Portland Public Library

Belonging and betrayal, how Jews made the art world modern, Charles Dellheim

eng

Includes bibliographical references (pages 587-630) and index

portraitsillustrationsplates

index present

non fiction

Belonging and betrayal

bibliography

1241244367

Charles Dellheim

The Tauber Institute series for the study of European Jewry

how Jews made the art world modern

"This book aims to restore and recreate the life, work, and milieu of certain Jews who became arbiters of taste. Exploring how, against the odds, outsiders on the margins of European high culture, suddenly became the Old Masters' new masters and the modernists' champions"--, Provided by publisherThe story of dealers of Old Masters, champions of modern art, and victims of Nazi plunder. Since the late 1990s, the fate of Nazi stolen art has become a cause célèbre. In Belonging and Betrayal, Charles Dellheim turns this story on its head by revealing how certain Jewish outsiders came to acquire so many old and modern masterpieces in the first place-- and what this reveals about Jews, art, and modernity. This book tells the epic story of the fortunes and misfortunes of a small number of eminent art dealers and collectors who, against the odds, played a pivotal role in the migration of works of art from Europe to the United States and in the triumph of modern art. Beautifully written and compellingly told, this story takes place on both sides of the Atlantic from the late nineteenth century to the present. It is set against the backdrop of critical transformations, among them the gradual opening of European high culture, the ambiguities of Jewish aristocratic family art collections, the emergence of different schools of modern art, the cultural impact of the First World War, and the Nazi war against the Jews. --, From dust jacket