Sturla Gudlaugsson (1913–1971) was a Danish-born Dutch art historian and director of the

RKD The Netherlands Institute for Art History or RKD (Dutch: ), previously Rijksbureau voor Kunsthistorische Documentatie (RKD), is located in The Hague and is home to the largest art history center in the world. The center specializes in document ...

and the

Mauritshuis The Mauritshuis (, ; ) is an art museum in The Hague, Netherlands. The museum houses the Royal Cabinet of Paintings which consists of 854 objects, mostly Dutch Golden Age paintings. The collection contains works by Johannes Vermeer, Rembrandt van ...

in The Hague. Gudlaugsson was born in

Skagen Skagen () is the northernmost town in Denmark, on the east coast of the Skagen Odde peninsula in the far north of Jutland, part of Frederikshavn Municipality in North Denmark Region, Nordjylland, north of Frederikshavn and northeast of Aalbo ...

as the son of the Icelandic poet Jonas Gudlaugsson, but his father died when he was three and he grew up in

Kleef Kleve (; traditional ; ; ; ; ; Low Rhenish: ''Kleff'') is a town in the Lower Rhine region of northwestern Germany near the Dutch border and the River Rhine. From the 11th century onwards, Cleves was capital of a county and later a duchy ...

with his mother's extended Dutch family.Obituary in the DBNL by his colleague Horst Gerson He studied in Berlin and worked first there until he felt he needed to leave the Nazi regime and got a job in Denmark. He then worked briefly at the Gemeentelijk museum in The Hague before starting work at the RKD in 1942. He is best known for his research on Dutch painting iconography, most notably in the works of

Jan Steen Jan Havickszoon Steen ( – buried 3 February 1679) was a Dutch Golden Age painter, one of the leading genre painters of the 17th century. His works are known for their psychological insight, sense of humour and abundance of colour. Life ...

and

Gerard ter Borch Gerard ter Borch (; December 1617 – 8 December 1681), also known as Gerard Terburg (), was a Dutch Golden Age painter mainly of genre subjects. He influenced his fellow Dutch painters Gabriel Metsu, Gerrit Dou, Eglon van der Neer and Johan ...

. ''Geraert ter Borch'', and ''Katalog der Gemälde Gerard Ter Borchs sowie biographisches Material'', by S J Gudlaugsson, 1960 He was one of the founding editors of the journal '' Netherlands Yearbook for History of Art,'' on the board of which he served from 1947 to 1953. Gudlaugsson left the RKD to become director of the Mauritshuis in 1970, but he died the next year in

Rotterdam Rotterdam ( , ; ; ) is the second-largest List of cities in the Netherlands by province, city in the Netherlands after the national capital of Amsterdam. It is in the Provinces of the Netherlands, province of South Holland, part of the North S ...

References

External links

record
in the

works
in

WorldCat WorldCat is a union catalog that itemizes the collections of tens of thousands of institutions (mostly libraries), in many countries, that are current or past members of the OCLC global cooperative. It is operated by OCLC, Inc. Many of the O ...

Gudlaugssons
in the

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 h ...

1913 births 1971 deaths People from Skagen Dutch art historians Danish emigrants to the Netherlands {{Netherlands-historian-stub