Belonging and Betrayal

How Jews Made the Art World Modern

Charles Dellheim

Since the late 1990s, the fate of Nazi stolen art has become a cause célèbre. In Belonging and Betrayal, Charles Dellheim turns this story on its head by revealing how certain Jewish outsiders came to acquire so many old and modern masterpieces in the first place—and what this reveals about Jews, art, and modernity. This book tells the epic story of the fortunes and misfortunes of a small number of eminent art dealers and collectors who, against the odds, played a pivotal role in the migration of works of art from Europe to the United States and in the triumph of modern art. Beautifully written and compellingly told, this story takes place on both sides of the Atlantic from the late nineteenth century to the present. It is set against the backdrop of critical transformations, among them the gradual opening of European high culture, the ambiguities of Jewish acculturation, the massive sell-off of aristocratic family art collections, the emergence of different schools of modern art, the cultural impact of World War I, and the Nazi war against the Jews.

Series:

The Tauber Institute Series for the Study of European Jewry

Cloth: $40 | E-book: $35

ISBN-13: 9781684580569

Pages: 688 | Size: 7 in. x 10 in.

Date Published: September 1, 2021

Imprint:

Brandeis University Press

[An] exceptional work of scholarship. A brilliant account of Nazi pillage and the ongoing efforts at restitution.

Kirkus
Starred Review

Additional Images

Reviews

[An] exceptional work of scholarship. . . . A brilliant account of Nazi pillage and the ongoing efforts at restitution.

Kirkus
Starred Review
This is a magisterial book. Wide-ranging yet closely focused, detailed yet suspenseful, it should be required reading for all who make art or collect it. Gracefully written and sumptuously illustrated throughout, Belonging and Betrayal is an important—even indispensable—contribution to the field.

Nicholas Delbanco
author of Why Writing Matters
A major contribution to understanding a profound Jewish goal to belong and succeed, only to be betrayed by willful acts by Nazis and their collaborators. This impressive book will engage you, surprise you, anger you, and above all, enrich you.

Richard I. Cohen
The Hebrew University of Jerusalem, author of Jewish Icons
Brilliantly evocative and deeply researched, Charles Dellheim’s Belonging and Betrayal is a superb addition to the ongoing discussion on art ownership, theft, and restoration.

David H. Lynn
editor emeritus of The Kenyon Review
A sweeping, magisterial study. Dellheim is a master storyteller as he interweaves the histories of an extra-ordinary cast, including the Wildensteins, the Duveens, the Rothschilds, and an array of artists, from Pissarro to Modigliani. Belonging and Betrayal is a tour de force.

Jonathan Petropoulos
author of Göring’s Man in Paris: The Story of a Nazi Art Plunderer and His World
A hefty, deeply researched book…A compelling portrait of the Jewish families who, unexpectedly, became arbiters of taste in Europe, beginning in the late 19th century and ending with Nazi plunder. Read if you’re into: thinking about art history, Jewish history and where they intersect.

Alma
Readers of Dellheim’s book will learn more about the history of modern art and European cultural history during times of upheaval and turmoil. Those who enjoy history and art history will enjoy this deep dive.

Library Journal
A comprehensive tale of the artwork that appeared throughout Europe and then was absconded with in one of the largest heists ever. The various characters featured in this fascinating account hustle, sell and backstab.

Manhattan Book Review
The stories of the Nazis’ lust for fine art during World War II most often revolves around the pillaging of personal and private collections and subsequent efforts at restitution…Yet, there is another story to tell among this intriguing but oft-rehearsed narrative, a prologue of sorts, and Charles Dellheim’s book Belonging and Betrayal deftly does just that…In addition to narrating the vast contribution of Jews to the early twentieth-century art world, Dellheim explores the Jewish assimilation experience… Dellheim’s book transcends typical university press publications. The volume is an enjoyable, breezy read that intertwines the fortunes and fate of a host of colorful figures who changed the art world, as well as the devastating betrayal of some of its very best.

Jewish Book Council
With its twists and turns, Dellheim’s book reads like a Realist novel. Despite the seriousness of its subject matter, it is a thrilling read, divided into wittily titled sections… The book is a veritable tour de force and an outstanding addition to scholarly research on art, Modernism, and Jewish studies.

Hyperallergic
Naomi Polonsky
Belonging and Betrayal is "a wonderful achievement, beautifully written, a magnificent work of art in itself, a fabulous book.

Andrew Keen
Keen On
Highly recommended. This well-researched volume, with copious notes, two sections of color plates, and interspersed black-and-white figures, will interest those studying art history, provenance research, art markets, museums and repatriation, cultural studies, and Jewish studies.

J. Decker
Rochester Institute of Technology
Masterful and magisterial... Dellheim has written a highly readable, substantive and engaging account of the entry of Jews into art. It may well be the definitive work on this topic.

Sheldon Kirshner
The Times of Israel
Dellheim’s rich, deeply engaging, compulsively readable study… which combines business history, social history, and cultural and intellectual history, offers a fresh and exciting approach to ethnic studies. The larger issue that Dellheim explores in his extraordinary book is the complex connection between Jews, modernity, and modernism.

Inside Higher Ed
Belonging and Betrayal is a brilliantly etched portrayal of the family firms that maneuvered, battled, adapted, persevered, and prospered over decades and centuries. What
underlies all of Charles Dellheim’s painstaking research lies a loving devotion to the subject matter. That means, above all, that his discussion of cultural and aesthetic matters rests on a bedrock of economic and business history. The element so often missing from studies of Jewish participation in Western culture here properly takes center stage. In this
masterwork, Dellheim shows how to understand the business of culture.

Jon Karp
Jewish Review of Books
Dellheim’s book is the first to present a collective portrait of the businessmen – and occasionally businesswomen, like Berthe Weill – who thrived in fashionable and avant-garde circles. ...This is a huge work of historical synthesis, which manages to weave together an enormous cast of characters and locations with flair and sympathy.

Tom Stammers
Ars Judaica
In the book, Dellheim writes about dealers of Old Masters, champions of modern art, and victims of Nazi plunder, sharing the epic fortunes and misfortunes of those eminent art dealers and collectors who, against the odds, played a pivotal role in the migration of works of art from Europe and Britain to the United States.

Arts and Collections
Belonging and Betrayal seeks to explain how Jews found significant, if precarious, success in the European art world... [It] reveals the complex negotiations, spoken and unspoken, that structured social, economic, and political life for Jews in late nineteenth- and early twentieth-century western Europe.

ARTNews
Dellheim's 600-plus-page tour de force [is] well-illustrated with paintings that its cast of characters collected and sold... [and] primary sources that reveal the extent of Nazi looting...

JewishBoston
A wonderful achievement, beautifully written, a magnificent work of art in itself, a fabulous book.

LitHub's Keen On
Highly recommended. This well-researched volume, with copious notes, two sections of color plates, and interspersed black-and-white figures, will interest those studying art history, provenance research, art markets, museums and repatriation, cultural studies, and Jewish studies.

Choice
European Jews on a fairly considerable scale drifted into the visual arts world as collectors and dealers in the 19th century and became, against all odds, arbiters of taste. Once regarded as outsiders on the margins of high culture, they were suddenly thrust into positions of prestige and influence. Charles Dellheim, a professor of history at Boston University, charts their entry into this field in his masterful and magisterial book, Belonging and Betrayal: How Jews Made The Art World Modern, published by Brandeis University Press....Dellheim has written a highly readable, substantive and engaging account of the entry of Jews into art. It may well be the definitive work on this topic.

Times of Israel
Belonging and Betrayal is a brilliantly etched portrayal of the family firms that maneuvered, battled, adapted, persevered, and prospered over decades and centuries. What underlies all of Charles Dellheim’s painstaking research lies a loving devotion to the subject matter. That means, above all, that his discussion of cultural and aesthetic matters rests on a bedrock of economic and business history. The element so often missing from studies of Jewish participation in Western culture here properly takes center stage. In this masterwork, Dellheim shows how to understand the business of culture.

Jewish Review of Books
Dellheim’s book is the first to present a collective portrait of the businessmen – and occasionally businesswomen, like Berthe Weill – who thrived in fashionable and avant-garde circles. ...This is a huge work of historical synthesis, which manages to weave together an enormous cast of characters and locations with flair and sympathy.

Ars Judaica
This is a book that seeks and deserves a large audience. It has met enthusiasm across the art press and Jewish press in the English-speaking world, but it merits a broader readership. Those interested in modern European cultural or business history, art history, or Jewish studies—but also a general readership—will find the narrative compelling to follow. ...In short, this history of Jewish involvement and achievement in the art world is history writ large and springs from the author’s often intimate grasp of the professional and private lives and efforts of the progressive dealers and collectors, reanimated here by one of the history profession’s master storytellers.

Austrian History Yearbook
A master storyteller, Dellheim relates the microhistory of several families before, during, and after the two world wars. In so doing, he brings to the fore a more general and timely issue: the as- piration of urban minority groups to belong to a given society, and the fragility of the social contracts they develop.

Studies in Contemporary Jewry

About the Author

Charles Dellheim

Charles Dellheim is Professor of History at Boston University. He was previously Professor of History and Humanities and Director of the Interdisciplinary Humanities Program at Arizona State University, where he won a Distinguished Teaching Award. His chief publications in modern British history include The Face of the Past: The Preservation of the Medieval Inheritance in Victorian England, Cambridge University Press; The Disenchanted Isle: Mrs. Thatcher’s Capitalist Revolution, …

Award

Finalist for the National Jewish Book Awards

Other Recent Titles

Founded in 1971, Brandeis University Press is a nonprofit publisher dedicated to publishing innovative, high-quality books for a general audience, as well as scholarship that advances knowledge and promotes dialogue in the humanities, arts, and social sciences around the world.

Stay In Touch!

Main Office

Brandeis University Press
Goldfarb Library 69-235, MS 046
Brandeis University
415 South Street
Waltham, MA 02453

(781) 736-4547
pressinfo@brandeis.edu

Belonging and Betrayal

How Jews Made the Art World Modern

Charles Dellheim

Additional Images

Reviews

About the Author

Charles Dellheim

Award

Table Of Contents

Other Recent Titles

Stay In Touch!

Main Office