Max. Der Bunte Spiegel: Erinnerungen aus dem Kunst-, Kultur- und Geistesleben der Jahre 1890 bis 1933. New York: Verlag Friedrich Krause, 1945;
  • “Dr. Max Osborn, 76, Art Critic, is Dead” New York Times, September 25, 1946: 27;
  • 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. 465-70.


Contributors: Lee Sorensen and Paul Kamer


Citation

Lee Sorensen and Paul Kamer. "Osborn, Max." Dictionary of Art Historians (website). https://arthistorians.info/osbornm/.


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Art critic, journalist, and prolific author with expertise in modern art and architecture, German literature and theater, and Berlin’s history and architecture. He used the pseudonym Heinrich Garbel. Max Osborn was born in Cologne, Germany in 1870

Orueta y Duarte, Ricardo de

Full Name: Orueta y Duarte, Ricardo de

Other Names:

  • Ricardo de Orueta

Gender: male

Date Born: 07 May 1868

Date Died: Feburary 2005

Place Born: Málaga, Málaga, Andalusia, Spain

Place Died: Madrid, Spain

Home Country/ies: Spain

Subject Area(s): Renaissance, Spanish (culture or style), and Spanish Renaissance-Baroque styles

Institution(s): Ministerio de Bellas Artes Madrid


Overview

Medievalist; Director General of Bellas Artes, Spain, from 1931-1933 and 1936. Orueta was the son of Francisca Duarte Cardenal (1837-1882), and Domingo de Orueta Aguirre (1833-1895) a naturalist and geologist. He was raised in Málaga, Spain where he studied painting at the Escuela de Bellas Artes (School of Fine Arts). He studied under Joaquín Martínez de la Vega (1846-1905) and worked closely with the painter Denis Belgrano (1844-1918). After finishing his studies in Malaga, Orueta moved to Paris and attended the School of Industrial Arts in Paris with French sculptor Aimé Millet (1819-1891). In 1911, he became a professor at the Institución Libre de Enseñanza (Free Institution of Education) which was founded by his family friend and education reformer, the philosopher Francisco Giner de los Ríos (1839-1915). During his time as a professor, he became politically involved with the Acción Republicana (Republican Action) and the Partido Reformista (Reform Party). He continued his investigation of Spanish sculpture under the art and archeology branch of the Centro de Estudios Históricos (Center of Historic Studies). There, Orueta published his important works including La vida y la obra de Pedro Menu y Medruno (1914), a monographic catalogue of the Andalusian sculptor, Berruguete y su obra (1917), La escultura funeraria en Espana (1919), and Gregorio Hernández (1920). In 1924, he published La expresión del dolor en la escultura castellana where he highlights the relationsip between Roman, gothic, and baroque sculpture and the social and cultural movements of the time. Later that year, he returned to school at the Academia de Bellas Artes de San Fernando (Academy of Fine Arts in San Fernando).

Between 1931-1933, Orueta served as the general director of Bellas Artes of the Spanish Republic. His main efforts were directed towards preserving and elevating Spain’s cultural heritage. Specifically, he facilitated public access to the Crown’s cultural heritage and argued for the regulation of art trade. To facilitate this, he created the Fichero de Arte Antiguo, the most extensive catalogue of Spain’s patrimony which included photographic documentation. Under the direction of Orueta, the Ley de Protección del Tesoro Artístico Nacional (Protective Law of National Artistic Treasures) was enacted in 1933. It defined Spain’s most valuable assets and ultimately allowed for their safekeeping during the Spanish Civil War. He was responsible for hiring two important art historians, Francisco Javier Sánchez Cantón, and Ricardo Gutiérrez Abascal, who wrote under the pseudonym Juan de la Encina.  As the war progressed, Orueta was evacuated to Valencia in 1937 where he continued his research on Christian medieval sculpture. He returned to Madrid to direct the Bellas Artes ministry a second time in 1939. However a change of the party in control for the Second Spanish Republic forced his dismissal. He was succeeded at the ministry by the painter and socialist Josep Renau Berenguer (1907-1982); Orueta died the following February from consequences related to an accident falling down the stairs at the Museo Nacional de Reproducciones.


Selected Bibliography

  • Berruguete y su obra. Madrid:Calleja, 1917;
  • La visa y la obra de Pedro de Mena y Medrano, Centro de estudios Históricos (Spain), 1914;
  • La escultura funeraria en España. Provincias de Ciudad Real, Cuenca y Guadalajara (1919);
  • Gregorio Hernández (1920);
  • La expresión del dolor en la escultura castellana 1924;

Sources

  • “Orueta y Duarte, Ricardo.” in, Gaya Nuño, J.A.  Historia de la crítica del arte en España, Ibérico-Europea. Madrid: Ibérico Europea de Ediciones, 1975, pp. 235-236, 247;
  • M. Cabañas, “Ricardo de Orueta y la Dirección General de Bellas Artes durante la II República y la Guerra Civil”; en VV. AA., Arte en tiempos de guerra, Madrid: CSIC, 2009, pp.481-498;
  • M. Bolaños, “Ricardo de Orueta. Crónica de un olvido”, Museos 2013;
  • M. Cabañas, “La Dirección General de Bellas Artes republicana y la gestión del patrimonio artístico de Ricardo de Orueta,” in VV. AA., Campo artístico y sociedad en España (1836-1936), Granada, Universidad de Granada, 2014, pp. 407-453;
  • Ricardo de Orueta (1868-1939), en el frente del arte, Madrid: AC/E, 2014.


Contributors: Denise Shkurovich and Lee Sorensen


Citation

Denise Shkurovich and Lee Sorensen. "Orueta y Duarte, Ricardo de." Dictionary of Art Historians (website). https://arthistorians.info/oruetayduarter/.


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Medievalist; Director General of Bellas Artes, Spain, from 1931-1933 and 1936. Orueta was the son of Francisca Duarte Cardenal (1837-1882), and Domingo de Orueta Aguirre (1833-1895) a naturalist and geologist. He was raised in Málaga, Spain where

Orsini, Fulvio

Full Name: Orsini, Fulvio

Gender: male

Date Born: 1529

Date Died: 1600

Place Born: Rome, Lazio, Italy

Place Died: Rome, Lazio, Italy

Home Country/ies: Italy

Subject Area(s): Antique, the and iconography

Career(s): art collectors


Overview

Antiquarian and collector; “father of modern iconography.” Orsini was an illegitimate child of a member of the noble Orsini family in Rome, probably of Maerbale Orsini. Abandoned by his father, he aligned himself with the choir boys of S Giovanni in Laterano and their protector Canon Gentile Delfini (d.1559), himself in the service of Cardinal Ranuccio Farnese (1530-1565). Orsini studied ancient languages, rising in the church until by 1554 he was a cannon. In 1559, at Delfini’s death, he moved into the Farnese patronage where he became secretary and librarian to the Cardinal himself. At Ranuccio Farnese’s death in 1565, his successor, Cardinal Alessandro Farnese, kept him on as librarian adding to his duties keeper of the antiques and art work in the villa, Palazzo Farnese. Orsini acquired new works for Farnese collection, including drawings by Michelangelo, Raphael, Sebastiano del Piombo and others. He began collecting art personally, owning at least two paintings by El Greco, which may have been payment for steering Farnese commissions to certain artists. He also supplied inscriptions for the Cardinal’s commissions, and most importantly, developed the iconographic programs for the Farnese frescos in the Villa Farnese in Caprarola. As an historian, he published a history of Rome, Familiæ Romanæ ex antiquis numismatibus in 1577. As a linguist, he wrote a new edition of Arnobius of Sicca apologetics in 1583 and the Septuagint in 1587. Cardinal Alessandro died in 1589 and Orsini came into service of his third Farnese master, Cardinal Odoardo Farnese. He continued to oversee Farnese art interests, including composing the iconographic program for Annibale Carracci’s Camerino frescoes in the Palazzo Farnese. At his death, his collection passed to Odoardo Farnese. His collection are still part of the Farnese collection now at Capodimonte and Mus. Archeol. in Naples. Orsini held a deep interest in ancient iconography. In 1570 he published his Imagines et elogia virorum illustrium, a study of portraiture, which laid the groundwork for a new methodology for the study of classical portraiture. Orsini used all media, coins, sculpture, gems and inscriptions in his quest for reliable images. Orsini’s broad scholarship was followed by ever newer iconographies in succeeding generations, including Bellori’s Veterum illustrium philosophorum of 1685.


Selected Bibliography

Imagines et elogia virorvm illvstrivm et ervditor ex antiqvis lapidibvs et nomismatib. Rome: Ant. Lafrerij formeis, 1570.


Sources

“Portrait Iconography.” Encyclopedia of the History of Classical Archaeology. Nancy Thomson de Grummond, ed. Westport, CT: Greenwood Press, 1996, vol. 2, pp. 924, mentioned; “Orsini.” The Catholic Encyclopedia ; Robertson, Clare. “Orsini, Fulvio.” Dictionary of Art.




Citation

"Orsini, Fulvio." Dictionary of Art Historians (website). https://arthistorians.info/orsinif/.


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Antiquarian and collector; “father of modern iconography.” Orsini was an illegitimate child of a member of the noble Orsini family in Rome, probably of Maerbale Orsini. Abandoned by his father, he aligned himself with the choir boys of S Giovanni

d’Ors, Eugenio

Image Credit: ArchInForm

Full Name: d’Ors, Eugenio

Other Names:

  • Xenius

Gender: male

Date Born: 18 September 1881

Date Died: 26 September 1954

Place Born: Barcelona, Catalonia, Spain

Place Died: Villanueva y Geltru, Barcelona, Catalonia, Spain

Home Country/ies: Spain

Subject Area(s): art theory, Baroque, and Classical

Institution(s): Instituto de Estudios Catalanes


Overview

Philosopher, art critic; scholar of baroque and classicism; employed diachronic theory of art history. Eugenio d’Ors was the son of Jose Ors y Rosal and Celia Rovira y Garcia. Due to his delicate health, d’Ors completed primary and secondary school from home. He graduated from the University of Barcelona in 1903 with a law degree. During his time at the university, d’Ors contributed to several magazines including Pel i Ploma,  Catalunya, Lo Pensament Català o Auba, and an art column for El Poble Català. After graduating, he left to Madrid to pursue a doctorate in the Facultad de Derecho and to begin a thesis on the ideal genealogy of Imperialism. During that time he befriended Francisco Giner de los Rios (1839-1915) and Ramiro de Maeztu (1875-1936) who introduced him to other prominent Spanish intellectuals. He began writing brief commentaries called “glosas” for La Veu de Catalunya in 1906, and quickly gained recognition. He never finished the history Ph.D.  Throughout his career, he expressed his desire for social and cultural renewal in his glosas. In 1906, he accepted a position in Paris still writing for La Veu de Catalunya and from this moment on, he adopted the pseudonym Xenius. He attended lectures and seminars given by Henri Bergson (1859-1941), Emile Boutroux (1845-1921) and Marie Curie (1867-1934) and frequented Els Quatre Gats. He returned to Barcelona in 1911 when Enric Prat de la Riba (1870-1917) named him secretary general of the Instituto de Estudios Catalanes. Meanwhile, he continued his studies earning a degree in Philosophy from the University of Barcelona in 1912 and a doctorate in 1913. In 1914, he ran for Chair of Superior Psychology at the University of Barcelona, but after only receiving one vote (from Jose Ortega y Gasset, 1883–1955) he never took another public election. He held different posts in the Instruccion Publica of the Mancomunidad de Cataluña (Catalan Regional Council) between 1915 to 1918 where he focused on promoting projects like the Escula Superior de Bibliotecarias and the magazine Quaderns d’Estudi. After the death of de la Riba in 1917, Jose Piug i Cadafalch (1867-1856) removed him from his position. He then travelled throughout South America in 1921 giving lectures at universities. Upon his return to Barcelona, he shifted to write in Spanish and published one of his best known works Tres horas en el Museo del Prado (1922).

In 1927, he was named to the Real Academia Española and transitioned to live in Paris again. During these years he published titles on art including El arte de Goya
(1928), Cezanne (1930), Pablo Picasso (1930) and Du baroque (1935). He remained in Paris throughout the Spanish Civil War until April of 1937 when he moved to Pamplona and joined the Falange. He was named secretary of the Instituto de España and led the Jefatura Nacional de Bellas Artes in 1938 and was able to recover the funds for the Museo del Prado that the Republican government had moved to Geneva. He was named to the Real Academia Española and to the Real Academia de Bellas Artes de San Fernando. He taught courses at the Museo del Prado and later synthesized his teachings in Tres lección en el Museo del Prado de introducción a la crítica de arte (1944) which present a new approach to the critique of art––he suggested that beyond having a meaning and form, each work has a different existence for which it is a figure or symbol (Terregrosa Puig). He later founded the Academia Breve de Critica de Arte in Madrid in 1942 which held lectures, concerts, and annual modern art exhibitions. Toward the end of his life, d’Ors began to work again with Catalonia through his writing for the newspaper, La Vanguardia. He published El secreto de la filosofía in 1947. He passed away at the age of 63 in his come at Villanueva y Geltru. La verdadera historia de Lidia de Cadaqués and La ciencia de la cultura were published posthumously.

Throughout his works and leadership in the Academia Breve de Critica de Arte, d’Ors led a cultural revolution in Catalonia. During his formative years, the city of Barcelona saw a cultural shift towards modernism. But beginning in 1904, d’Ors works expressed a distinct approach to how he believed Catalonia should be modernized. He proposed a project for renewal which he coined Noucentisme––the spirit of the new century. In its artistic aesthetics, it rejected the individualism and naturalism of modernism and rather embraced the aesthetic tradition of Catalonia. These aesthetics were rooted in ruralism and folklore that are found in classical art. He used the term “estetica arbitraria” to explain the presence of an aesthetic dimension of humans where art serves to be the most effective way of understanding human existence. By extending this concept to Catalonian nationalism, he too led a political movement throughout Catalonia.


Selected Bibliography

  • Cézanne. Madrid: Caro Raggio, 1925; [English:]  Paul Cézanne.  London: A. Zwemmer, 1936;
  • Epos de los destinos: I. El vivir de Goya. II. Los reyes católicos. III. Eugenio y su demonio. Madrid: Editora Nacional, 1943;
  • Estudios filosóficos: una primera lección de filosofía: con dos apéndices esquemáticos sobre la doctrina de la inteligencia. Madrid: La Lectura, 1926;
  • Cuadernos de Ciencia y de Cultura, III;
  • La ciencia de la cultura. Santa Coloma de Queralt: Obrador Edèndum, 2012;
  • Pablo Picasso. First Edition. Editions des Chroniques du Jour, 1930;
  • Pablo Picasso: en tres revisiones. Barcelona: Ediciones Folio, 2003;
  • Tres horas en el Museo del Prado. Madrid: Tecnos, 2003;
  • Tres lecciones en el Museo del Prado de introducción a la crítica de arte. Tecnos, 1989;
  • and Dali, Salvador. La verdadera historia de Lidia de Cadaqués. Barcelona: J. Janés, 1954;
  • and José Ferrater Mora. El secreto de la filosofía: doce lecciones, tres diálogos y, en apéndice,”La filosofía en quinientas palabras”. Madrid: Tecnos, 1998;
  • and Agathe Rouart-Valéry. Du baroque. Gallimard, 1935;

Sources



Contributors: Denise Shkurovich


Citation

Denise Shkurovich. "d’Ors, Eugenio." Dictionary of Art Historians (website). https://arthistorians.info/orse/.


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Philosopher, art critic; scholar of baroque and classicism; employed diachronic theory of art history. Eugenio d’Ors was the son of Jose Ors y Rosal and Celia Rovira y Garcia. Due to his delicate health, d’Ors completed primary and secondary schoo

Orlandos, Anastasios K

Full Name: Orlandos, Anastasios K

Gender: male

Date Born: 1888

Date Died: 1979

Place Born: Athens, Region of Attica, Greece

Place Died: Athens, Region of Attica, Greece

Home Country/ies: Greece

Subject Area(s): Ancient Greek (culture or style), architecture (object genre), Byzantine (culture or style), Classical, and sculpture (visual works)


Overview

Architectural historian of classical and Byzantine buildings; specialist on Greek architectural techniques. Orlandos was educated at the Polytechnic University in Athens where he initially studied studio architecture. He later attended Athens University, pursing philosophy, as well as universities in England, France and Italy. In 1920 he was appointed Professor of Architecture at Athens Polytechnic. Orlandos carried out the first archaeological excavations at ancient Stymphalos over seven summers between 1924 and 1930 on behalf of the Archaeological Society of Athens. In 1927 he published with Ferdinand Noack the excavations of Eleusis. He helped sponsor the third International Congress of Byzantine Studies in Athens in 1930 and edited the proceedings. In 1939 he moved to be Professor of Byzantine archaeology at the University of Athens. In 1953, as the result of excavations of two early Christian basilicas at the site of Episkopi (at Tegea, Greece), Orlandos published preserved mosaic floor with representation of the rivers of Edem and the months of the year from the so-called Basilica of Thyrsos, in the Bulletin of Byzantine and Christian Monuments of Greece. In 1969 he published his most influential work, Les Matériaux de construction et la technique architecturale des anciens Grecs appeared in 1969. He died at age ninety-one.


Selected Bibliography

and Noack, Ferdinand, and Kirchner, Johannes, and Körte, Alfred. Eleusis: die baugeschichtliche Entwicklung des Heiligtumes. Berlin: W. de Gruyter, 1927; Les Matériaux de construction et la technique architecturale des anciens Grecs. 2 vols. Paris: E. de Boccard, 1966-1968; He xylostegos palaiochristianike basilike tes Mesogeiakes lekanes. Melete peri tes geneseos tes katagoges tes architektonikes morphes kai tes diakosmeseos ton christianikon oikon latreias apo ton chronon mechris Ioystinianou. 3 vols. Athens: s.n., 1952-57.


Sources

“Orlandos, Anastasios K.” Encyclopedia of the History of Classical Archaeology. Nancy Thomson de Grummond, ed. Westport, CT: Greenwood Press, 1996, vol. 2, pp. 829; “Archaeological Site of Episkopi at Tegea.” Hellenic Ministry of Culture. http://www.culture.gr/2/21/211/21105a/e211ea12.




Citation

"Orlandos, Anastasios K." Dictionary of Art Historians (website). https://arthistorians.info/orlandosa/.


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Architectural historian of classical and Byzantine buildings; specialist on Greek architectural techniques. Orlandos was educated at the Polytechnic University in Athens where he initially studied studio architecture. He later attended Athens Univ

Orlandi, Pellegrino Antonio

Full Name: Orlandi, Pellegrino Antonio

Gender: male

Date Born: 1660

Date Died: 1727

Place Born: Bologna, Emilia-Romagna, Italy

Place Died: Bologna, Emilia-Romagna, Italy

Home Country/ies: Italy

Subject Area(s): biographies (literary works), Italian (culture or style), and painting (visual works)

Career(s): art historians and biographers


Overview

Writer and historian of Italian artists and painting. Orlandi was a member of the Carmelite order and lived at the Bolognese convent of San Martino, where he collected paintings and prints. Orlandi’s art historical research earned him membership in the Bolognese Accademia Clementina. In 1704, he published the Abecedario pittorico, the first collection of artists biographies organized alphabetically in Italian. The book’s second edition was published in 1719. Orlandi corresponded with artists and collectors in Rome and Florence to obtain updated information for the new edition, which elevated the Abecedario’s status from a collection of biographies to a handbook about art and artistic practices. The book included bibliographies on books about artists as well as information about history, mythology, and poetry. In this sense, it constitutes one of the earliest art bibliographies every written. During the 19th century, the Abecedario was criticized for its inaccuracy by Giuseppe B. Campori
, however, it was the most complete resource for information on artists during the 18th century.


Selected Bibliography

Notizie degli scrittori bolognesi e dell’ opere loro stampate e manoscritte. Bologna: Costantino Pisarri, 1714; Abecedario pittorico nel quale compendiosamente sono descritte le patrie, i maestri, ed i tempi, ne’ quali fiorino, circa quattro mila professori di pittura, di scultura e d’architettura. Bologna: Const. Pisari, 1704.


Sources

Sorensen, Lee. “Art Bibliographies: A Survey of their Development, 1595-1821.” Library Quarterly 56 (January 1986) pp. 31-55; The Dictionary of Art



Contributors: LaNitra Michele Walker


Citation

LaNitra Michele Walker. "Orlandi, Pellegrino Antonio." Dictionary of Art Historians (website). https://arthistorians.info/orlandip/.


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Writer and historian of Italian artists and painting. Orlandi was a member of the Carmelite order and lived at the Bolognese convent of San Martino, where he collected paintings and prints. Orlandi’s art historical research earned him membership i