Dictionary of Art HistoriansDirector of the National Gallery, Berlin, 1909-1933, nephew of the art historian Carl Nicolaus Heinrich Justi. When Hugo von Tschudi, the controversial director of the National-Galerie, was fired by Kaiser Wilhelm II for buying work too modern and too foreign (e.g. French Post-Impressionism and the works of van Gogh), Justi replaced him. Justi's directorship fell under the control of the powerful Wilhelm Bode, director of the Generalverwaltung, the umbrella bureau of all Prussian art museums. However, Justi largely followed Tschudi's progressivist acquisition policies. Dismissed by the Nazis in 1933 and succeeded by Eberhard Hanfstaengl.
Metzler Kunsthistoriker Lexikon: zweihundert Porträts deutschsprachiger Autoren aus vier Jahrhunderten. Stuttgart: Metzler, 1999, pp. 200-203; Wendland, Ulrike. Biographisches Handbuch deutschsprachiger Kunsthistoriker im Exil: Leben und Werk der unter dem Nationalsozialismus verfolgten und vertriebenen Wissenschaftler. Munich: Saur, 1999, vol. 1, pp. 341-7; Gaehtgens, Thomas, and Winkler, Kurt, eds. Ludwig Justi: Werden, Wirken, Wissen: Lebenserinnerunge aus fünf Jahrzehnten. 2 vols. Berlin: Nicholai, 2000.