Arthur Kauffmann

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Arthur I. Kauffmann (born June 11, 1887 in Stuttgart ; died 1983 ) was a German-British art historian and art dealer .

Life

Arthur Kauffmann was a son of the businessman Raffaele Kauffmann and Fanny Levy. He studied at the TH Berlin , the University of Erlangen and the École du Louvre and received his doctorate in Erlangen in 1910 with a dissertation on Giocondo Albertolli . He went to Paris to learn the profession of art auctioneer at the Hôtel Drouot auction house . Kauffmann was a soldier in World War I and was promoted to battalion commander.

Kauffmann entered the business of the Munich art dealer Hugo Helbing in 1919 and set up the branch in Frankfurt am Main at 8 Bockenheimer Landstrasse . He received power of attorney and became a partner in 1923. In 1922 he married the doctor Tamara Karp from Riga, the son Edgar Alexander "Sascha" Kauffmann became a doctor in England, the son Claus Michael Kauffmann became an art historian.

Kauffmann published 51 auction catalogs by 1937 . After Helbing withdrew from the business in 1934, he was the sole owner. At the same time, he worked as a teacher and school councilor at the Philanthropin and as a volunteer at the Frankfurt Jewish Museum .

After the handover of power to the National Socialists in 1933, the approval of the business was not to be renewed in Frankfurt in 1935. After a protest from the local economy about the importance of the art auctions held near Helbing for tourism, Kauffmann was able to continue working to a limited extent until 1938. In 1938 the owner of the property, Maximilian von Goldschmidt-Rothschild, was forced to sell , and after a renovation by the city of Frankfurt, the touring exhibition Degenerate Art stopped there in the summer of 1939 . Kauffmann and his family managed to emigrate to Great Britain in 1938; Hugo Helbing died in 1938 from injuries inflicted on him during the November 1938 pogroms .

From the workshop of Hieronymus Bosch, from Kauffmann as a gift to Boston

Kauffmann opened a gallery in London's West End in 1939 . He received British citizenship in 1947. After the war he worked as a consultant for private art collectors, advised the Swiss collector Emil Georg Bührle and, after his death in 1956, helped set up the EG Bührle Collection Foundation . In 1956 he donated the side panels of a tryptych from the workshop of Hieronymus Bosch to the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston . Kauffmann was a member of the British Antique Dealers' Association and the Oriental Ceramic Society .

Fonts (selection)

  • Giocondo Albertolli the ornamenter of Italian classicism. Heitz, Strasbourg 1911. Erlangen, Univ., Diss., 1910
  • A Chinese image from the Sproesser collection. In: The Cicerone, Leipzig. 16: 812-813 (1924)
  • Collection Dr. Stefan von Licht, Vienna Hand drawings and watercolors by old and modern masters from the 16th to 19th centuries. Helbing, Frankfurt am Main 1927.
  • Paintings from museum holdings, antiques from various holdings: Auction: Wednesday, June 24, 1936, 10 a.m. in the morning and 3 a.m. in the afternoon, Hugo Helbing, Frankfurt am Main, art dealer and art auction house, Inh. Arthur Kauffmann, Bockenheimer Landstrasse 8. Hugo Helbing, Frankfurt am Main 1936.
  • Art possession of a Berlin collector: Auction: Tuesday, June 23, 1936, 10 a.m. in the morning and 3 a.m. in the afternoon. Hugo Helbing, Frankfurt am Main 1936.
  • Foundation EG Bührle Collection = Foundation EG Bührle Collection = Fondation Collection EG Bührle. Artemis, Zurich 1971.

literature

  • Kauffmann, Arthur I. In: Ulrike Wendland: Biographical handbook of German-speaking art historians in exile. Life and work of the scientists persecuted and expelled under National Socialism. Saur, Munich 1999, pp. 359f.
  • Kauffmann, Arthur I. In: Joseph Walk (Ed.): Short biographies on the history of the Jews 1918–1945. Saur, Munich 1988, ISBN 3-598-10477-4 , p. 188.
  • Kauffmann, Arthur I. In: Werner Röder; Herbert A. Strauss (Ed.): International Biographical Dictionary of Central European Emigrés 1933–1945. Volume 2.1. Saur, Munich 1983, ISBN 3-598-10089-2 , p. 604.
  • Claus Michael Kauffmann, Edgar Alexander Kauffmann: Arthur Kauffmann (1887–1983). without publisher, without location, 2011, 2019. 2 references from the Bavarian Library Association
  • Meike Hopp : Art trade under National Socialism: Adolf Weinmüller in Munich and Vienna. Böhlau, Cologne 2012, ISBN 978-3-412-20807-3 .
  • Wolfram Selig : “Aryanization” in Munich, the annihilation of Jewish existence 1937–1939. Metropol, Berlin 2004, ISBN 3-936411-33-6 .
  • Ester Tisa Francini: Jewish Art Dealers in National Socialism: Possibilities and Limits. In: Andrea Bambi, Axel Drecoll, Andrea Baresel-Brand: Alfred Flechtheim: Looted Art and Restitution. de Gruyter Oldenbourg, Berlin 2015, ISBN 978-3-11-040484-5 , pp. 165f.

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ In the handbooks after 1983 Kauffmann was referred to as Arthur I (BHE, Walk, Wendland). His sons name him Arthur in the title of their biographical sketch . For the time being there is no explanation for the origin and meaning of the I.
  2. ↑ Iris Schmeisser: Gloomy Summer , at the Städelmuseum, July 25, 2019
  3. ^ The Bührle Foundation. 1960–1980: the first years. Buehrle
personal data
SURNAME Kauffmann, Arthur
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Kauffmann, Arthur I.
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German-British art historian and art dealer
DATE OF BIRTH June 11, 1887
PLACE OF BIRTH Stuttgart
DATE OF DEATH 1983