Eberhard W. Kornfeld wife: Was Eberhard W. Kornfeld married?

There is no information on the wife of Eberhard W. Kornfeld, a Swiss auctioneer, author, art dealer, and collector who was based in Bern.

Due to the unavailability of information on the wife of the renowned arts dealer, collector and author, we are unable to confirm if he had a wife or otherwise at the time he died.

Born on 23 September 1923, Kornfeld died on 13 April 2023 at age 99. A cause of death was not stated.

Kornfeld’s break in art auctioneering came in 1945 after he started working with renowned arts dealer August Klipstein.

The pair remained formidable and worked together until Klipstein’s death in 1951.

After Klipstein’s demise, Kornfeld took control of the auction house Gutekunst und Klipstein (which was previously headed by August Klipstein).

The auction house Gutekunst und Klipstein was renamed by Kornfeld: it was changed from Klipstein und Kornfeld, to Kornfeld und Klipstein and finally to Galerie Kornfeld.

Aside his auctioneering prowess and writing skills, Kornfeld was also embroiled in some controversies:

• In 1993, a lawsuit opposed him and David P. Tunick, a Manhattan dealer concerning the authenticity of a signature.
• In 2017, it was discovered that the son of Hitler’s art dealer Hildebrand Gurlitt had been selling artworks from his secret stash in Munich through Kornfeld in Switzerland. However, Kornfeld denied selling Nazi looted art.
• In 2019 a judge ordered that two Schiele’s that Kornfeld had sold be restituted to the heirs of a Holocaust victim Fritz Grünbaum because they had been looted by Nazis.

Kornfeld was generous and he donated artworks to several museums including the National Gallery of Art, the Norton Simon Museum, the Calder Foundation, the MoMa and the Kunstmuseum Basel.