Max Stern (gallery owner)

Max Stern (1904–1987) was a German-born art collector, dealer and philanthropist of Jewish heritage who fled Nazi persecution. He emigrated to London and then Canada.

In Germany, Stern owned the prestigious Galerie Stern in Düsseldorf. In 1937 he was forced by the Nazi Government to close his gallery. After many of the gallery's work were sold at auction or confiscated by the Nazis, he fled Germany to London where he was initially interned as an enemy alien for two years before being allowed to emigrate to Canada where he established Montreal's Dominion Gallery (in French, Galerie Dominion) and promoted young Canadian artists.

Max Stern was born in München-Gladbach (today's spelling: Mönchengladbach), Germany, in April 1904. His father, Julius Stern, was a German-born Jew who worked in the textile industry, before becoming an art collector and dealer in Düsseldorf. Stern studied in Cologne, Berlin, Vienna and Paris, earning his doctorate from the University of Bonn in 1928 before entering the art business. On the death of his father, in 1934, Max became the new gallery owner.

When the Nazis came into power in 1933, Stern was persecuted as a Jew. As anti-Jewish laws deprived him of rights, Stern prepared for exile, managing to open a gallery in London in 1935.

Under the Nazis, The Reich Chamber of Fine Arts withdrew professional accreditation, and Stern was given four weeks to either sell or dissolve all holdings within the Galerie Stern. His gallery was Aryanized, that is transferred to non-Jewish ownership in 1937 Stern was forced to auction off a large segment of the Stern Gallery by order of the Nazi government. These artworks were sold in Kunsthaus Lempertz. They went on the block by their lot number, Auktion 392. Not all pieces were sold, and Stern placed those that remained in storage with shipping agent Josef Roggendorf. Roggendorf held the artwork close to the Düsseldorf gallery until it was all confiscated by the National Socialist government.

Stern then spent several years trying to track down the 28 confiscated paintings. He placed an ad in the German art magazine Die Weltkunst, offering a reward for information on the paintings' locations. Recovering the paintings proved to be extremely difficult. Musical Party by Dirck Hals and Landscape with Figures by Salomon van Ruysdael were eventually recovered with help from the Canadian government after the war had ended. Last Judgment in the style of Hieronymus Bosch was returned in 1954. Other works were not found.

One of the paintings from the Stern collection, Jan Wellens de Cock’s "Flight into Egyp"t, reappeared on June 26, 1970 in London at the Christie's auction in London for “Highly Important Pictures from the collection formed by the late Chancellor Konrad Adenauer, the property of Heinz Kisters, Esq. and others.”

Stern fled Germany in December 1937, reportedly carrying nothing but a small suitcase. He hoped to join his sister at the gallery in London but after the war began was interred by the British as an enemy alien in a refugee camp on the Isle of Man for two years. The British government then allowed him to immigrate to Canada. Stern sailed on the Polish liner Sobieski, but was unable to get his money and belongings out of Britain. He then spent two years in internment camps in New Brunswick and Quebec. He was given refugee status upon his arrival. He took steps to be exempted from this status and made contact with the man who ran the Canadian Refugee Organization, William Birks, who immediately vouched for Stern.