Julia May Boddewyn

Julia May Boddewyn specializes in provenance research, which is the history of ownership of a work of art from the time of its creation to its present owner. Her decades-long focus has been on the art dealers and collectors who were integral to the US market for twentieth-century modern European art, known as the School of Paris. She contributed the exhaustive chronology to the exhibition catalogue "Picasso and American Art" (2006), tracking the many opportunities that Americans had to see Picasso's artwork between 1911 and 1957. For many years, she has researched the Valentine Gallery and its founder and director Valentine Dudensing, who was a leader in the market for the School of Paris and whose gallery was a center for modern art before the Museum of Modern Art opened. In her book, “The Valentine Gallery,” she rescues Dudensing and his pioneering New York gallery from obscurity, revealing his central role in creating the modern art market.