Henry Trubner This is Me

 Web References

1. 1. Kaleden - Published Article

   www.collectorsnews.kaleden.com - [Cached]

   Published on: 12/12/2001   Last Visited: 9/8/2002

   (Fig. 6) Opening of the William Randolph Hearst Hall of Ancient Art 1948 (from left) Henry Trubner, William Valentiner and Jams, Breasted
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   Much of the Munthe collection, including 280 works still under purchase option, remained at the museum in July 1947 when Henry Trubner arrived to serve as its first real curator of Asian art. The 27-year-old had just finished his graduate training at Harvard University, the primary Asian art programme in the country at the time. He came equipped with skilful judgement, rational ambition and, perhaps most importantly, the charm and humour necessary to secure success and to weather disappointments. His first responsibility was to address, once and for all, the lingering Munthe problem. He explained his discovery to both the museum's new director James Breasted, Jr (1946-51), son of the famous Egyptologist, and to director-consultant William Valentiner, former Director of the Detroit Institute of Arts: the mostly fake collection had been offered to every major museum in the country before it came to Los Angeles. Thus impugning the prudence of former director Bryan and the integrity of Laufer some twenty years before, Trubner proved categorically that the Munthe acquisition had been a terrible mistake.
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   Next, Trubner was charged with the complete reinstallation of the museum's Asian as well as ancient and classical collections for the 1948 opening of the William Randolph Hearst Hall of Ancient Art (Fig. 6). The gallery project raised another problem: the East Asian holdings were limited and extremely unbalanced, consisting chiefly of late Chinese decorative objects of notably indifferent quality. In this challenge he received help from his mother Gertrude Trubner, and his uncle and aunt Edgar and Hedwig Worch, who, together with Henry's father Jorg, had established one of the finest Asian art dealerships in Berlin and Paris before the war. The partnership still possessed some extraordinary works of art, and many were sent to Los Angeles in 1947, providing the basis for an inspiring display in the new Hearst hall.
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   In recognition of his achievements, the Museum Associates sent Henry and his wife Ruth on an unprecedented buying trip to Japan.
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   Less than one year later, the Trubners left California for Canada, where Henry had been appointed Curator of Far Eastern Art at the Royal Ontario Museum.
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   In this light, the improvements in governance and organization that led to the appointment of Henry Trubner as Asian art curator represent a critical turning point. Trubner brought genuine masterworks to the museum and revealed the true importance of Chinese art. The subsequent growth of the department over the past 41 years rests securely upon the traditions of scholarship and connoisseurship that Henry Trubner established in Los Angeles.
   
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   A. Burlingame Johnson, Handbook of a Collection of Chinese Porcelains, Los Angeles, 1923. · Thomas Lawton, `Obituary: Henry Trubner in Artibus Asiae, vol.

2. 2. HistoryLink Essay: Callahan, Kenneth (1905-1986)

   www.historylink.org/../essays/ - [Cached]

   Published on: 2/14/2003   Last Visited: 5/4/2006

   Henry Trubner, the museum's head curator at the time, was a scholar of Chinese art.