Aachen Museum Association
The Museumsverein Aachen e. V. is an association of art-interested citizens founded on February 9, 1877, whose initial aim was to take over important art collections from bequests in order to preserve them permanently for posterity and to present them at exhibitions. Six years later, the Aachen Museum Association acted as the founding association of the Suermondt Museum and today sees itself as a support association for the museums of the city of Aachen . The association is based in today's Suermondt-Ludwig-Museum in Wilhelmstrasse in Aachen.
tasks and goals
The museum association sees itself as a guarantor for the preservation of the municipal museums that have emerged from community foundations and contributes through appropriate public relations work to bring their holdings closer to an interested public. To this end, he organizes series of lectures under the direction of competent art historians as well as programs for temporary exhibitions as well as specialist excursions at home and abroad.
In addition, the association supports the purchase and restoration of works of art, the organization of exhibition openings and a large number of other activities in the city's museums. He also advocates a connection between old and new art and in particular promotes the opening of his collections to current contemporary art .
Nowadays, the association sees itself primarily as a sponsoring association of Aachen's municipal museums, which include the Suermondt-Ludwig-Museum , the Couven-Museum , the International Newspaper Museum and the Zollmuseum Friedrichs as well as the holdings of the Frankenberg Castle Museum , which closed in 2010 partly in the 2014 newly established Aachen Center Charlemagne at Katschhof . The Aachen Museum Association maintains close cooperation with its own sponsorship association, the Ludwig Forum for International Art .
Aachen art sheets
On the initiative of the then director of the Suermondt Museum, Hermann Schweitzer , from 1906 the Aachener Kunstblätter were published by the Aachen Museum Association as the official news organ and forum for scientific contributions. The aim of these publications was to give members as well as citizens interested in art the opportunity to get an overview of the holdings of the existing collections as well as their art-historical reputation. At the same time, these art sheets should serve to attract new members to the museum association and new patrons to the museums.
With issue 15 in 1931 and the rise of National Socialism , the publication of the Aachener Kunstblätter was temporarily stopped. It was not until 1957 that, at the instigation of the new chairman Peter Ludwig, the new edition of this series was published in issue 16, which today is one of the most important art historical periodicals in Germany. In 2011 the 64th volume was published, which mainly reminds of Irene Ludwig and the industrialist Bernd Monheim , who both died in 2010.
In 2014 the decision to discontinue the art papers was temporarily made. Difficult financing and falling demand were cited as reasons. Ultimately, however, the museum association decided to develop a new financing concept in order to be able to continue the traditional series if possible.
In 2018, volume 66 of the Aachener Kunstblätter appeared in a revised format with the title "Art in and from Aachen". In future, they should appear every two years.
history
Occasionally before Aachen entered the Prussian Empire, but increasingly since that time, efforts in Aachen were made to organize rooms for the permanent establishment of a museum. But it was not until 1877 that these efforts were crowned with success, after the founding of the Aachen Museum Association and the associated transfer of the front part of the Alte Redoute Aachen in Kombhausbadstrasse No. 11 by the incumbent Mayor Ludwig von Weise . These rooms had been owned by the city since the 1850s and have already been available for various exhibitions several times.
The first exhibitions took place as early as the next year, which initially mostly consisted of borrowed art objects. With the introduction of membership fees, entire collections could now be purchased, and the first official donations were also made. Soon the designated exhibition space was no longer sufficient and the mayor made additional rooms available in the same building. After the banker and art patron Barthold Suermondt finally donated 104 precious paintings to the city of Aachen in 1882 , which were then also housed in the Alte Redoute under the aegis of the Aachen Museum Association, the association decided to found an official museum in the rooms of the Redoute Opening finally took place on October 20, 1883 and was designated in reference to the main donor Suermondt Museum.
In the next few years, other significant and sometimes extensive donations followed and the premises became too small again. Then in 1898 the incumbent mayor Philipp Veltman arranged for the city of Aachen to acquire the Villa Cassalette in Wilhelmstrasse and made this villa available to the Aachen Museum Association and its Suermondt Museum, which then reopened on January 26, 1901. From 1916 the association was headed by the important Aachen architect and building officer Georg Frentzen .
On the initiative of the director of the Suermondt Museum, Felix Kuetgens , another museum was set up in 1928 in Haus Fey am Seilgraben, which was acquired by the city of Aachen and was intended to exhibit Aachen's bourgeois living culture from the 18th and 19th centuries. The museum, which was opened on July 1, 1929 and also funded by the Aachen Museum Association under the then incumbent chairman Robert von Görschen , was named Couven Museum, named after the Aachen master builders Johann Josef Couven and his son Jakob Couven .
On March 1, 1957, the manufacturer and patron Peter Ludwig took over the management of the museum association and, together with his wife Irene Ludwig, enriched the Suermondt Museum with a permanent loan from their shared private collection. This made it necessary to reorganize the museum landscape in the 1960s, as a result of which the arts and crafts collection was transferred to the newly established Museum Burg Frankenberg, which also documents the history of the city of Aachen from the Stone Age flint mine to the Roman thermal baths up to the industrialization period. The collections of modern art , especially those of the Ludwig family, found their new home in the so-called "New Gallery", which was set up in the Alten Kurhaus Aachen . The Couven Museum itself had already been refurbished in Haus Monheim after the Second World War , as Haus Fey was no longer suitable for this due to the destruction caused by the war.
On the occasion of the 100th anniversary of the museum association, the collector couple Ludwig presented the city of Aachen with a further 193 objects for the Suermondt Museum on February 9, 1977, which was then renamed the Suermondt Ludwig Museum. In the early 1990s, the city museums had to be restructured again. In the course of this, the Suermondt Ludwig Museum was given a representative extension, and the Neue Galerie moved into the premises of the former Brauer umbrella factory on Jülicher Strasse and was henceforth called the "Ludwig Forum for International Art". After completing these measures, in 1994 Peter Ludwig handed over the office of chairman to the honorary consul of Turkey, Hans-Josef Thouet.
For her decades of service to the museum association and the city museums, Irene Ludwig was made an honorary member and her husband Peter Ludwig was appointed honorary chairman of the association, who also received the association's ring of honor. The association has only made one other honorary membership so far, which the former Lord Mayor of Aachen, Jürgen Linden , received in 2010 .
In 2014, the Aachen attorney Günter F. Strauch was elected 1st chairman. His predecessor, Hans-Josef Thouet, was unanimously made an honorary member.
Web links
- Official club homepage
- Club history
- Museum Association Aachen on Kulturserver.nrw
- Entry in Kürschner's Handbook of Fine Artists , p. 1419
Individual evidence
- ↑ Aachener Kunstblätter ( page no longer available , search in web archives ) Info: The link was automatically marked as defective. Please check the link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.
- ↑ Marcus Erberich: New board of directors should save art papers , in Aachener Nachrichten of June 25, 2014
- ↑ Honorary membership for Jürgen Linden ( page no longer available , search in web archives ) Info: The link was automatically marked as defective. Please check the link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.
- ↑ Marcus Erberich: New board of directors should save art papers , in Aachener Nachrichten of June 25, 2014
