Dr. Kurt Gitter, an innovator in eye surgery who amassed and donated a vast collection of Japanese art, died Wednesday at Touro Infirmary. He was 89.
The cause of death has not been established, said Alice Yelen Gitter, his wife.
A native of Austria who spent most of his life in New Orleans, Gitter pioneered the use of ultrasound imaging as a diagnostic and surgical tool. He balanced his interest in medicine with a passion for Japanese art, building a collection that was the basis for eight exhibits at the New Orleans Museum of Art. A ninth is scheduled to open in October.
“He was probably one of the dozen or so most important collectors of Japanese art in the United States,” said John Bullard, the museum’s former director.
“He was a person of passion and commitment, and he had the ability to inspire others,” Alice Gitter said. “He was very driven for the things that he thought were important. … His life’s work bridged medicine and culture, restoring vision in one sphere and expanding it in another.”
Susan M. Taylor, the director the New Orleans Museum of Art, said Kurt Gitter had an indelible impact on NOMA’s collection and exhibitions.
“His extraordinary philanthropy as one of the most significant donors in the history of the museum leaves an unmatched legacy for NOMA, New Orleans, and the field of Japanese art, not to mention his scientific contributions to the field of ophthalmology,” she said in a prepared statement.
Gitter was born in Vienna in 1937. In 1938, six months after Germany annexed Austria, Gitter and his parents fled to America. Many of their relatives who remained in Europe perished in the Holocaust.
The Gitters settled in New York City, where Kurt graduated from the Barnard School for Boys, a college-preparatory school. He earned an undergraduate degree at Johns Hopkins University and a medical degree at the State University of New York Downstate Medical Center, and he had a residency in ophthalmology at the Wills Eye Hospital in Philadelphia.
In 1963, the Air Force drafted Gitter and sent him to Japan, where, Bullard said, “he became hooked immediately on Japanese art.”
The enthusiasm continued after his two-year stint overseas. He and his family settled in New Orleans because it was his first wife’s hometown.
Gitter established a private practice, Retina Associates of New Orleans, taught at the medical schools at LSU and Tulane University and was chief of ophthalmology at Touro Infirmary from 1986 to 1996.
He also was a diligent researcher, using a grant from the National Institutes of Health to underwrite work that led, in 1969, to the publication of “Ophthalmic Ultrasound,” an early textbook on the use of ultrasonic imaging to diagnose eye problems. He published nearly 100 journal articles, textbooks and books.
Gitter, who also included lasers in his work, developed a specialty in preventing and restoring vision loss, especially in patients with diabetes and degeneration of the macula, a small area in the center of the retina that is responsible for sharp vision.
Throughout his career, Gitter taught medical residents and served on the editorial boards of peer-reviewed publications such as The Retina Journal. He also was director of the Foundation for Retinal Research from 1977 to 2013 and president of the Macula Society form 1999 to 2002.
All the while, his enthusiasm for Japanese art grew. In addition to collecting art, he developed relationships with artists and museums in the United States and Japan. The Japan Society honored him in 2025 for “lifelong and transformative dedication to Japanese art,” and the United States-Japan Foundation gave him its Distinguished Service Award in 2014.
Gitter and his second wife, Alice Gitter, frequently hosted artists and scholars in their home, and they went to Japan, often with Bullard, on art-buying trips.
They also gave pieces to museums, including the Smithsonian’s National Museum of Asian Art (formerly the Freer Gallery); the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston; the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York City; the Philadelphia Museum of Art; and the Israel Museum in Jerusalem.
“He didn’t just give something,” Alice Gitter said. “He knew what collections had, and he knew he could fill the gap.”
The Gitters founded the Gitter-Yelen Art Study Center in New Orleans in 1997, and the New Orleans Museum of Art in 2024 dedicated the Kurt A. Gitter M.D. and Alice Yelen Gitter Gallery for Japanese Art
Kurt Gitter became a museum trustee in 1973 and was named an honorary life trustee in 1991. In 2003, the museum gave him its Isaac Delgado Award for his lifelong service to art.
He and his wife also started acquiring American art by self-taught artists.
“He was just a natural guy who appreciated life and lived it to the fullest,” Alice Gitter said of her husband. “He always had a vision that was bigger than himself.”
Survivors include his wife, Alice Yelen Gitter; a daughter from their marriage, Manya-Jean Gitter of Washington, D.C.; three sons from his first marriage, to Mildred Hyman Gitter, Greg Gitter of Louisville, Kentucky, and Ricky and Douglas Gitter, both of New Orleans; a daughter, Linda Gerstley of Boca Raton, Florida; a sister, Dorothy Gitter Harman of Jerusalem.
A funeral will be held Sunday at 2:30 p.m. at Shir Chadash Synagogue, 3737 W. Esplanade Ave., Metairie. Visitation will begin at 1:30 p.m. Burial will be in Chevra Thilim Memorial Park, 5000 Iberville St., New Orleans.
Lake Lawn Metairie Funeral Home is in charge of arrangements.
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