Curt Valentin (5 October 1902,
Hamburg, Germany
(male), (female) en, Hamburger(s),
Hamburgian(s)
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– 19 August 1954,
Forte dei Marmi
Forte dei Marmi () is a sea town and ''comune'' in the province of Lucca, in northern Tuscany (Italy). It is the birthplace of Paola Ruffo di Calabria, Queen of the Belgians from 1993 to 2013.
Tourism is the principal activity of Forte dei Marmi's ...
, Italy) was a German-Jewish art dealer known for handling modern art, particularly sculpture, and works classified as "degenerate" and stolen from European museums by the
Nazi
Nazism ( ; german: Nazismus), the common name in English for National Socialism (german: Nationalsozialismus, ), is the far-right totalitarian political ideology and practices associated with Adolf Hitler and the Nazi Party (NSDAP) in ...
regime in Germany.
After 1927 Curt Valentin worked for
Alfred Flechtheim
Alfred Flechtheim (1 April 1878 – 9 March 1937) was a German Jewish art dealer, art collector, journalist and publisher persecuted by the Nazis.
Early years
Flechtheim was born into a Jewish merchant family; his father, Emil Flechtheim, was a g ...
in Berlin. In 1934, he worked at
Karl Buchholz
Karl Buchholz (23 February 1849, Schloßvippach - 29 May 1889 in Oberweimar)[B ...](_blank)
Gallery,
Hamburg
(male), (female) en, Hamburger(s),
Hamburgian(s)
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. In 1937, he emigrated to America, and opened a modern art gallery, Bucholz gallery, in
New York City
New York, often called New York City or NYC, is the List of United States cities by population, most populous city in the United States. With a 2020 population of 8,804,190 distributed over , New York City is also the L ...
. He had permission to sell German art in America, from the Nazi authorities to help fund Hitler's war efforts.
On June 30, 1939, Curt Valentin bid for art looted by the Nazis that was being auctioned at the Fischer Gallery in Lucerne on behalf of Alfred Barr who provided money donated to the Museum of Modern Art. In 1951 the gallery was renamed the Curt Valentin Gallery. His gallery operated from 1951, until a year after his death in 1954, and handled works by many notable artists including
Alexander Calder
Alexander Calder (; July 22, 1898 – November 11, 1976) was an American sculptor known both for his innovative mobiles (kinetic sculptures powered by motors or air currents) that embrace chance in their aesthetic, his static "stabiles", and his ...
,
Henry Moore
Henry Spencer Moore (30 July 1898 – 31 August 1986) was an English artist. He is best known for his semi- abstract monumental bronze sculptures which are located around the world as public works of art. As well as sculpture, Moore produced ...
,
Marino Marini,
Irving Kriesberg
Irving Kriesberg (March 13, 1919 – November 11, 2009) was an American painter, sculptor, educator, author, and filmmaker, whose work combined elements of Abstract Expressionism with representational human, animal, and humanoid forms. Becaus ...
, and
Jacques Lipchitz
Jacques Lipchitz (26 May 1973) was a Cubist sculptor. Lipchitz retained highly figurative and legible components in his work leading up to 1915–16, after which naturalist and descriptive elements were muted, dominated by a synthetic style of Cr ...
.
References
External links
"Curt Valentin in his gallery, ca. 1952" Photography by Adolph Studly, at ''Archives of American Art''
*
Ludwig Meidner
Ludwig Meidner (18 April 1884 – 14 May 1966) was a German expressionist painter and printmaker born in Bernstadt, Silesia. Meidner is best known for his painted, drawn, and printed portraits and landscapes, but is especially noted for h ...
"Curt Valentin" ''MOMA''
''Marino Marini and Curt Valentin: The Rise of the Italian Sculptor in America.''"Artnews : MOMA's problematic provenances""Bridges from the Reich: The Importance of Émigré Art Dealers as Reflected in the Case Studies of Curt Valentin and Otto Kallir– Nirenstein"
{{DEFAULTSORT:Valentin, Curt
American art dealers
1902 births
1954 deaths
Emigrants from Nazi Germany to the United States
German art dealers