Rudolf Wunderlich; art dealer expert on Remington
Hyfler/Rosner
Themes
BY STEPHEN MILLER - Staff Reporter of the Sun
October 1, 2004
Rudolf Wunderlich, who died September 22 in California, was
one of America's leading dealers in Western art. The
inheritor of one of New York's oldest art galleries, he was
considered a preeminent expert on Frederic Remington.
A skilled appraiser as well, Wunderlich's services were in
demand by the Autry National Center in Los Angeles; the
Buffalo Bill Historical Center in Cody, Wyo.; the National
Cowboy and Western Heritage Museum in Oklahoma City, and the
Frederic Remington Museum in Ogdensburg, N.Y.
Wunderlich grew up in New York and went to work at his
father's firm, the Kennedy Galleries. Kennedy was founded on
John Street in 1874 as H. Wunderlich & Company by
Wunderlich's grandfather, Herman. (During World War I, the
name was changed to make it sound less German.) The gallery
was James McNeill Whistler's first American dealer, and
legend had it that Whistler and Childe Hassam used to hang
out there on Saturday nights.
In 1951, Wunderlich inherited the business. While the
gallery dealt in all periods of American art, a
specialization in Western art was already nascent.
Wunderlich's maternal grandfather had spent time on an
Indian reservation with Sitting Bull in the 1880s, and his
stories seem to have taken root in Wunderlich's imagination,
according to Wunderlich's son, Gerold.
In the 1950s, Wunderlich worked closely with the pioneering
Indian art collector and oil tycoon Tom Gilcrease, who
eventually opened a large museum in Tulsa, Okla.
Wunderlich partnered in the 1960s with Lawrence Fleischman,
who built up the gallery's stock of American master
originals, such as Copley, Hopper, and Ben Shahn, which
continues to be the Kennedy Gallery's focus.
Remington is popular with high-powered collectors like CEOs,
and he is often forged. At one point Wunderlich estimated
that there were 20 times as many forged copies of
Remington's "Bronco Buster" as there were originals. He was
adept at spotting forger's mistakes, such as omitting
peculiarities in Remington's signature (he used a Greek
"e"). "There isn't a collection in the country that doesn't
have at least one forgery, except the Remington Museum in
Ogdensburg, N.Y.," Wunderlich told Money magazine in 1986.
He did not need to add that he was the one doing the
authenticating.
Wunderlich advised many Remington collectors, including H.
Ross Perot and John D. Rockefeller III. He also helped
Jacqueline Kennedy to create the White House collection and
aided in the selection of paintings for the American section
of the Vatican Art Museum.
In 1983,Wunderlich sold out his part of the Kennedy
Galleries partnership and moved to Chicago, where he bought
a half interest in the Mongerson Wunderlich Galleries. (The
partnership extended to marrying the gallery's original
owner, Susan Mongerson.) In Chicago, Wunderlich concentrated
on the Americana he loved, including bronzes and American
Indian art. Across the street from the main gallery was a
smaller store selling Western wear, Indian blankets, and
pottery.
In 1992, in partnership with art dealer Gerald Peters,
Wunderlich purchased for $71,500 what was thought to be a
minor Western landscape titled "Buffalo Hunt" by Hermann
Herzog. The two were shocked when routine cleaning
apparently revealed the signature of Albert Bierstadt, a far
more esteemed artist. They sold the painting to David
Rockefeller for $1 million. Rockefeller later claimed he had
not been informed that there had ever been doubt about the
painting's authorship, and loudly demanded his money back.
Peters and Wunderlich refunded the money but stuck by their
attribution.
Wunderlich also had an extensive philatelic collection of
proofs, which won prizes at international stamp shows. He
liked to collect postal ephemera such as essays, designs for
stamps that were never made, early artists' sketches for
stamps, and oddities like gunpowder-impregnated issues from
the 19th century that were designed to self-destruct when
canceled, inhibiting re-use.
Rudolf Wunderlich
Born November 13, 1920, at Tarrytown, N.Y.; died September
22 at Fountain Valley, Calif., of complications of
Alzheimer's disease; survived by his wife, Susan; sons
Gerold, Theodore, and John; stepchildren Tyler Mongerson,
Tina Smith, and Lindsey Mongerson, nine grandchildren and
two great-grandchildren, and a sister, Roberta Chamberlain