Werner, Alfred, 1911-1979

Art critic, author.

Art historian and journalist Alfred Werner was born Alfred Siegfried Weintraub to Ignatiz and Frederika (Silberstein) in Vienna, Austria on March 31, 1911 . He received his Juris Doctor from the University of Vienna in 1934. In Austria, Werner was active in the Viennese literary scene, editing the newspapers Gerechtigkeit and Die Stimme while also publishing poetry. Werner was arrested by the Nazis on November 10, 1938 and sent to the Dachau concentration camp, but he was released in March 1939, through the efforts of his fiancée Dr. Gertrude Bach. The young couple then fled Austria, first to England, spending a year in the Richborough, Kent refugee/internment Kitchener Camp, and then immigrating into the United States.

Upon arrival in New York City, Werner struggled to make a living as a freelance writer. He wrote movingly of this time in a short autobiographical sketch found in Box 1 Folder 3 . However, he soon found success in political journalism, and over the next fifteen years published hundreds of articles on European, Jewish, and Zionist affairs. He was also an editor of the Universal Jewish Encyclopedia and the Chicago Jewish Forum. The topic dearest to Werner’s heart, however, was art, and by the 1960s he was writing nearly exclusively about art and artists, primarily focused on 19th and 20th-century European, American, and Israeli art with an emphasis on Jewish artists. He had a long-running art column for the Jewish News, “Views and Visions,” and was a frequent contributor to arts publications such as American Artist and Pantheon as well as a senior editor of Art Voices. Werner also wrote over twenty books, including important works on artists such as Chagall, Utrillo, Pascin, Modigliani, Gaugin, and Degas. Werner was also an art consultant for the Theodor Herzl Institute from the 1950s until the end of his life, arranging exhibits and lectures.

Alfred Werner married three times. In 1940, he married Dr. Gertrude Bach. She died in the mid-1940s, soon after arriving in the United States. In 1953, he married Judith Mayer, who died in the early 1970s. Finally, in 1975 Werner married Lisa Traum. Alfred Werner died July 14, 1979 .

Sources: Collection, obituaries in The New York Times and Journal of Jewish Art