Gerald Reitlinger

Portrait of Gerald Reitlinger byChristopher Wood,1926,Ashmolean Museum

Gerald Roberts Reitlinger(born 1900 in London, United Kingdom – died 1978 inSt Leonards-on-Sea,United Kingdom) was an art historian, especially of Asian ceramics, and a scholar of historical changes in taste in art and their reflection in art prices. After World War II he wrote three large books aboutNazi Germany.He was also a painter and collector, mainly of pottery. Reitlinger's major works wereThe Final Solution(1953),The SS: Alibi of a Nation(1956), and between 1961–1970 he publishedThe Economics of Tastein three volumes.

Career

Born in London to the banker Albert Reitlinger and his wife Emma Brunner, Reitlinger was educated atWestminster Schoolin London before a short service with theMiddlesex Regimentat the end ofWorld War I.He then studied history, concentrating on art history, atChrist Church,University of Oxfordand later at theSlade SchoolandWestminster School of Art,during which time he also editedDrawing and Design,a journal "devoted to art as a national asset" from 1927 to 1929, and exhibited his own paintings in London. He appears under the name of "Reinecker" inRobert Byron's early travel bookThe Station(1928). In the 1930s he took part in two archaeological excavations in theNear East,one in 1930–31 financed by theField Museumof Chicago toKish,now inIraq,and the second in 1932 toAl-Hirah,financed by Oxford, where he was co-director withDavid Talbot Rice.These inspired not only his bookA Tower of Skulls: a Journey through Persia and Turkish Armeniapublished in 1932, but also his collecting interest inIslamic pottery.

He travelled extensively and wrote non-fiction works on his trips toChinaand the Near East. DuringWorld War II,he served again as a British soldier, in ananti-aircraftbattery and then lectured to troops, before being discharged because of ill-health. Postwar, he wrote articles about art for newspapers and art journals, and with his second wife Eileen Anne Graham Bell he became known for hosting parties for members of London society.

During the 1950s he wrote two books about the Holocaust:The SS: Alibi of a NationandThe Final Solution,both of which achieved large sales. In the latter book, he alleged that Soviet claims of theAuschwitzdeath toll being 4 million were "ridiculous", and he suggested an alternative figure of800,000 to 900,000 dead;about 4.2 to 4.5 million was his estimate for the total number of Jewish deaths in theHolocaust.Subsequent scholarship has generally increased Reitlinger's conservative figures for death tolls, though his book was still described in 1979 as being "widely regarded as a definitive account".In January 2020, the BBC gave the Auschwitz death toll as 'at least 1.1 million', of which 'almost one million were Jews'.

In 1961, he published the first of three volumes ofThe Economics of Taste,a work on theart marketfrom the eighteenth century onwards, mostly in Britain and France, with much detailed information on historic prices,and a very lively commentary, though the reviewer forThe Burlington Magazineof Volume III criticised "a tone of provocative flippancy".The tone of theEconomics of Tastearoused mixed feelings among reviewers, but they and those reviewing the books on the Nazis found large numbers of points of detail that were incorrect.

Reitlinger was a great fan of the work of London artistAustin Osman Spare,and purchased the sole copy of Spare's 1924 sketchbook of "automatic drawings",The Book of Ugly Ectasy,which contained a series of grotesque creatures.He would later tellFrank Letchfordthat while he would happily sell his prints byHenri Matisse,he would never part with his Spare drawings.

Donation and death

Reitlinger died of acerebral hemorrhageat his home, "Woodgate", Beckley in EastSussex.His collection of Islamic pottery, Japanese and Chineseporcelainwas donated in 1972 to theAshmolean Museumat Oxford, where a gallery is named in his honour. The carefully recorded collection had been kept in his house atBeckley, East Sussex,which he also gave to the museum, intending it to be displayed there, and with the condition he lived there for the rest of his life. However the house was severely damaged by fire in February 1978, a few months before his death, though most of the collection was saved.

Main publications

• A Tower of Skulls: a Journey through Persia and Turkish Armenia,London: Duckworth, 1932.
• South of the Clouds: a Winter Ride through Yün-nan,London: Faber & Faber, 1939.
• The Final Solution, the Attempt to Exterminate the Jews of Europe,New York: Beechhurst Press, 1953.
• The SS: Alibi of a Nation, 1922-1945,London: Heinemann, 1956ISBN978-0-13-839936-8reprinted 1981.
• The House Built on Sand, the Conflicts of German Policy in Russia 1939-45,London: Weidenfeld and Nicolson, 1960.
• The Economics of Taste: The Rise and Fall of Picture Prices, 1760-1960,London: Barrie and Rockliffe, 1961.
• The Economics of Taste: The Rise and Fall of Objets D'Art Prices since 1750,London: Barrie and Rockliffe, 1963.
• The Economics of Taste: The Art Market in the 1960's,London: Barrie and Jenkins, 1970.

References

• Dictionary of Art Historians
• Baker, Phil (2011).Austin Osman Spare: The Life and Legend of London's Lost Artist.London:Strange Attractor Press.ISBN978-1907222016.
• Edward Chaney,"Lewis and the Men of 1938: Graham Bell, Kenneth Clark, Read, Reitlinger, Rothenstein, and the Mysterious Mr Macleod: A Discursive Tribute to John and Harriet Cullis",Journal of Wyndham Lewis Studies,2016.