Max Stern (gallery owner)

Max Stern (1904-1987) was a German-Canadian arts benefactor, art historian, and owner of Montreal's landmark Dominion Gallery (in French, Galerie Dominion).

Life & legacy

Max Stern was born in Germany in 1904. He studied art in several European cities before returning to Düsseldorf to direct his father's gallery, the Galerie Julius Stern. In 1937, Stern was ordered by the Nazi government to liquidate his gallery's holdings because they had forbidden Jews to sell art. Before leaving Germany, his collection was sold through the Lempertz auction house in Cologne. Not all the art was sold however, and he placed it in storage. After the war he discovered that the auction house had sold them as well.

Stern fled Germany and lived for a short time in Paris and then London. He started another gallery in the latter city, but was interned on the Isle of Man as an "enemy alien". In 1943 he moved to Canada, where he partnered with Dominion Gallery of Fine Arts founder Rose Millman. Finally able to recover some of his lost art in Europe, in 1947, Max and Iris Stern bought the gallery and made it a focal point for the dissemination of "living art" by Canadian artists. Max Stern was also interested in modern European art. He was the first dealer to sell works by Wassily Kandinsky to the Museum of Modern Art in New York, and held the exclusive rights in Canada to sell the work of Auguste Rodin.

Also great art collectors, Max and Iris Stern donated numerous works by Canadian and European artists to over twenty public institutions in North America and Israel.

Max Stern was instrumental in promoting numerous Canadian artists that he represented from the 1950s until his death. The Max Stern Art Restitution Project is an undertaking of Hebrew University in Jerusalem, and McGill University and Concordia University, both in Montreal - in association with the Holocaust Claims Processing Office in New York - that is attempting to locate and recover works from the Max Stern collection lost during the late 1930s. There are estimated to be about 400 pieces in total, of which about 10 percent had been located by 2006.

Other beneficiaries at his death were the Montreal Museum of Fine Arts and the National Gallery of Canada. The Max Stern Fellowship was created by Dr. Stern’s estate and the McCord Museum of Canadian History in 1991.

Art recovered by the Max Stern Art Restitution Project

Aimée, A Young Egyptian; by Emile C.H. Vernet-Lecomte (1821-1874)
Portrait of Jan van Eversdyck; by Nicolas Neufchatel (1527-1590)
Extensive landscape with travelers on a track near a walled town with a castle and a church, a village beyond; by Jan de Vos I (1593-1649)
Girl from the Sabine Mountains; by Franz Xaver Winterhalter (1805-1873)
Flight into Egypt; by Circle of Jan Wellens de Cock (c. 1480-1527)
Portrait of a Musician Playing a Bagpipe; Northern Netherlandish School (1632)
St. Jerome; by Lodovico Carracci (1555-1619)
Allegory of Earth and Water; by Jan Brueghel the Younger (1601-1678)

Artists represented

• Jean Arp
• Paul-Émile Borduas
• Emily Carr
• Stanley Cosgrove
• Jacques de Tonnancour
• Eric Goldberg
• E. J. Hughes
• Wassily Kandinsky
• Henry Moore
• John Lyman
• Jeanne Rhéaume
• Goodridge Roberts
• Auguste Rodin
• Marian Scott
• Gentile Tondino
• Tristan Tondino
• Louise Gadbois

Dominion Gallery

Stern encouraged many young artists by purchasing works and establishing the historically significant Dominion Gallery in the heart of Montreal, Canada.

References

• "Going on a Treasure Hunt: Art Detectives, Canadian University Tracking Down Works Stolen by Nazis", CanWest News Service, March 25, 2006.
• "Max Stern estate recovers 2 paintings lost to Nazis" "CBC", December 10, 2008.

External links

• Max Stern Art Restitution Project
• Finding aid, Max Stern fonds, National Gallery of Canada Library and Archives

Persondata
Name	Stern, Max
Alternative names
Short description
Date of birth	1904
Place of birth
Date of death	1987
Place of death