Albrecht Kurzwelly

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Albrecht Kurzwelly

Albrecht Alexander August Kurzwelly (born January 20, 1868 in Leipzig , † January 8, 1917 in Leipzig) was a German art historian , folklorist and founding director of the Leipzig City History Museum .

Life

Albrecht Kurzwelly was born in 1868 as the son of the Chemnitz doctor Martin Liberatus Kurzwelly (1831–1882) and his wife Thekla Caecilie, born. Heinig, born in Leipzig. The musically and artistically talented boy attended the Thomas School in Leipzig from 1878 to 1888 , where Heinrich Stürenburg and Eduard König in particular had a strong influence on his intellectual development. After graduating from high school, he first studied theology from 1888 , and from 1889 philosophy and art history at the University of Leipzig and the University of Munich as a student of Anton Springer ,Wilhelm Heinrich Riehl , Moriz Carrière , Johannes Overbeck , Hubert Janitschek , Karl Lamprecht . In 1894 Kurzwelly received his doctorate from August Schmarsow with a monograph on the painter and Dürer student Georg Pencz .

Under Melchior zur Straßen and his successor Richard Graul , he worked as an assistant from 1895 to 1904 and as deputy director at the Kunstgewerbemuseum Leipzig from 1904 to 1909 . During this time he made a great contribution to researching local art history. He dealt intensively with the life and work of Leipzig painters and illustrators as well as with the genesis of Leipzig buildings and made a significant contribution to research into the history of old Thuringian porcelain. Kurzwelly also wrote articles for Thiemes Künstlerlexikon and regularly published articles in art journals.

From 1895 to 1915 he was also a lecturer in art history at the Royal Academy of Graphic Arts and Applied Arts , where he interest in the particular medal- the Renaissance sought to arouse the students.

In 1901 he was elected to the board of the Leipzig History Society, whose extensive collections in the rooms of the Old Johannis Hospital he now looked after and scientifically processed. When this collection passed into the possession of the city of Leipzig in 1909, the city fathers commissioned him to work out a plan for the design of a city history museum that was to be housed in the renaissance building of the old town hall , which had been vacant since 1905 . For the five available rooms, Kurzwelly designed a thematic presentation concept instead of a chronological one with the main focus: political history, communal and social life, economic culture, intellectual culture and private life.

On January 1, 1910, Albrecht Kurzwelly was appointed director of the museum to be built. In addition to the practical implementation of his museum concept, the expansion of the collections and the implementation of special exhibitions were the main focuses of his work. In doing so, he placed particular emphasis on obtaining material to commemorate the Battle of the Nations near Leipzig and on evidence of the economic, intellectual and musical development of his hometown. From the most diverse public and private collections he has brought together the antiquities in the rooms of the Old Town Hall and created a picture of urban culture that only a few German cities can present in a clearer and more substantial way .

The highlights of his museum activities were the special exhibitions on Leipzig portrait painting from 1700 to 1850 (from June 9 to July 28, 1912), the great Richard Wagner memorial exhibition (May 1913) and the exhibition of the century on the Leipzig Battle of the Nations (July 1913).

In 1914 he worked on a study of Bach images in which he examined the origin and credibility of all Bach portraits and their copies.

Shortly after the opening of the last section of the City History Museum he developed, the tireless art historian and silent sponsor of young artists and craftsmen, who despite suffering from severe gallbladder and heart disease, died of a stroke in January 1917 at the age of 49. The unmarried man was buried with great sympathy in the family grave of the fifth department of the New Johannis Cemetery in Leipzig.

From everything he did, there is awe of the witnesses of a significant past and a loyal love for his hometown.

Awards

literature

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Albrecht Kurzwelly had four brothers - including the art historian Johannes Kurzwelly (1867–1922) - and a sister. His cousins ​​were the admiral Georg Alexander von Müller and the landscape painter Konrad Alexander Müller-Kurzwelly , sons of his aunt Clara Kurzwelly (1829–1898) from his marriage to Prof. Dr. C. Alexander Müller (1828-1906).
  2. ↑ Albrecht Kurzwelly was involved in the following special exhibitions at the Kunstgewerbemuseum: Works of ancient art from Saxon-Thuringian private property (1897); Old Thuringian porcelain (1904); German Renaissance tapestries (1906); Leipzig goldsmith's work (1907); University anniversary exhibition (1909)
  3. ↑ Richard Graul, Albrecht Kurzwelly, Helmut Fischer (ed.): Old Thuringian Porcelain. Contributions to the history of porcelain art in the XVII. Century , seaman, Leipzig 1909.
  4. ↑ a b Richard Graul, Albrecht Kurzwelly, Helmut Fischer (ed.): Old Thuringian Porcelain. Contributions to the history of porcelain art in the XVII. Century , Seemann, Leipzig 1909, p. 91.
  5. ^ Albrecht Kurzwelly: The portrait in Leipzig from the end of the 17th century to the Biedermeier period , Hiersemann, Leipzig 1912.
  6. ↑ Albrecht Kurzwelly: Richard Wagner Memorial Exhibition on the occasion of Richard Wagner's 100th birthday , JJ Weber, Leipzig 1913.
  7. ^ Albrecht Kurzwelly: News about the Bach portrait of the Thomas School and other portraits of JS Bach. In: Bach-Jahrbuch 11, 1914, pp. 1–37.
personal data
SURNAME Kurzwelly, Albrecht
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Kurzwelly, Albrecht Alexander August
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German art historian and folklorist
DATE OF BIRTH January 20, 1868
PLACE OF BIRTH Leipzig
DATE OF DEATH January 8, 1917
Place of death Leipzig