The Buchholz Gallery in New York was established by Curt Valentin (1902-1954), a German refugee dealer, in 1937 and operated under that name until 1951, when it was renamed the Curt Valentin Gallery. Valentin, who had been with the Buchholz Gallery in Berlin, left his home country at about the same time that Nazi party efforts to empty German museums of 'degenerate' modern art culminated in the government's June 1937 exhibition of purged art, held at the Haus der Kunst in Munich. Valentin had been able to acquire some of the banned art before leaving Germany, and brought it with him to New York. He attended the June 1939 sale held in Lucerne, where he acquired additional masterpieces of modern art sold by the German government. Valentin, along with other German refugee dealers Karl Nierendorf and Otto Kallir, lent extensively to the 1939 World's Fair in San Francisco and to an exhibition of German modern art in Boston. After Curt Valentin's death, the remaining stock of the gallery was liquidated through sales and auctions in 1955.
Bibliography
1954
"Curt Valentin, 52, Art Dealer, Dies."New York Times: 20 August 1954
1994
Nicholas, Lynn H. The Rape of Europa. New York, 1994:3,24,29-30.