Alfred Gunzenhauser

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Alfred Gunzenhauser

Alfred Gunzenhauser (born May 24, 1926 in Heidenheim an der Brenz ; † November 16, 2015 in Munich ) was a German gallery owner and art collector. Its collection, which it has put together over the last 50 years, is considered to be one of the most important private collections in Germany and forms the basis of the Gunzenhauser Museum, which opened in Chemnitz in 2007 . Their value is estimated at around 200 million euros.

Life

Alfred Gunzenhauser's father was an authorized representative at a forwarding company, his mother came from a sawmill dynasty. He studied economics at the University of Heidelberg . After completing his doctorate, he went to Berlin and took a job in the administration of the electrical appliance manufacturer AEG . However, he soon gave up this activity for a career as a gallery owner. He gained his first experience in this field as an employee of the Gerd Rosen gallery , who in 1945 opened the first gallery in Germany after the end of the Second World War on Berlin's Kurfürstendamm . Gunzenhauser moved to Munich in the mid-1960s and founded his own gallery there in Maximilianstrasse , which influenced the city's cultural life in the following years.

Parallel to his work as a gallery owner, Gunzenhauser built up a private art collection with works from the 20th century, which is one of the most important German private collections. The first work in his collection was the painting Forgotten Coast by Manfred Bluth in 1954 , which he had acquired from a gallery owner in Berlin at monthly rates of 15 marks. Today the collection includes around 2500 works by 270 artists, including the world's largest private collection of works by the German painter Otto Dix .

In order to make the collection publicly accessible, Gunzenhauser brought the pictures to a foundation in 2003. After the city of Chemnitz had promised to provide him with his own museum, it was awarded the location for the Gunzenhauser Museum, which opened in December 2007.

Alfred Gunzenhauser died on November 16, 2015 in Munich and was buried on December 5, 2015 in the family grave in his native Heidenheim.

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ a b Art collector Alfred Gunzenhauser is dead. In: Heidenheimer Zeitung , November 18, 2015.
  2. ↑ Brita Sachs: Dream and Trade. On the death of Alfred Gunzenhauser . In: Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung, November 21, 2015, p. 15.
  3. ^ Funeral service for collector Alfred Gunzenhauser in Heidenheim. welt.de, December 5, 2015, accessed December 5, 2015 .
personal data
SURNAME Gunzenhauser, Alfred
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German gallery owner and art collector
DATE OF BIRTH May 24, 1926
PLACE OF BIRTH Heidenheim an der Brenz
DATE OF DEATH November 16, 2015
Place of death Munich