pr:P1683
| - In January 1937, with financing from Buchholz, Valentin left for New York and set up the Karl Buchholz Gallery at 3 West 46th Street. According to Buchholz’s daughter Godula, who wrote a biography of her father, Valentin arrived in New York supplied with “degenerate art” from Germany. Normally, Jews allowed to leave Nazi Germany were permitted to take with them only ten reichsmarks, if that. But Valentin carried “baggage containing sculptures, [p]aintings, and drawings from the Galerie Buchholz in Berlin,” Godula Buchholz wrote. Her account, published in 2005, contrasts dramatically with Valentin’s own assertion, echoed by Barr, that he came to New York virtually destitute.Valentin later told the FBI, which during the war investigated him for violating the Trading with the Enemy Act (and seized paintings sent to him by Buchholz), that he had started his gallery with the help of both the banker E. M. Warburg, who was on MoMA’s board, and someone from Cassel & Co., a small investment firm. He made no mention to the FBI of his financial support from Buchholz. (en)
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