August Feigel

August Feigel (born March 2, 1880 in Bensheim , † January 29, 1966 in Darmstadt ) was a German art historian and museum director.

Life

August Feigel was born in March 1880 as the son of Johann Baptist Feigel II (1843-1921) and his wife Katharina Gärtner (1851-1929) in Bensheim. He was baptized a Catholic.

Feigel was to do a banking apprenticeship at the father's request. On the mediation of the Mainz cathedral capitular Friedrich Schneider (clergyman) (1836–1907) I studied art history in Berlin and Halle. His teachers were v. a. Heinrich Wölfflin and Adolph Goldschmidt . In the spring of 1907 Feigel received his doctorate from Goldschmidt on the subject of "The Wimpfen Collegiate Church and its sculptural jewelry". He then began as a scientific volunteer at the Grand Ducal Museum in Darmstadt (since 1920: Hessisches Landesmuseum Darmstadt ). In 1912 he became curator of the museum.

On October 1, 1926, he became head of the art and cultural history collections. After Friedrich Back (art historian) left the company , who retired in 1926, he was finally appointed director of the museum in 1934.

Large special exhibitions have been carried out under his responsibility and direction: "Ancient Art on the Middle Rhine" in 1927, "Johann Konrad Seekatz" in 1934 and "German Glass" in 1935.

The sale of Italian and French works of art made it possible to acquire numerous important works of art from the Middle Ages and stained glass.

With the beginning of the Second World War Feigel began to gradually evacuate the valuable holdings. In 1942/43 these relocations were essentially complete. The museum remained largely open during World War II until it was destroyed on September 11, 1944. However, only a small selection of the holdings was shown.

At the end of the war, the museum building was largely unusable. With the support of Gisela Bergsträsser (1911–2006), Feigel tried to rebuild the museum and bring back the relocated holdings. These processes were only completed under his successor Erich Wiese .

August Feigel retired on January 1, 1949. He died on January 29, 1966 at the age of 86 in Darmstadt. August Feigel was married to Therese Elisabeth Müller (1890–1953) since 1911. The marriage resulted in three sons and two daughters.

Since 1899 he was a member of the Catholic student union AV Austria Innsbruck . Later he became a member of the KDStV Rheinpfalz Darmstadt.

Honors

• 1922: Awarded the title of professor

Publications

Feigel published works on sculpture of the Middle Ages and on Matthias Grünewald .

• 1907: The Wimpfen Collegiate Church and its sculptural decorations , Halle.
• 1927: Ancient art on the Middle Rhine , Darmstadt.
• 1935: German glass: 2000 years of glass refinement , Darmstadt.

literature

• Article August Feigel , in: Darmstädter Stadtlexikon, Stuttgart 2006, pp. 240f.
• Hessian State Museum Darmstadt. Museum guide , Regensburg 2015.