
Gerald Roberts Reitlinger (born 1900 in London, United Kingdom – died 1978 in
St Leonards-on-Sea
St Leonards-on-Sea (commonly known as St Leonards) is a town and seaside resort in the Borough of Hastings in East Sussex, England. It has been part of the borough since the late 19th century and lies to the west of central Hastings. The origina ...
, United Kingdom) was an art historian, especially of Asian ceramics, and a scholar of historical changes in taste in art and their reflection in art prices. After World War II he wrote three large books about
Nazi Germany
Nazi Germany (lit. "National Socialist State"), ' (lit. "Nazi State") for short; also ' (lit. "National Socialist Germany") (officially known as the German Reich from 1933 until 1943, and the Greater German Reich from 1943 to 1945) was ...
. He was also a painter and collector, mainly of pottery. Reitlinger's major works were ''The Final Solution'' (1953), ''The SS: Alibi of a Nation'' (1956), and between 1961–1970 he published ''The Economics of Taste'' in three volumes.
Career
Born in London to the banker Albert Reitlinger and his wife Emma Brunner, Reitlinger was educated at
Westminster School
Westminster School is a Public school (United Kingdom), public school in Westminster, London, England, in the precincts of Westminster Abbey. It derives from a charity school founded by Westminster Benedictines before the 1066 Norman Conquest, as d ...
in London before a short service with the
Middlesex Regiment
The Middlesex Regiment (Duke of Cambridge's Own) was a line infantry regiment of the British Army in existence from 1881 until 1966. The regiment was formed, as the Duke of Cambridge's Own (Middlesex Regiment), in 1881 as part of the Childers Ref ...
at the end of
World War I
World War I (28 July 1914 11 November 1918), often abbreviated as WWI, was List of wars and anthropogenic disasters by death toll, one of the deadliest global conflicts in history. Belligerents included much of Europe, the Russian Empire, ...
. He then studied history, concentrating on art history, at
Christ Church,
University of Oxford
The University of Oxford is a collegiate research university in Oxford, England. There is evidence of teaching as early as 1096, making it the oldest university in the English-speaking world and the world's second-oldest university in contin ...
and later at the
Slade School
The UCL Slade School of Fine Art (informally The Slade) is the art school of University College London (UCL) and is based in London, England. It has been ranked as the UK's top art and design educational institution. The school is organised as ...
and
Westminster School of Art
The Westminster School of Art was an art school in Westminster, London.
History
The Westminster School of Art was located at 18 Tufton Street, Deans Yard, Westminster, and was part of the old Royal Architectural Museum.
H. M. Bateman describ ...
, during which time he also edited ''Drawing and Design'', a journal "devoted to art as a national asset" from 1927–29, and exhibited his own paintings in London. He appears under the name of "Reinecker" in
Robert Byron
Robert Byron (26 February 1905 – 24 February 1941) was a British travel writer, best known for his travelogue '' The Road to Oxiana''. He was also a noted writer, art critic and historian.
Biography
He was the son of Eric Byron, a civil en ...
's early travel book ''The Station'' (1928). In the 1930s he took part in two archaeological excavations in the
Near East, one in 1930–31 financed by the
Field Museum
The Field Museum of Natural History (FMNH), also known as The Field Museum, is a natural history museum in Chicago, Illinois, and is one of the largest such museums in the world. The museum is popular for the size and quality of its educational ...
of Chicago to
Kish
Kish may refer to:
Geography
* Gishi, Nagorno-Karabakh, Azerbaijan, a village also called Kish
* Kiş, Shaki, Azerbaijan, a village and municipality also spelled Kish
* Kish Island, an Iranian island and a city in the Persian Gulf
* Kish, Iran ...
, now in
Iraq
Iraq,; ku, عێراق, translit=Êraq officially the Republic of Iraq, '; ku, کۆماری عێراق, translit=Komarî Êraq is a country in Western Asia. It is bordered by Turkey to Iraq–Turkey border, the north, Iran to Iran–Iraq ...
, and the second in 1932 to
Al-Hirah
Al-Hirah ( ar, الحيرة, translit=al-Ḥīra Middle Persian: ''Hērt'' ) was an ancient city in Mesopotamia located south of what is now Kufa in south-central Iraq.
History
Kingdom of the Lakhmids
Al-Hirah was a significant city in pre- I ...
, financed by Oxford, where he was co-director with
David Talbot Rice
David Talbot Rice (11 July 1903 in Rugby – 12 March 1972 in Cheltenham) was an English archaeologist and art historian. He has been described variously as a "gentleman academic" and an "amateur" art historian, though such remarks are no ...
. These inspired not only his book ''A Tower of Skulls: a Journey through Persia and Turkish Armenia'' published in 1932, but also his collecting interest in
Islamic pottery
Medieval Islamic pottery occupied a geographical position between Chinese ceramics, the unchallenged leaders of Eurasian production, and the pottery of the Byzantine Empire and Europe. For most of the period it can fairly be said to have been ...
.
[Reitlinger, Gerald (Roberts)]
''Dictionary of Art Historians
The ''Dictionary of Art Historians'' (DAH) is an online encyclopedia
An online encyclopedia, also called an Internet encyclopedia, or a digital encyclopedia, is an encyclopedia accessible through the internet. Examples include Wikipedia and '' ...
''.
He travelled extensively and wrote non-fiction works on his trips to
China and the Near East. During
World War II
World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the World War II by country, vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great power ...
, he served again as a British soldier, in an
anti-aircraft
Anti-aircraft warfare, counter-air or air defence forces is the battlespace response to aerial warfare, defined by NATO as "all measures designed to nullify or reduce the effectiveness of hostile air action".AAP-6 It includes surface based, ...
battery and then lectured to troops, before being discharged because of ill-health. Postwar, he wrote articles about art for newspapers and art journals, and with his second wife Eileen Anne Graham Bell he became known for hosting parties for members of London society.
[
During the 1950s he wrote two books about the Holocaust: ''The SS: Alibi of a Nation'' and ''The Final Solution'', both of which achieved large sales. In the latter book, he alleged that Soviet claims of the Auschwitz death toll being 4 million were "ridiculous", and he suggested an alternative figure of 800,000 to 900,000 dead; about 4.2 to 4.5 million was his estimate for the total number of Jewish deaths in the ]Holocaust
The Holocaust, also known as the Shoah, was the genocide of European Jews during World War II. Between 1941 and 1945, Nazi Germany and its collaborators systematically murdered some six million Jews across German-occupied Europe; ...
. Subsequent scholarship has generally increased Reitlinger's conservative figures for death tolls, though his book was still described in 1979 as being "widely regarded as a definitive account".
In 1961, he published the first of three volumes of ''The Economics of Taste'', a work on the art market
The art market is the marketplace of buyers and sellers trading in commodities, services, and works of art.
The art market operates in an economic model that considers more than supply and demand: it is a hybrid type of prediction market where ...
from the eighteenth century onwards, mostly in Britain and France, with much detailed information on historic prices,[ and a very lively commentary, though the reviewer for '']The Burlington Magazine
''The Burlington Magazine'' is a monthly publication that covers the fine and decorative arts of all periods. Established in 1903, it is the longest running art journal in the English language. It has been published by a charitable organisation sin ...
'' of Volume III criticised "a tone of provocative flippancy".[ The tone of the ''Economics of Taste'' aroused mixed feelings among reviewers, but they and those reviewing the books on the Nazis found large numbers of points of detail that were incorrect.
Reitlinger was a great fan of the work of London artist ]Austin Osman Spare
Austin Osman Spare (30 December 1886 – 15 May 1956) was an English artist and occultism, occultist who worked as both a draughtsman and a painter. Influenced by Symbolism (arts), symbolism and art nouveau his art was known for its clear use o ...
, and purchased the sole copy of Spare's 1924 sketchbook of "automatic drawings", ''The Book of Ugly Ectasy'', which contained a series of grotesque creatures. He would later tell Frank Letchford
Frank or Franks may refer to:
People
* Frank (given name)
* Frank (surname)
* Franks (surname)
* Franks, a medieval Germanic people
* Frank, a term in the Muslim world for all western Europeans, particularly during the Crusades - see Farang
Cur ...
that while he would happily sell his prints by Henri Matisse
Henri Émile Benoît Matisse (; 31 December 1869 – 3 November 1954) was a French visual artist, known for both his use of colour and his fluid and original draughtsmanship. He was a drawing, draughtsman, printmaking, printmaker, and sculptur ...
, he would never part with his Spare drawings.
Donation and death
Reitlinger died of a cerebral hemorrhage
Intracerebral hemorrhage (ICH), also known as cerebral bleed, intraparenchymal bleed, and hemorrhagic stroke, or haemorrhagic stroke, is a sudden bleeding into the tissues of the brain, into its ventricles, or into both. It is one kind of bleed ...
at his home, "Woodgate", Beckley in East Sussex. His collection of Islamic pottery, Japanese and Chinese porcelain
Porcelain () is a ceramic material made by heating substances, generally including materials such as kaolinite, in a kiln to temperatures between . The strength and translucence of porcelain, relative to other types of pottery, arises main ...
was donated in 1972 to the Ashmolean Museum at Oxford, where a gallery is named in his honour. The carefully recorded collection had been kept in his house at Beckley, East Sussex
Beckley is a village and civil parish in the Rother district of East Sussex, England. It is located on the B2088 minor road above the Rother Levels five miles (8 km) northwest of Rye and ten miles (16 km) from Hastings. The northern ...
, which he also gave to the museum, intending it to be displayed there, and with the condition he lived there for the rest of his life. However the house was severely damaged by fire in February 1978, a few months before his death, though most of the collection was saved.Ashmolean Museum biography
/ref>
Main publications
* ''A Tower of Skulls: a Journey through Persia and Turkish Armenia'', London: Duckworth, 1932.
* ''South of the Clouds: a Winter Ride through Yün-nan'', London: Faber & Faber, 1939.
* ''The Final Solution, the Attempt to Exterminate the Jews of Europe'', New York: Beechhurst Press, 1953.
* ''The SS: Alibi of a Nation, 1922-1945'', London: Heinemann, 1956 reprinted 1981.
* ''The House Built on Sand, the Conflicts of German Policy in Russia 1939-45'', London: Weidenfeld and Nicolson, 1960.
* ''The Economics of Taste: The Rise and Fall of Picture Prices, 1760-1960'', London: Barrie and Rockliffe, 1961.
* ''The Economics of Taste: The Rise and Fall of Objets D'Art Prices since 1750'', London: Barrie and Rockliffe, 1963.
* ''The Economics of Taste: The Art Market in the 1960's'', London: Barrie and Jenkins, 1970.
Notes
References
Dictionary of Art Historians
*
* Edward Chaney
Edward Chaney (born 1951) is a British cultural historian. He is Professor Emeritus at Solent University and Honorary Professor at University College London (School of European Languages, Culture and Society (SELCS) – Centre for Early Modern ...
"Lewis and the Men of 1938: Graham Bell, Kenneth Clark, Read, Reitlinger, Rothenstein, and the Mysterious Mr Macleod: A Discursive Tribute to John and Harriet Cullis"
''Journal of Wyndham Lewis Studies'', 2016.
{{DEFAULTSORT:Reitlinger, Gerald
1900 births
1978 deaths
20th-century British people
British art historians
Writers from London
British Army personnel of World War I
British Army personnel of World War II
Middlesex Regiment soldiers
People educated at Westminster School, London
Alumni of Christ Church, Oxford
Alumni of the Slade School of Fine Art
Historians of the Holocaust
20th-century British historians
Collectors of Asian art
People from Beckley, East Sussex