Förster, Otto H. [sometimes anglicized to Foerster]

Date born: 1894

Place born:

Date died: 1975

Place died:

Director Wallraf-Richartz, and historian of Italian Renaissance Art. Förster wrote his dissertation under Heinrich Wölfflin (q.v.) in Munich. Förster became Director of the Wallraf-Richartz-Museum in Cologne in 1933. As a museum director under the Third Reich, he sold off works from the museum’s storage and acquired works from the forced sales of Jewish collections and from the occupied countries in exchange. At the end of World War II, Förster retired in 1946, but he resumed his position in 1957. In 1970 Foerster married the art historian Lotte Philip Brand (q.v.).

Home Country: Germany

Sources: Wölfflin, Heinrich. Heinrich Wölfflin, 1864-1945: Autobiographie, Tagebücher und Briefe. Joseph Ganter, ed. Basel: Schwabe & Co., 1982, p. 499; Bazin 435

Bibliography: monograph on Bramante