It is with deep regret and profound sadness that we announce the passing away of Walter Liedtke, curator of European paintings at The Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York. The museum has announced yesterday that Walter Liedtke was killed in the train accident that took place in the New York City suburb of Valhalla last Tuesday.

“Walter was one of the preeminent scholars of Dutch and Flemish painting, whose contribution to the field lives on in a range of scholarly and popular publications,” the Met’s president, Thomas P. Campbell, wrote in an Instagram post.

Walter Liedtke has been a dedicated CODART member since the very beginning. He has contributed to our network’s activities in many ways. Please read his article of October 2009 for the Curator in the Spotlight section on our website here. He will be greatly missed and fondly remembered by many and the art historical community in particular. Also on behalf of our partner, the RKD Netherlands Institute for Art History, our deepest condolences go out to to his wife, Nancy and his colleagues at the Metropolitan Museum of Art.

Information from the New York Times, 4 February 2015

Walter Liedtke, who served for 35 years as a curator of European paintings at the Metropolitan Museum of Art and was a renowned scholar on Vermeer and the Delft School, died on Tuesday, one of six victims of the crash of a Metro-North commuter train in Valhalla, N.Y. He was 69.
Read the article in the New York Times here.