Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Anna May-Rychter


 * The following discussion is an archived debate of the proposed deletion of the article below. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as the article's talk page or in a deletion review).  No further edits should be made to this page.

The result was   Nominator withdrawn without prejudice there seems to be a commitment to improve this new article.  b  W  16:52, 11 May 2011 (UTC)

Anna May-Rychter

 * – ( View AfD View log )

Non-notable artist. 55% of this article is sourced to, I kid you not, an auction site and a website selling her painting, hence failing as a article primarily based on self published sources. Also, even if the lone independent source were to be used for the rest, it would not be multiple, significant coverage in reliable sources. BelloWello (talk) 18:26, 9 May 2011 (UTC)
 * Comment There's a brief mention of her in a footnote on p156 of Rudolf Steiner's "Art as spiritual activity" (ISBN 0880103965); she also has a short entry in Adrian Darmon's "Autour de l'art juif" (ISBN 2848550112) - not particularly accurate: "German? Active at the end of the 19th century". But I doubt these are sufficient to establish notability. AllyD (talk) 20:46, 9 May 2011 (UTC)
 * Note: This debate has been included in the list of Visual arts-related deletion discussions.  —AllyD (talk) 20:49, 9 May 2011 (UTC)


 * seeI.Casaubon (talk) 16:21, 11 May 2011 (UTC)
 * Keep interesting minor early twentieth century artist undergoing revival of interest at auction. Auction houses like Christie's are regarded in the art world as reliable sources for information on minor artists.  I just added a German source.  And a list of recent auction records.  I think that wehn an artist has been dead for decades, and the work continues to sell, There is a reasonable case that that artist is WP:Notable.   I saw her work in a gallery, liked it, and looked for more information.  Surely that is a useful role for Wikipedia to play.I.Casaubon (talk) 13:40, 10 May 2011 (UTC)
 * Closing administrator should be aware that the nom followed me to this page from a series of AFD's on Christain topics where I have argued strongly for keeping articles that he argued for deleting. See: .  I accused him of making false assertions in his AFD nom.I.Casaubon (talk) 21:12, 9 May 2011 (UTC)


 * Keep and rename the article to Anna Rychter-May with a redirect at this name, since that is the name used in most English language sources. She signed her paintings "A. Rychter-May".  Using Google translate to read the German article now used as a reference, I see good biographical information, and also that there are about half a dozen additional references listed in German, plus a claim that a Jerusalem newspaper wrote an article about her upon her death.  Here's Lost Legacy, the original 2003 Ha'aretz article, as opposed to the reprint by an art gallery now used as a reference.  It also appears that several directories of artists list her, such as Davenport's art reference & price guide, Volume 2 and Autour de l'art juif: encyclopédie des peintres, photographes et sculpteurs and Dictionary of women artists: an international dictionary of women artists born before 1900.  The Baltimore Sun reported that one of her paintings was part of a landscape painting exhibit in 1965 here.  I don't have a problem using commercial art auction records as references about long-dead artists.  I think that the existence of a documented resale market goes to establish notability of dead artists, but I would be opposed to relying solely on commercial gallery listings to establish notability of living artists.  Cullen328 (talk) 01:53, 11 May 2011 (UTC)
 * Weak keep. Shee's only barely notable. But, BelloWello, I can assure you that Christie's catalogues are very much reliable sources. They are cited in academic publications. However, they do not establish notability, since Christie's of course must write entries on everything they sell. The length and scholarly detail of the entry is usually a good sign of notability. Paul B (talk) 16:41, 11 May 2011 (UTC)
 * The above discussion is preserved as an archive of the debate. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as the article's talk page or in a deletion review). No further edits should be made to this page.