Horst Gerson

Horst Gerson (1907–1978) was a German-Dutch art historian.

He was born in Berlin, and after studying art history in Vienna, he became a pupil and assistant of Cornelis Hofstede de Groot and worked for Hofstede de Groot's RKD (Netherlands Institute for Art History) during the years 1934–1966, becoming a Dutch citizen in 1940 and becoming director of the RKD on 1 January 1954. He was the nephew of Karl Lilienfeld, who had assisted Hofstede de Groot before him. In 1966 he became professor of art history at the Rijksuniversiteit Groningen, and during the years 1966–1975 he was head of the Kunsthistorisch Instituut Groningen. He is known for his publications, starting with his 'Ausbreitung und Nachwirkung der holländischen Malerei des 17. Jahrhunderts' published in 1942. He assisted Abraham Bredius with his Rembrandt catalogue raisonné, and later wrote his own version in 1968 which reduced the number of attributed Rembrandt works from 639 to 420, and the next year published a revision of Bredius's catalog that reduced the number even further. The Rembrandt Research Project (RRP) under the direction of Ernst van de Wetering has systematically gone through the Gerson papers and is in the process of re-attributing paintings to Rembrandt, most notably the self-portrait wearing a white feathered bonnet in Buckland Abbey. The last installment of the RRP's 'Corpus of Rembrandt paintings' published in 2014 included 348 paintings, of which 295 were included in Gerson's 1968 catalog.

He died in Groningen.