Nathan came from a family of Jewish cattle-dealers, but in 1870, at age 20, left Alsace, when it was annexed by the German Empire in the Franco-Prussian War, and moved to Paris.

Georges began work at his father's gallery and developed an interest in Pablo Picasso's paintings and a friendship with Claude Monet.

The family was stripped of French nationality in 1940 and fled to the United States, as their Paris gallery was "aryanized.

".After the war, Georges was accused of theft and trading with the Nazis,[1] but the family fought and refuted the action brought against them by Daniel Malraux.

His son Daniel Wildenstein took over as head of the gallery and editor of the Gazette des Beaux-Arts.