Lowenherz, David H. 1951-

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LOWENHERZ, David H. 1951-

PERSONAL: Born 1951; son of Max G. Lowenherz (a businessman) and Eva Cohnreich Lowenherz Buck; married Nancy Kaufman (a psychoanalyst), c. 1992; children: Jacob Emanuel. Ethnicity: "German-Jewish." Education: Bennington College, B.A., 1974. Politics: Independent. Religion: Jewish. Hobbies and other interests: Autographs, music, reading, hiking, travel, and swimming.

ADDRESSES: Home—330 East 38th St., Apt. 42I, New York, NY 10016. Offıce—Lion Heart Autographs, Inc., 470 Park Ave. South, Penthouse, New York, NY 10016-6819. E-mail—[email protected].

CAREER: Dealer, collector and appraiser of autographs and letters. Founder and head of Lion Heart Autographs, Inc. Fellow of Morgan Library, New York, NY.

MEMBER: Professional Autograph Dealers Association (co-founder), Grolier Club.

WRITINGS:

(Editor) The Fifty Greatest Love Letters of All Time, Crown (New York, NY), 2002.

(Editor) The Fifty Greatest Letters from America'sWars, Crown (New York, NY), 2002.

SIDELIGHTS: David Lowenherz, a collector of letters and autographs, opened Lion Heart Autographs, Inc. in 1978, when he was twenty-seven years old. He has since acquired an international reputation as one of the premier dealers in inscribed photos and books, rare manuscripts, and letters. The author's acknowledged expertise has led him to act as appraiser for the papers in the estates of Leonard Bernstein, Martha Graham and Irving Berlin. He has advised the Library of Congress and the Ira and Leonore Gershwin Trust on acquisitions, and has appraised the archives of both Carnegie Hall and the New York Times. Lion Heart Autographs sells autographs in a variety of fields including art, science, history, music, and literature. Over the years the business has handled papers of all the U.S. presidents, one of the rare letters written by Sigmund Freud to his mother, documents written by Napoleon Bonaparte, and the drawings and papers of René Magritte. Lowenherz himself has a notable collection of Robert Frost's books and letters. In 1999 this collection was displayed at the Grolier Club in celebration of the 125th anniversary of Frost's birth.

Lowenherz's career-long familiarity with the letters of the famous led him to compile a collection of love letters. The Fifty Greatest Love Letters of All Time was published by Crown in 2002. Approximately 400 years are covered, beginning with a letter from Henry VIII to Anne Boleyn and continuing through the twentieth century. Political figures such as Harry S Truman and Ronald Reagan are represented, as are literary figures, Virginia Woolf and the Fitzgeralds, F. Scott and Zelda. As noted by Jonathon Keats in his review of the book for Salon.com, the letters range in tone from serious to the very fanciful notes of Mozart to his wife, Constanze. There are some surprises. The famously reserved George Bush wrote at least one passionate love letter to his wife, Barbara. Shana Fair, in her review for Library Journal, made the observation that Lowenherz has not corrected the grammar or the spelling, so the reader is allowed to read each epistle as written.