Gerald Reitlinger
From The Art and Popular Culture Encyclopedia
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Gerald Roberts Reitlinger (born London, United Kingdom 1900, died St Leonards-on-Sea, United Kingdom 1978) was a scholar of the economics of art and of history, particularly the Holocaust. Reitlinger became prominent because of works such as The Economics of Taste and The SS: Alibi of a Nation.
After service in World War I, Reitlinger studied at Oxford and thereafter at the Slade School and Westminster School of Art. His art was on display in London during the 1930s. He traveled extensively and wrote non-fiction works on his trips to China and the Middle East. During World War II, he served again as a British soldier. Postwar, he wrote articles on art for newspapers and art journals.
During the 1950s he wrote two works on the Holocaust, The Final Solution and The SS: Alibi of a Nation. In 1961, he published the first of three volumes of The Economics of Taste, a work on the art market from the eighteenth century onwards, mostly in Britain and France, with much detailed information on historic prices, and a very lively commentary.
Reitlinger died from a cerebral hemorrhage in Sussex. His collection of Islamic, Japanese and Chinese porcelain was willed to the Ashmolean Museum at Oxford, where a gallery is named in his honour.
Works
- 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, New York: Beechhurst Press, 1953.
- The SS: Alibi of a Nation, London: Heinemann, 1956 ISBN 9780138399368
- The House built on Sand, the conflicts of German policy in Russia, London: Weidenfeld and Nicolson, 1960.
- The Economics of Taste, (three volumes) London: Barrie and Rockliffe, 1961-1970.
