Alexander Dorner

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Alexander Dorner (born January 19, 1893 in Königsberg i. Pr .; † November 2, 1957 in Naples ) was a German art historian and university professor. He is considered one of the most innovative and influential museum directors of the 20th century.

Life

As the son of the theologian August Johannes Dorner , Dorner attended the Collegium Fridericianum . After graduating from high school, he studied history, art history and archeology at the Albertus University in Königsberg and the Friedrich Wilhelms University in Berlin . According to the Kösener corps lists in 1930, he became a member of the Corps Littuania in 1912 . Since he is not listed in Passauer's corps table in Littuania zu Königsberg (1935) or in the Kösener corps lists in 1960, he is likely to have left the corps in the early 1930s. After his participation in the First World War (1914–1918) and his doctorate as Dr. phil. in 1919 in Berlin , Dorner worked at the Hannover Provincial Museum from 1919 , from 1925 to 1937 as its director. In 1920 he completed his habilitation and was from then until 1937 private lecturer in art history at the Technical University of Hanover , in 1928 he was appointed associate professor .

Between the autumn of 1926 and February 1928, Dorner set up the Cabinet of Abstracts together with El Lissitzky . From 1929 to 1934 he was President of the Kestner Society in Hanover. In 1936, after the Degenerate Art campaign, Dorner resigned as museum director for reasons of conscience and, as an opponent of National Socialism, emigrated to the United States in the summer of 1937 with the support of his doctoral supervisor Adolph Goldschmidt . In Rhode Island he was director of the Rhode Island School of Design from 1937 to 1941 . From 1941 to 1948 he taught as a professor of art history and aesthetics at Brown University in Providence. In 1943 he was granted citizenship of the United States . From 1948 he taught at Bennington College in Vermont.

Dorner's tomb

Dorner died at the age of 64 on a trip near Naples. He was buried in Hanover's city ​​cemetery in Stöcken (Section A 28).

meaning

Dorner's decisive achievement was the installations for the new understanding of space in modernity , which had been set up together with Justus Bier as head of the Kestner Society since 1930. These included the Abstract Cabinet by El Lissitzky , recreated in the Sprengel Museum , and the Room of the Present by László Moholy-Nagy . He saved works of art by the Soviet-Russian constructivist and suprematist Kazimir Malevich from the Stalinist and National Socialist dictatorships when they were supposed to be destroyed in Germany in 1933, but a return to the Soviet Union no longer offered any security.

Dorner's widow Lydia Dorner initiated the reconstruction of the Cabinet of Abstracts that had been destroyed by the National Socialists in Hanover in 1968 .

Private

Dorner's first marriage was to Karola von Broich. His second wife was Ella Grotewold. His third marriage was with Lydia Nepto.

Fonts

  • The book The Way beyond Art - The Work of Herbert Bayer (New York 1949), German translation by Lydia Dorner ( overcoming "art" ), Hanover 1959, is considered to be Dorner's main work .
  • 100 years of building in Hanover. For the centenary of the technical university. Edler & Krische, Hanover 1931.
  • 100 years of art in Hanover, 1750–1850 , 1932

See also

literature

  • Technical University of Hanover: Catalogus professorum , Hanover 1956, p. 49
  • W. Schmied: pioneer of modern art. 50 Years of the Kestner Society , 1967, p. 253
  • Ines Katenhusen : Art and Politics. Hanover's examination of modernity in the Weimar Republic , in the series Hannoversche Studies , Vol. 5, Hanover 1998, pp. 260f.
  • Ulrike Wendland: Biographical handbook of German-speaking art historians in exile. Life and work of the scientists persecuted and expelled under National Socialism. Part 1: A – K. Saur, Munich 1999, ISBN 3-598-11339-0 (also dissertation, University of Hamburg, 1996).
  • Samuel Caumann: The living museum. Experience of an art historian and museum director. Torchbearers, Hanover 1958.
  • Jürgen Claus: The Media Museum - What remains. In: Jürgen Claus: Chippppkunst. Ullstein materials, Frankfurt / Main, Berlin 1985, pp. 138-146.
  • Monika Flacke-Knoch: Museum Concepts in the Weimar Republic. Alexander Dorner's activities in the Hannover Provincial Museum. Jonas publishing house for art and literature, Marburg 1985, ISBN 3-922561-43-8 ( cultural studies series. Vol. 3; also dissertation, University of Hamburg, 1984).
  • Willibald Reichertz: East Germans as lecturers at the Technical University of Hanover (1831–1956). In: East German family studies. Journal of Family History Research. ISSN  0472-190X , Vol. 18, 2007 (= Vol. 55), Issue 3, pp. 109-120.
  • Ines Katenhusen: A museum director on and between the chairs. Alexander Dorner (1893–1957) in Hanover. In: O. Peters, Ruth Heftrig, B. Schellewald (eds.): Art history in the “Third Reich”. Theories, methods, practices , Akademie-Verlag, Berlin 2008, ISBN 978-3-05-004448-4 , pp. 156–170.
  • Ines Katenhusen: 150 years of the Lower Saxony State Museum in Hanover. In: Heide Grape-Albers (Ed.): The Lower Saxony State Museum Hanover. Festschrift for the year of the double anniversary , Hanover: 2002, ISBN 3-929444-29-1 , pp. 18–94.
  • Hugo Thielen : Dorner, Alexander Adalbert , in: Dirk Böttcher , Klaus Mlynek, Waldemar R. Röhrbein, Hugo Thielen: Hannoversches Biographisches Lexikon . From the beginning to the present. Schlütersche, Hannover 2002, ISBN 3-87706-706-9 , p. 98 and others.
  • Ines Katenhusen, Hugo Thielen: Dorner, (1) Alexander Adalbert. In: Klaus Mlynek, Waldemar R. Röhrbein (eds.) U. a .: City Lexicon Hanover . From the beginning to the present. Schlütersche, Hannover 2009, ISBN 978-3-89993-662-9 , pp. 138f.

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ KCL 1930, 88 , 748
  2. ↑ a b Ines Katenhusen: Cabinet of Abstracts. In: Stadtlexikon Hannover , p. 332
  3. ^ Justus Bier: Abstract Art in Hanover. In: Museumskunde , 1930, pp. 71–73.
  4. ↑ S. Cauman the living museum , Hanover f 1958 S. 124th Thereafter, Dorner is said to have induced the New York museum director Alfred Barr, on a visit to Hanover in 1935, to roll Malevich's paintings into an umbrella and bring them to the USA; later restitution proceedings did not end until 1999, see The Modern Gets to Keep Malevich Works , New York Times, June 19, 1999, accessed April 17, 2017
personal data
SURNAME Dorner, Alexander
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Dorner, Alexander Adalbert (full name)
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German art historian and university professor
DATE OF BIRTH January 19, 1893
PLACE OF BIRTH Koenigsberg i. Pr.
DATE OF DEATH November 2, 1957
Place of death Naples