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Knoedler & Co. artist files
2012.M.54.S7A
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Contributing Institution:
Special Collections
Title: M. Knoedler & Co. artist files
Creator:
M. Knoedler & Co
Identifier/Call Number: 2012.M.54.S7A
Physical Description:
507.7 Linear Feet
(1228 boxes)
Date (inclusive): approximately 1890-1971
Abstract: The M. Knoedler & Co. artist files form part of the records of the firm of M. Knoedler & Co. described in the related finding
aid for the collection. Due to their size, these files are described separately from the rest of the archive. The M. Knoedler
& Co. artist files primarily document artworks handled by the New York office of Knoedler & Co. and represent the bulk of
the materials in Series VII. Photographs. The photographs, along with research and descriptive information, document artworks
purchased and sold by the firm or on consignment at the firm, as well as artworks offered for sale to the firm, but not acquired.
In addition to photographs, each artist file typically includes "pedigree" documentation of the artworks, such as ownership
history, bibliographies and expertise documentation. The photographs provide a visual record of the condition of the artwork
at the time it was in the firm's stock and enable to distinguish works with similar titles or works whose titles have changed
over time. Often they are the last record of works whose location is presently unknown. The titles indicated for the works
are derived from the titles that Knoedler staff assigned the works in the stock books, the sales books or the inventory cards.
When possible, abbreviations of the titles in the archive have been expanded and spelling mistakes corrected, but no attempt
has been made to update the titles to current standards. When different sources in the archive provided titles that differed
considerably, the different versions have been provided, when possible. The main finding aid for the M. Knoedler & Co. records
is available here: http://hdl.handle.net/10020/cifa2012m54.
Physical Location: Request access to the physical materials described in this inventory through the
catalog record for this collection. Click here for the
access policy .
Language of Material: Collection material is in English and French.
Acquired in 2012.
Contact
Library Reproductions and Permissions .
Open for use by qualified researchers
With partial support of the National Endowment for the Humanities, Series VII. Photographs was catalogued and processed from
January 2015 to January 2016 by Alexis Adkins, Judy Chou, Sarah Glover, Erin Hurley, Jasmine Larkin, and Emmabeth Nanol, under
the supervision of Karen Meyer-Roux. The analysis and review of the titles (ca. 70 000 titles) was completed in Summer 2016
by Karen Meyer-Roux with the assistance from David Woodruff. Series VII.A. was photographed by Laura Sokolosky and James Gott.
M. Knoedler & Co. was a successor to the New York branch of Goupil & Co., an extremely dynamic print-publishing house founded
in Paris in 1827. Goupil's branches in London, Berlin, Brussels, and The Hague, as well as New York, expanded the firm's market
in the sale of reproductive prints. The firm's office in New York-an initiative of Léon Goupil, the son of Adolphe Goupil,
Théodore Vibert, and the agent William Schaus-was established in 1848 at 289 Broadway on the corner of Duane Street near City
Hall.
In 1857, Michael Knoedler, an employee of Goupil and a manager for the firm, bought out the interests in the firm's New York
branch, conducted the business under his own name, and diversified its activities to include the sale of paintings. The office
was then established in a larger space at 366 Broadway. When Roland Knoedler, Michael's son, became a partner in the business
in 1877, the firm became known from then on as M. Knoedler & Co. Roland Knoedler took over the firm after the death of his
father in 1878 and with Charles Carstairs opened galleries in Paris and London. When Roland Knoedler retired in 1928, the
management of the firm passed to his nephew Charles Henschel, Carman Messmore, Charles Carstairs and Carstairs' son, Carroll.
In 1956 Henschel died and E. Coe Kerr and Michael Knoedler's grandson, Roland Balaÿ, took over. After a number of moves, M.
Knoedler & Co. occupied its headquarters at 19 E. 70th Street for many years.
When Michael Knoedler purchased the New York Goupil office in 1857, most American museums had not yet been formed. The country
was also relatively isolated from Western European centers of art exchange. As the United States witnessed a rise in personal
fortunes from the steel, mining, iron, and railroad industries in the nineteenth century, more Americans had the financial
means to begin forming art collections. It fueled the art market that M. Knoedler & Co. helped establish and combined with
declining nobilities and changes in tax legislation in Europe, it accelerated the process of transferring artworks from Europe
to the United States. In 1901, Knoedler sold an important old master, Velázquez,
Don Balthazar Carlos with a Dwarf, to the Boston Museum. In 1907, in partnership with P. Colnaghi & Co., Knoedler acquired seven portraits of the Cattaneo
family by Anthony van Dyck, of which three now form part of the Widener Collection at the National Gallery of Art in Washington
D.C. In 1911, the firm sold Vermeer's
Officer and Laughing Girl to Henry Clay Frick. By the early 20th century, the Knoedler Gallery had become one of the main suppliers of old master paintings
in the United States and would continue to serve as a major conduit for the acquisition of masterworks.
Among clients of Knoedler were civic-minded collectors, including John Taylor Johnston (1820-1893), the son of a banker, who
would become the founding president of the Metropolitan Museum of Art; Robert Leighton Stuart (1806-1882), a major donor to
the New York Public Library; and Catharine Lorillard Wolfe (1828-1887), the daughter of a real estate developer and an heir
to the Lorillard Tobacco Company. Wolfe became the first donor to provide both a collection gift and an endowment to the Metropolitan
Museum of Art.
Knoedler developed very close relationships with Henry Clay Frick and Andrew W. Mellon. A large portion of the paintings in
The Frick Collection in New York were acquired during Frick's lifetime through the Knoedler Gallery. In 1900, Charles Carstairs
and Roland Knoedler were present at Mellon's wedding celebrated in England. The close relationship between Knoedler and Mellon
would continue throughout the collector's life, including his appointment as U.S. Secretary of the Treasury from 1921 until
1932, culminating in the purchase of twenty-one paintings from the Hermitage in Saint-Petersburg in 1930-1931. These artworks-including
paintings by van Eyck, Botticelli, Raphael, Titian, and Rembrandt-would form the nucleus of the National Gallery of Art, which
was established and initially funded in part by Mellon.
Early in its history, M. Knoedler & Co. chose to advocate the work of American artists. It established an educational division
to promote American artists, the International Art Union, which published a journal to help publicize artists' works through
print reproductions and which offered artists scholarships to study abroad. Knoedler served as a primary agent for numerous
artists, and through an ongoing exhibition program actively promoted artists such as the American landscape painter and printmaker
Winslow Homer and Frederic Edwin Church, a central figure in the Hudson River School of American landscape painters. After
World War II, the gallery promoted the work of Willem de Kooning, Barnett Newman, Louise Bourgeois, Eva Hesse and Arshile
Gorky, along with European artists, such as Salvador Dalí, Henry Moore, and Wassily Kandinsky.
In 1971 the firm was purchased by businessman, philanthropist and collector Armand Hammer. Since the late 1970s, the firm
has focused increasingly on contemporary art. During the late 2000s the gallery was embroiled in lawsuits regarding allegedly
forged artworks. The Knoedler Gallery closed in November 2011.
Note: Regarding the date that M. Knoedler & Co. was created in the nineteenth century, the firm has traditionally retained
1846 as founding date. This tradition was given prominence in 1946 in
A Catalogue of an Exhibition of Paintings and Prints of Every Description, on the Occasion of Knoedler, One Hundred Years,
1846-1946
. In his foreword to the catalogue, Charles Henschel, Michael Knoedler's grandson and then the firm's president, associated
1846 with the date of his grandfather's arrival in New York. The 1846 founding date also appears on some of the firm's labels.
This date has been questioned however, in light that the earliest press announcement of an opening of a shop in New York by
Goupil may date from 1848. See
The Literary World (1849), Volume 5: 317. DeCourcy McIntosh is credited with first questioning the founding date of 1846. See his "Merchandising
America: American Views Published by the Maison Goupil," The Magazine Antiques (September 2004): 124-133. Others have questioned
whether in reference to the founding of the Knoedler Gallery the date of 1857 is not in fact more relevant than those of 1846
or 1848.
Series VII.A. Artist files forms part of the records of the firm of M. Knoedler & Co. described in the related
finding aid for the collection. Due to its size, Series VII.A. is described separately. The main subseries in Series VII. Photographs,
it consists of the files maintained by the firm of M. Knoedler & Co. in New York and primarily represents artworks handled
by the New York office. The photographs, along with research and descriptive information, document artworks purchased and
sold by the firm or on consignment at the firm, as well as artworks offered for sale to the firm, but not acquired. In addition
to photographs, each artist file typically includes "pedigree" documentation of the artworks, such as ownership history, bibliographies
and expertise documentation. The photographs provide a visual record of the condition of the artwork at the time it was in
the firm's stock and enable to distinguish works with similar titles or works whose titles have changed over time. Often they
are the last record of works whose location is presently unknown. The titles indicated for the works are derived from the
titles that Knoedler staff assigned the works in the stock books, the sales books or the inventory cards. When possible, abbreviations
of the titles in the archive have been expanded and spelling mistakes corrected, but no attempt has been made to update the
titles to current standards. When different sources in the archive provided titles that differed considerably, the different
versions have been provided, when possible.
The photographs were listed by inventory numbers, including stock numbers and other numbers:
1 to 17039*: Knoedler ownership, 1879-December 1927
A1-A9347: Knoedler ownership, January 1928 through 1971
AT: Knoedler owned jointly with Jack Tanzer
JA: Knoedler owned jointly with one or more owners
C: Consigned to Knoedler, -December 1927
CA: Consigned to Knoedler: January 1928-
F: Paris stock number
L: London stock number
S: artist on commission
SCA: work on consignment from the artist
*It is not always possible to distinguish these numbers from other numbers, such as negative numbers, receiving numbers, or
numbers assigned by the London office that are not preceded by the letter L, without consulting the relevant stock books.
Series VII.A. Artist files are arranged by alphabetical order of artist names according to the filing devised by the firm.
The spelling used for artist names has been retained, as well as filings such as "American Interest," "American School,"
"Anonymous," "Bronzes," "Chinese paintings," "Flemish School, Early," "Unknown," and cross-references provided in the artist
files. The files maintained by the London and Paris offices were received separately and are described in Series VII.B and
Series VII.C. However there are photographs in Series VII.A. that appear to have been removed from the files maintained by
the other offices. These have been left in situ. The titles indicated for the works are derived from the titles that Knoedler
staff assigned the works in the stock books, the sales books or the inventory cards. When possible, abbreviations of the titles
in the archive have been expanded and spelling mistakes corrected, but no attempt has been made to update the titles to current
standards. When different sources in the archive provided titles that differed considerably, the different versions have been
provided, when possible.
M. Knoedler & Co. artist files, approximately 1890-1971, The Getty Research Institute, Los Angeles, Accession no. 2012.M.54.S7A.
http://hdl.handle.net/10020/cifa2012m54s7a
Subjects and Indexing Terms
Art -- Collectors and collecting
Art -- Private collections
Collectors and collecting
Painting, European -- Collectors and collecting
Black-and-white photographs