Alfred Wolters

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Alfred Wolters (born November 28, 1884 in Cologne , † August 17, 1973 in Frankfurt am Main ) was a German art historian .

Life

Wolters studied art history in Munich , Heidelberg , Bonn , Würzburg and Halle . He received his doctorate in Halle in 1911. In 1912 he first became an assistant and then a curator at the Liebieghaus in Frankfurt. In 1928 he took over the post of director of the municipal gallery. He worked closely with Georg Swarzenski , who ran the Städelsche Kunstinstitut and was general director of the Frankfurt Museum Society .

In his position as director he was responsible for the acquisition of important Frankfurt paintings from the 19th century for the Städtische Galerie. He also sponsored the construction of the sculpture garden in the garden of the Städel Art Institute. At the end of the thirties, Wolters organized the exhibition of the figure groups Beethoven Monument and the "Ring of Statues" in Rothschild Park . These works were created by Georg Kolbe , a friend of Wolters . The first restoration of the late medieval wall paintings by Jerg Ratgeb in the Carmelite monastery was also thanks to Wolter's efforts .

During the National Socialist era , Wolters took art collections defamed by the National Socialists as Degenerate Art into the care of the museum. Works by artists such as Jakob Nussbaum , who fled to Palestine in 1933 , were also preserved because they were intentionally kept in boxes that were deliberately wrongly labeled. In 1936 it was discussed whether Wolters should take over the management of the Städel. But a decision was made against Wolters and in favor of Ernst Holzinger . After the Reichspogromnacht , many Jewish citizens fled and took parts of their private property with them, including works of art. In order to counteract the loss of works of art, the tax authorities called in experts to confiscate the works of art. Wolters was selected for the Frankfurt area. At the beginning of the war, Wolters endeavored to store art from private collections in museums. During the war, Wolters acquired other works of art from private collections, including property of Jewish citizens confiscated by the Gestapo .

After the war he continued to work for the preservation of the wall paintings and campaigned in vain for the rapid reconstruction of the collection of modern paintings in the municipal gallery, which had been dispersed by the National Socialists during the war. He retired in 1949. Wolters died on August 17, 1973 in Frankfurt.

His sons Christian (1912–1998) and Wolfgang (* 1935) also became art historians.

Archival material

literature

  • Reinhard Frost, Sabine Hock : Alfred Wolters , in: Wolfgang Klötzer (Hrsg.): Frankfurter Biographie . Personal history lexicon . Second volume. M – Z (=  publications of the Frankfurt Historical Commission . Volume XIX , no. 2 ). Waldemar Kramer, Frankfurt am Main 1996, ISBN 3-7829-0459-1 , p. 575 .
  • Esther Tisa Francini, In the field of tension between private and public institutions. The Städelsche Kunstinstitut and its directors 1933-1945. , in: Uwe Fleckner, Max Hollein (Ed.): Museum in contradiction. The Städel and National Socialism (= writings of the research center "Degenerate Art" Volume 6). Akademie Verlag, Berlin 2011, ISBN 978-3-05-004919-9 , pp. 93-147.

Remarks

  1. ↑ Ira Mazzoni: Awareness of injustice within limits. Städel Museum zur Nazzeit , Süddeutsche Zeitung, April 7, 2011, accessed on September 2, 2016:
personal data
SURNAME Wolters, Alfred
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German art historian
DATE OF BIRTH November 28, 1884
PLACE OF BIRTH Cologne
DATE OF DEATH 17th August 1973
Place of death Frankfurt am Main