William Reinhold Valentiner (May 2, 1880 – September 6, 1958) was a

German-American German Americans (german: Deutschamerikaner, ) are Americans who have full or partial German ancestry. With an estimated size of approximately 43 million in 2019, German Americans are the largest of the self-reported ancestry groups by the Unite ...

art historian, art critic and

museum A museum ( ; plural museums or, rarely, musea) is a building or institution that cares for and displays a collection of artifacts and other objects of artistic, cultural, historical, or scientific importance. Many public museums make thes ...

administrator. He was educated and trained in Europe, first working at the Mauritshuis in

The Hague The Hague ( ; nl, Den Haag or ) is a city and municipality of the Netherlands, situated on the west coast facing the North Sea. The Hague is the country's administrative centre and its seat of government, and while the official capital o ...

and at museums in

Berlin Berlin ( , ) is the capital and List of cities in Germany by population, largest city of Germany by both area and population. Its 3.7 million inhabitants make it the European Union's List of cities in the European Union by population within ci ...

. In 1907 he moved to the United States to become the first

curator A curator (from la, cura, meaning "to take care") is a manager or overseer. When working with cultural organizations, a curator is typically a "collections curator" or an "exhibitions curator", and has multifaceted tasks dependent on the parti ...

of the department of

decorative arts ] The decorative arts are arts or crafts whose object is the design and manufacture of objects that are both beautiful and functional. It includes most of the arts making objects for the interiors of buildings, and interior design, but not usual ...

in the Metropolitan Museum of Art, Metropolitan Museum in

New York City New York, often called New York City or NYC, is the most populous city in the United States. With a 2020 population of 8,804,190 distributed over , New York City is also the most densely populated major city in the Un ...

. After returning to Europe to serve in the German Army in World War I, Valentiner later was appointed to other positions in the US. From the mid-1920s, he strongly influenced the development of museum administration in the United States. He served as director of the

Detroit Institute of Art The Detroit Institute of Arts (DIA), located in Midtown Detroit, Michigan, has one of the largest and most significant art collections in the United States. With over 100 galleries, it covers with a major renovation and expansion project complete ...

Michigan Michigan () is a U.S. state, state in the Great Lakes region, Great Lakes region of the Upper Midwest, upper Midwestern United States. With a population of nearly 10.12 million and an area of nearly , Michigan is the List of U.S. states and ...

, from 1924 to 1945. Valentiner became a naturalized US citizen about 1930 and lived in the country for nearly half his life in total. During the early 1930s, he commissioned Mexican artist

Diego Rivera Diego María de la Concepción Juan Nepomuceno Estanislao de la Rivera y Barrientos Acosta y Rodríguez, known as Diego Rivera (; December 8, 1886 – November 24, 1957), was a prominent Mexican painter. His large frescoes helped establish the ...

to create a 27-panel mural series about Detroit industry for an interior court of the museum, and gained the patronage of

Edsel Ford Edsel Bryant Ford (November 6, 1893 – May 26, 1943) was an American business executive and philanthropist who was the son of pioneering industrialist Henry Ford and his wife, Clara Jane Bryant Ford. He was the president of Ford Motor Company f ...

for the project. While controversial in content, the work attracted thousands of new visitors and led to the museum being granted a larger budget by the city. Valentiner is especially known for his writings on

Flemish Flemish (''Vlaams'') is a Low Franconian dialect cluster of the Dutch language. It is sometimes referred to as Flemish Dutch (), Belgian Dutch ( ), or Southern Dutch (). Flemish is native to Flanders, a historical region in northern Belgium; ...

and

Dutch Dutch commonly refers to: * Something of, from, or related to the Netherlands * Dutch people () * Dutch language () Dutch may also refer to: Places * Dutch, West Virginia, a community in the United States * Pennsylvania Dutch Country People E ...

painting.

Life

William Valentiner was born at

Karlsruhe Karlsruhe ( , , ; South Franconian: ''Kallsruh'') is the third-largest city of the German state (''Land'') of Baden-Württemberg after its capital of Stuttgart and Mannheim, and the 22nd-largest city in the nation, with 308,436 inhabitants. ...

(Baden) and attended local schools. He studied at

Heidelberg Heidelberg (; Palatine German language, Palatine German: ''Heidlberg'') is a city in the States of Germany, German state of Baden-Württemberg, situated on the river Neckar in south-west Germany. As of the 2016 census, its population was 159,914 ...

under Henry Thode, and in the

Netherlands ) , anthem = ( en, "William of Nassau") , image_map = , map_caption = , subdivision_type = Sovereign state , subdivision_name = Kingdom of the Netherlands , established_title = Before independence , established_date = Spanish Netherl ...

with

Cornelis Hofstede de Groot Cornelis Hofstede de Groot (9 November 1863 – 14 April 1930), was a Dutch art collector, art historian and museum curator. Life He was born in Dwingeloo and spent some time in Switzerland in his youth due to weak lungs, where he learned Germ ...

and with

Abraham Bredius Dr. Abraham Bredius (18 April 1855 in Amsterdam – 13 March 1946 in Monaco) was a Dutch art collector, art historian, and museum curator. Life Bredius travelled widely, visiting various art collections in his youth, and worked at the Dutch Mus ...

. He served as the latter's assistant at the Gallery of The Hague (Mauritshuis). In 1905 he was called to

by William Bode, under whom he worked at the

Kaiser Friedrich Museum The Bode-Museum (English: ''Bode Museum''), formerly called the Kaiser-Friedrich-Museum (''Emperor Frederick Museum''), is a listed building on the Museum Island in the historic centre of Berlin. It was built from 1898 to 1904 by order of Germa ...

and the

Kunstgewerbemuseum Berlin __NOTOC__ The Kunstgewerbemuseum, or Museum of Decorative Arts, is an internationally important museum of the decorative arts in Berlin, Germany, part of the Staatliche Museen zu Berlin (Berlin State Museums). The collection is split between t ...

. In 1906 he published his dissertation on Rembrandt, which he had started in 1904: ''Rembrandt auf der Lateinschule''. ;New York City In 1907 he was appointed as the first

of the department of

in the Metropolitan Museum of Art, Metropolitan Museum in

. Under his supervision, this department became one of the foremost in the world. ;World War I At the start of

World War I World War I (28 July 1914 11 November 1918), often abbreviated as WWI, was one of the deadliest global conflicts in history. Belligerents included much of Europe, the Russian Empire, the United States, and the Ottoman Empire, with fightin ...

, Valentiner returned to Germany to serve in the army. After service at the front in 1916, he was appointed to the general staff in Berlin.

American museums

Following the end of the war, Valentiner was offered a position in

Detroit, Michigan Detroit ( , ; , ) is the largest city in the U.S. state of Michigan. It is also the largest U.S. city on the United States–Canada border, and the seat of government of Wayne County. The City of Detroit had a population of 639,111 at ...

, where he served for more than two decades. He became a naturalized American citizen around 1930 and lived in the United States for the remainder of his life. ;Detroit From 1924-1945 he was appointed first as advisor and then Director of the

Detroit Institute of Arts The Detroit Institute of Arts (DIA), located in Midtown Detroit, Michigan, has one of the largest and most significant art collections in the United States. With over 100 galleries, it covers with a major renovation and expansion project comple ...

, one of the cultural institutions that expanded during the city's boom years. The museum was founded as the Detroit Museum of Art in 1885, and was renamed Detroit Institute of Arts in 1919. Under his leadership the museum developed into one of the leading art institutions in the United States. His acquisitions and exhibitions in Detroit were products of his wide-ranging scholarship. He was a friend of

and conducted private seminars on the history of art for Ford's family. He commissioned Mexican artist

to create a series of murals after having seen his work in

San Francisco, California San Francisco (; Spanish for " Saint Francis"), officially the City and County of San Francisco, is the commercial, financial, and cultural center of Northern California. The city proper is the fourth most populous in California and 17th ...

. He convinced Ford to be a patron and underwrite the cost of the murals. Titled ''

Detroit Industry The ''Detroit Industry Murals'' (1932–1933) are a series of frescoes by the Mexican artist Diego Rivera, consisting of twenty-seven panels depicting industry at the Ford Motor Company and in Detroit. Together they surround the interior Rivera ...

'', they were revolutionary in content for Detroit at the time and generated considerable local controversy. Valentiner developed an expert staff of curators, a vision of an encyclopedic collection, and the museum as a resource for the city, the state, and the Midwest. In 1945 he had to resign from his post in Detroit due to a city age restriction in the civil service. ;Los Angeles He was instrumental in the development of both the

Los Angeles County Museum of Art The Los Angeles County Museum of Art (LACMA) is an art museum located on Wilshire Boulevard in the Miracle Mile vicinity of Los Angeles. LACMA is on Museum Row, adjacent to the La Brea Tar Pits (George C. Page Museum). LACMA was founded in 19 ...

and the

J. Paul Getty Museum The J. Paul Getty Museum, commonly referred to as the Getty, is an art museum in Los Angeles, California housed on two campuses: the Getty Center and Getty Villa. The Getty Center is located in the Brentwood neighborhood of Los Angeles and fea ...

. ;North Carolina In 1955 Valentiner was appointed as the first Director of the

North Carolina Museum of Art The North Carolina Museum of Art (NCMA) is an art museum in Raleigh, North Carolina. It opened in 1956 as the first major museum collection in the country to be formed by state legislation and funding. Since the initial 1947 appropriation that e ...

Raleigh Raleigh (; ) is the capital city of the state of North Carolina and the seat of Wake County in the United States. It is the second-most populous city in North Carolina, after Charlotte. Raleigh is the tenth-most populous city in the Southeas ...

, the capital. He held this position until his death in September 1958.

Works

Wilhelm Valentiner published: * ''Rembrandt auf der Lateinschule'', Jahrbuch der preußischen Kunstsammlungen 27 (1906) * '' Rembrandt'' (1907), with Bode * ''Altholländische Genre Zeichungen'' (1908), with Bode * '' Rembrandt : des Meisters Gemälde in 643 Abbildungen'' (1908), with

Adolf Rosenberg Carl Adolf Rosenberg (1850 – 1906) was a German theater critic and art historian. Rosenberg was born as the son of a Prussian merchant in Bydgoszcz and attended secondary school in Berlin and Cologne. He studied classics and archeology at the U ...

* ''The Art of the Low Countries'', translated by Mrs. Schuyler Van Rensselaer (1914) * ''The Last Years of Michelangelo'' (1914) * '' Rembrandt: wiedergefundene Gemälde, 1910-1922, in 128 Abbildungen'' (1923) * '' Frans Hals, des Meisters Gemälde in 322 Abbildungen'', Zweite, Neu Bearbeitete Auflage, Deutsche Verlags-Anstalt Stuttgart, Berlin, und Leipzig, 1923 * ''Frans Hals paintings in America'', 1936 * ''The Origins of Modern Sculpture'', 1946 * ''Rembrandt and

Spinoza Baruch (de) Spinoza (born Bento de Espinosa; later as an author and a correspondent ''Benedictus de Spinoza'', anglicized to ''Benedict de Spinoza''; 24 November 1632 – 21 February 1677) was a Dutch philosopher of Portuguese-Jewish origin, ...

: A Study of the Spiritual Conflicts in Seventeenth-Century Holland'', London: Phaidon Press (1957)

References

External links

*
Downloadable books by Valentiner
Internet Archive
Biography
''

Dictionary of Art Historians The ''Dictionary of Art Historians'' (DAH) is an online encyclopedia of topics relating to art historians, art critics and their dictionaries. The mission of the project is to provide free, reliable, English-language information on published art ...

'' {{DEFAULTSORT:Valentiner, Wilhelm German art historians German curators Directors of museums in the United States 1880 births 1958 deaths German male non-fiction writers German Army personnel of World War I People associated with the Detroit Institute of Arts People associated with the J. Paul Getty Museum People associated with the Los Angeles County Museum of Art People associated with the Metropolitan Museum of Art Writers from Karlsruhe People from the Grand Duchy of Baden 20th-century German writers Rembrandt scholars Scholars of Dutch art Scholars of Netherlandish art German emigrants to the United States German expatriates in the Netherlands