The Papers of Julius S. Held, 1940-2007

Julius Samuel Held was an art historian with authority on the works of Anthony van Dyck, Rembrandt, Peter Paul Rubens, Albrecht Dürer, and others. His work focused on sixteenth and seventeenth century Dutch and Flemish art. Held’s expertise and opinions regarding artworks within his purview were widely sought after by other art historians and scholars as well as organizations such as art dealers and museums around the world. Julius Held was born in Mosbach, Germany in 1905 and died in Bennington, Vermont in 2002. He and his wife, Ingrid-Marta Nordin-Pettersson Held, married on Halloween 1936. Ingrid-Marta Held was trained as a painting conservator and did extensive work for The New York Historical Society where she worked for over thirty years. She worked on many independent projects for private collectors and was also in charge of the upkeep of her husband’s personal art collection. Held received his education in art history in Germany, attending many different universities during his time as a student. Held studied at the universities of Heidelberg, Berlin, Vienna, and Freiburg. Eventually he received his PhD in art history in 1930 from Freiburg under the supervision of Hans Jantzen. His dissertation discussed the influence of Albrecht Dürer on Netherlandish art. In 1931 he got a job as the assistant to Max Friedländer at the Kaiser Friedrich Museum in Berlin, where he worked and lived until 1934. In 1934 Julius Held fled Nazi Germany to The United States and became a citizen in 1940. He lived in New York City and in 1935 was working as a lecturer at New York University. From here he went on to receive another lecture position at Barnard College, Columbia University. Held worked here the longest, becoming an assistant professor in 1944, an associate professor in 1950 and a full professor in 1954. Held worked at Barnard College, Columbia University until his retirement in 1971. From there he moved from New York City to Bennington, Vermont. Held still taught for ten more years as a Clark Professor of Art for the graduate program at Williams College and The Clark Art Institute. Ingrid-Marta Held died in 1986. Held published extensively, some of his notable works include but are certainly not limited to, “Rubens in America” (1947), “Rembrandt’s Aristotle and other Rembrandt Studies” (1969), and his landmark study, the two-volume critical catalog “Oil sketches of Peter Paul Rubens” (1980). Held has also been an influential visitor and lecturer at many institutions through the years. He was a Carnegie Lecturer at the National Gallery of Canada, Ottawa from 1937-1938, a visiting professor at Yale University in 1954 and 1958, and in the 1950’s he worked as an art consultant to form the painting collection of the Museo de Arte in Ponce, Puerto Rico.