Carl Zigrosser

Carl Zigrosser (1891–1975) was an American art dealer known for founding and running the New York Weyhe Gallery in the 1920s and 1930s, and as Curator of Prints and Drawings at the Philadelphia Museum of Art between 1940 and 1963. In the 1910s, he was active in New York's anarchist movement.

Biography Zigrosser was born in 1891 in Indianapolis. His father, Hugo Zigrosser emigrated from Austria and worked as an architect. Carl Zigrosser graduated from Newark Academy in 1908 and earned a scholarship to Columbia University, from which he graduated in 1911, Phi Beta Kappa.

In 1915, he began writing for The Modern School Magazine, a publication concerning key issues in libertarian education, and took over as editor in 1917.

He began his art career working for Frederick Keppel, a New York print dealer. "There he learned the art trade and met many famous collectors, literati, artists (most notably Rockwell Kent) and curators."

Zigrosser founded and ran the Weyhe Gallery in 1919, which he directed until 1940, and was awarded a Guggenheim Fellowship in 1939 and 1940. The Dictionary of Art Historians notes that during his years with the Weyhe Gallery, he "helped establish many American artists. . . .He published Six Centuries of Prints in 1937 as a primer on graphics collecting to educate novices in the field. The book was a monumental success and raised Zigrosser's reputation as a print authority." In 1969, he issued the catalogue raisonné of John Marin prints, The Complete Etchings of John Marin, as the exhibition catalog for a show at the Philadelphia Museum of Art, which is still considered the best study on Marin's prints. served as vice-director of the Print Council of America and vice president of the Print Club of Philadelphia. In 1961, he received an honorary degree from Temple University. He was elected a trustee of the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum.

On 26 November 1975, Zigrosser died in Montagnola, Switzerland, where he had lived for the last three years of his life.

Works Rockwellkentiana (1933), with Rockwell Kent Six Centuries of Fine Prints (1937) Kaethe Kollwitz (1949), introduction The Expressionists: A Survey of Their Graphic Art (1957) The Appeal of Prints (1970) American Prints in the Library of Congress: A Catalog of the Collection, foreword (1970)