Klaus Gunther Perls (1912–2008) was born in Berlin, Germany, where his parents were art dealers. He studied art history in Munich, but after the Nazis stopped granting degrees to Jews he moved to Basel, Switzerland and completed his studies. Here, he wrote a dissertation on the 15th-century French painter Jean Fouquet.
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Early career
His father Hugo Perls had fled Germany and separated from his mother who set up as an art dealer in Paris.
In 1935, after two years in Paris, Klaus moved to New York City and opened the Perls Galleries on East 58th Street near Madison Avenue. Initially, he dealt in works by Maurice Utrillo, Maurice de Vlaminck and Raoul Dufy; artists that his mother recommended to him from Paris. When she was forced to flee France, he began dealing in contemporary American artists, including Darrel Austin, and in Mexican and South American art.
Middle years
In 1940, Klaus married Amelia Blumenthal from Philadelphia, and she became a partner in the gallery. After the war, the Perlses focused on French art from the School of Paris. They moved their gallery to a town house at 1016 Madison Avenue, near 78th Street, where they lived on the upper floors in 1954. They worked there until 1997. Perls was one of the founders, with Perls, of the Art Dealers Association of America.