Held, Julius S. (Julius Samuel), 1905-2002

The American art historian Julius Samuel Held (1905-2002) was renowned for his scholarship in 16th- and 17th-century Dutch and Flemish art, and an authority on the works of Peter Paul Rubens, Anthony van Dyck, and Rembrandt. Educated in pre-war Germany, Held emigrated in 1934 to the United States where he pursued an academic career at Barnard College, Columbia University. Held also lectured and taught at other colleges and art institutions in the United States.

From the description of Julius S. Held papers, ca. 1918-1999. (Getty Research Institute). WorldCat record id: 84548090

In 1950 Sterling and Francine Clark chartered the Sterling and Francine Clark Art Institute as a home for their extensive art collection. Opened to the public in 1955, the Institute has built upon this extraordinary group of works to become a highly respected art museum and one of the few institutions in the United States that combines a public art museum with a complement of research and academic programs, including a major art history library.

From the description of Offprints from Julius S. Held, 1940-1988. (Art Center College of Design, James L Fogg Library). WorldCat record id: 316804504

From the description of Offprints from Julius S. Held, 1940-1988. (Art Center College of Design, James L Fogg Library). WorldCat record id: 263070116

Art historian, educator, Bennington, Vt. Eminent scholar of Rubens. Worked as an advisor to art collectors, including J. Paul Getty.

From the description of Julius Samuel Held papers concerning Saul Baizerman and Leonard Baskin, 1947-1976. (Unknown). WorldCat record id: 122599561

Biographical/Historical Note

The art historian Julius Samuel Held is considered one of the foremost authorities on the works of Peter Paul Rubens, Anthony van Dyck, and Rembrandt. His advice was sought by other art history scholars, private collectors, dealers, museums, and auction houses in the United States and abroad. For many years his opinion was the final word in matters of attribution of artworks in his field of expertise.

Held was born in 1905 in Mosbach in Baden-Württemberg, Germany. He died in 2002 in Bennington, Vermont. He was married to Ingrid-Märta Pettersson (1905-1986), an art conservator, with whom he had a son and a daughter. Held studied art history at the universities of Heidelberg, Berlin, Vienna, and Freiburg. In 1930 he obtained his Ph.D. from the university of Freiburg under Hans Jantzen, writing on Dürer. In 1931 he became assistant to Max Friedländer at the Kaiser Friedrich Museum in Berlin. In 1934 Held fled Nazi Germany to the United States and became a U.S. citizen in 1940.

Held began his academic career in 1935 as a lecturer in art history at the New York University. In 1937 he was hired as a lecturer at Barnard College, Columbia University, where he was appointed assistant professor in 1944, advanced to associate professor in 1950, full professor in 1954, and served as chairman of the Art History Department from 1967 to 1970. In 1971 Held retired from Barnard College and moved from New York to Bennington,Vermont, where he continued to teach for ten years as Clark Professor of Art in the graduate program for art history at Williams College, and at the Sterling and Francine Clark Art Institute.

Held also lectured at other institutions: as Carnegie Lecturer from 1936 to 1937 at the National Gallery in Ottawa, visiting lecturer from 1943 to 1944 at Bryn Mawr College, visiting professor from 1946 to 1947 at the New School for Social Research, visiting professor in 1954 and 1958 at Yale University, lecturer with the American College Council for Summer Study Abroad in 1957, and Andrew W. Mellon visiting professor at University of Pittsburgh from 1972 to 1973. He also served as academic advisor at Marlboro College from 1965 to 1980, and as a member of the Institute for Advanced Study at Princeton in 1967. During the 1950s Held was asked by Luis Ferré, the Governor of Puerto Rico, to advise the new art museum in Ponce. His participation in the selection and acquisition of important European works of art elevated the museum to world recognition.

Held published extensively. Among his most significant and influential works are Rubens in America (with Jan-Albert Goris, 1947), Rubens, selected drawings (1959), Rembrandt’s Aristotle and other Rembrandt studies (1969), 17th and 18th century art (with Donald Posner, 1971), and Rembrandt studies (1991). At the age of 75 Held issued his landmark study, the two-volume critical catalog Oil sketches of Peter Paul Rubens (1980).

Held’s classical education influenced his approach to art history. At the time when the discipline was favoring iconography and other more "empirical" methods of study, Held maintained the primacy of connoisseurship as one of the tools of the art historian.

Held was also actively engaged in matters related to the memory of the Jewish Holocaust. In 1988 he was instrumental in creating a memorial to his boyhood synagogue in Mosbach, destroyed during Kristallnacht.

From the guide to the Julius S. Held papers, ca. 1918-1999, (Getty Research Institute)