W.R. Valentiner

Wilhelm Reinhold Valentiner (May 2, 1880 – September 6, 1958) was a German art historian, art critic and museum official.

He is especially known through his writings on Flemish and Dutch painting.

Wilhelm Valentiner was born at Karlsruhe (Baden), and studied at Heidelberg under Henry Thode, and in the Netherlands with Cornelis Hofstede de Groot and with Abraham Bredius, whose assistant he was at the Gallery of The Hague.

In 1905 he was called to Berlin by William Bode, under whom he worked at the Kaiser Friedrich Museum and the Kunstgewerbemuseum Berlin. In 1906 he published his dissertation on Rembrandt that he started in 1904: Rembrandt auf der Lateinschule.

In 1907 he was appointed the first curator of the department of decorative arts in the Metropolitan Museum in New York City, which under his supervision became one of the foremost in the world.

At the start of World War I he returned to Germany to serve in the army. After service at the front in 1916, he was appointed to the general staff in Berlin.

From 1924-1945 he was appointed first advisor and then Director of the Detroit Museum of Art which later became the Detroit Institute of Arts. Under his leadership the museum developed into one of the leading art institutions in the country. His acquisitions and exhibitions in Detroit were products of his wide-ranging scholarship. He was a friend of Edsel Ford and conducted private seminars on the history of art for Ford's family. He was responsible for the series of murals painted by Diego Rivera, having met Rivera in California, and convinced Ford to under wright the cost of the murals. Titled Detroit Industry they were revolutionary for Detroit at the time and created considerable local controversy. His activities at the Detroit Institute of Arts included building an expert staff of curators, a vision of an encyclopedic collection and the creation of a resource for the local population. the state, and the Midwest.

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