Alfred Hentzen

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Alfred Hentzen (born May 12, 1903 in Lennep ; † January 8, 1985 in Hamburg ) was a German art historian . From 1955 to 1969 he headed the Hamburger Kunsthalle .

Career

He was born to Fritz Hentzen and his wife Elisabeth (née Hardt) and grew up in Lennep in the Bergisches Land . After completing his school education with the Abitur at Lenneper Röntgen-Gymnasium , he studied art history, literary studies and archeology at the universities of Munich (among others with Heinrich Wölfflin ), Bonn (among others with Paul Clemen ) and Berlin (among others with Adolph Goldschmidt ). In 1926 he received his PhD from the University of Leipzig under Wilhelm Pinder with a thesis on "Magdeburg Baroque Architecture". phil. PhD.

Act

Berlin

Kronprinzenpalais between 1860 and 1890

From 1927 Hentzen worked at the Berlin museums , initially in the modern art department under Ludwig Thormaehlen . He then became assistant to Ludwig Justi , the director of the National Gallery , where he was involved in building up the 20th Century Art Department (“ from Corinth to Klee ”), the new department of the National Gallery in Berlin in the Kronprinzenpalais . He was considered a "Justis loyal Adlatus" (Carl Georg Heise). At the same time he was editor of the magazine Museum der Gegenwart, founded in 1930 and discontinued by the National Socialists in 1933 . In 1934 he married Anna Else Frieda (called Anne) Dittmer (1906–2001).

In 1934, Hentzen published his standard work, German Sculptors of the Present , clearly highlighting Ernst Barlach , Wilhelm Lehmbruck , Gerhard Marcks and Georg Kolbe . It was published by the Rembrandt publishing house in Berlin and was withdrawn from circulation in 1936. In the same year, his “Art of the 20th Century” department in the Kronprinzenpalais was closed, the works were largely referred to as “ Degenerate Art ” and their director Eberhard Hanfstaengl was dismissed. Justi was removed from service in June 1933.

As part of the preparations for the 1936 Olympic Games in Berlin, Hentzen and Niels von Holst, head of the Foreign Office of the Berlin Museums, put together a large exhibition of older German art. Under the title Great Germans in Contemporary Portraits , she was then shown - accompanied by him - in several museums in the USA. During the Games, she was shown in the Kronprinzenpalais as The Great Germans and had almost 70,000 visitors. As of 1937, Hentzen, as custodian of the Gemäldegalerie , was able to put together the picture bank Pictures of the Berlin Gemäldegalerie with works from the 13th to 18th centuries; after the beginning of the war he was given the task of relocating the holdings. In 1942 he was called up for military service and was taken prisoner in North Africa , which he spent in Egypt.

Hanover

From 1946 to 1947, as custodian, together with his wife Anne, he rebuilt the Kestner Society , which had been closed since 1936 and opened on October 17, 1948. First he showed paintings by Emil Nolde , then lithographs by Pablo Picasso . He also began the Society's annual gifts for its members with a woodcut by Gerhard Marcks. In the following seven years Hentzen showed another 50 exhibitions of avant-garde art in Hanover. In 1954, Hentzen was appointed to the working committee of Arnold Bode's first documenta , which took place in Kassel in 1955.

Hamburg

Kunsthalle Hamburg, old building

In 1955, at the suggestion of his predecessor Carl Georg Heise (1890–1979) , Hentzen was elected director of the Hamburger Kunsthalle . He immediately tried to find a modern technical innovation, rearranged the 17th and 18th century collections, expanded them and gave modern art a larger space. Works by Alexander Calder , Sam Francis , Antoni Tàpies and others moved into the collection. To finance the purchase of new works, he pushed for the establishment of the Foundation for the Promotion of the Hamburg Art Collections , which was supported by private patrons and the Hamburg Senate . Until 1962, Hentzen was also director of the Hamburger Kunstverein , which was separated from the Kunsthalle in the same year and moved into its own exhibition space in a new building next door. In 1964 he was a member of the committee for painting and sculpture of documenta III , along with Werner Schmalenbach , Heinrich Stünke , Eduard Trier and others . In 1969 he was able to win the Viennese art historian Werner Hofmann as his successor as director of the Kunsthallen .

Venice Biennale

In 1968 Hentzen was appointed commissioner for the German pavilion at the Venice Biennale . While his predecessor Eduard Trier showed current German art in the German pavilion in 1964 and 1966, Hentzen resorted to traditional forms and concepts with the presentation of works by Horst Janssen , Richard Oelze and Gustav Seitz , for which he was vehemently attacked - especially in the turbulent year 1968 has been.

Publications

Magdeburg baroque architecture. Formation and decline of the bourgeois house type and the cityscape of a central German city from the Thirty Years War to the end of the Baroque . Anhaltische Buchdruckerei Gutenberg, Dessau 1927

  • German sculptors of the present , Rembrandt-Verlag, Berlin. no year
  • with Niels von Holst : The great Germans in the picture . National Museums in Berlin, Propylaen-Verlag, Berlin 1936.
  • Masterpieces of European painting - 220 pictures from the Berlin Gemäldegalerie . Gebr. Mann, Berlin 1940.
  • Henri Moore . Catalog of the Kestner Society. London, British Council 1960.
  • Guide through the Hamburger Kunsthalle . Christiansdruck, Hamburg 1962.
  • Catalog of the Old Masters of the Hamburger Kunsthalle . Offizin Hartung, Hamburg 1966.
  • The Berlin National Gallery in the Iconoclasm . Cologne, Berlin 1971. ISBN 3-7745-0254 (previously published under the title The End of the New Department of the National Gallery in: Jahrbuch Preußischer Kulturbesitz 8, 1970, pp. 24-89).
  • Marino Marini, printmaking . Work catalog. Bruckmann, Munich, 1976.

literature

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Magdeburg baroque architecture. Formation and decline of the bourgeois house type and the cityscape of a central German city from the Thirty Years War to the end of the Baroque . Anhaltische Buchdruckerei Gutenberg, Dessau 1927.
  2. ↑ In this capacity, Niels von Holst was involved in art thefts in Poland and Russia
  3. ↑ Against the current . In: Der Spiegel No. 8, 1968 of February 5, 1968.


personal data
SURNAME Hentzen, Alfred
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German art historian and museum director
DATE OF BIRTH May 12, 1903
PLACE OF BIRTH Lennep
DATE OF DEATH January 8, 1985
Place of death Hamburg