Arthur Kauffmann was born into a Jewish family in Stuttgart, Germany in 1887 and studied art history at the University of Erlangen (1906–10); after an apprenticeship at the Parisian auction house Hôtel Drouot, he became the managing director of the Frankfurt branch of the auctioneers Hugo Helbing. Following the rise of Nazism, he fled to London in 1938, where he established a gallery at 21 Grafton Street. Working with fellow émigré art specialists, including Gustav Delbanco and Otto Kurz, among others, he supplied both renowned private collectors and UK museums with a wide range of European, Oriental and South American art.
Art dealer Arthur Kauffmann was born into a Jewish family in Kannstadt, a suburb of Stuttgart, Germany in 1887. Following the closure of his father's tannery in 1900, the family moved to Frankfurt. A decade later, Kauffmann initially replaced his father in the family business, before enrolling at the Technical University of Berlin to study architecture, later switching to art history at the University of Erlangen (1906–10); during this period, he was also an active Zionist. In order to obtain practical experience as an art auctioneer, Kauffmann moved to Paris, France in 1912, serving an apprenticeship in the famous Parisian auction house Hôtel Drouot – an important experience that laid the foundations for his future career. Upon the outbreak of the First World War, he volunteered and served in the trenches in Germany and Romania, for which he was decorated with several medals including the Iron Cross. After the war, in 1920, he became the managing director of the Frankfurt branch of Germany’s foremost auction house, Hugo Helbing, holding four to five auctions a year, undertaking all the cataloguing himself, and bringing in specialist assistance when needed. The specialist team included Edmund Schilling, curator at the Städelsches Kunstinstitut for Old Master's drawings; the painter Alfred Oppenheim on Japanese prints; and William Cohn, curator at the Kaiser Friedrich Museum in Berlin, whose interest in Oriental art Kauffmann shared, leading to a close friendship; like Kauffmann, all three specialist consultants subsequently fled Nazi Germany for England.
In September 1938, with the assistance of the London art dealer, Spink and Son, Kauffmann and his family moved to England and settled in London: first, in Lexham Gardens in South Kensington, then, at the suggestion of their friend Robert Frank (the uncle of diarist Anne Frank), in St James's Street in the West End, and, finally, in April 1939, at Grafton Street in Mayfair. Following the outbreak of the Second World War in September 1939 and the introduction of internment for so-called 'enemy aliens' in June 1940, Kauffmann was interned in Huyton Camp, Liverpool. Upon his release four months later in October, he moved with his family to Petersham, near Richmond to escape the Blitz bombing campaign (which continued until the following May). Although business was difficult under wartime conditions, Kauffmann successfully established his new firm at 21 Grafton Street, offering a wide variety of artefacts from Old Master paintings to Chinese ceramics (just as he had done in Germany), and gradually building his business. The art specialists working with him were mainly friends from the German refugee community including Grete Ring, Willi Katz and Herbert Bier, as well as Franz Drey, Alfred Scharf, Henry (Heinz) Roland and Gustav Delbanco, the latter group forming a consortium with Kauffmann in 1942 in order to purchase the Entombment of Christ (c. 1420) by Robert Campin (also known as the Master of Flémalle), which he had discovered as misattributed to Adriaen Ysenbrandt in a Christie's auction. The triptych, which sold to Anglo-Austrian art collector and art historian Count Antoine Seilern, who later bequeathed it to the Courtauld Institute of Art, represented Kauffmann's most important deal of the period. Meanwhile, his friendship with William Ohly, owner of the Berkeley Galleries in London and founder of the Abbey Art Centre, led to a renewed interest in African sculpture and South American pottery.
In 1947, Kauffmann and his family were naturalised, and between 1950–64 lived in Wilton Place, Belgravia, then from 1964–81 in Knightsbridge. Among his circle were Philip Pouncey and Denis Haines from the British Museum, and Gertrud Bing and Otto Kurz from the Warburg Institute; another regular visitor to his home was the exiled Austrian Expressionist painter Oskar Kokoschka. Kauffmann’s many clients included the Ashmolean Museum, the British Museum, the Fitzwilliam Museum, and the Victoria & Albert Museum. He retired from his gallery in 1977 and died in London in January 1983. His son, Prof. Michael Kauffmann, is Director Emeritus at the Courtauld Institute of Art.
Consult items in the Ben Uri archive related to [Arthur Kauffmann]
Publications related to [Arthur Kauffmann] in the Ben Uri Library