Bernhard Koehler
Bernhard Koehler (born November 7, 1849 in Berlin ; † March 30, 1927 there ) was a German industrialist and art patron.
Live and act
Koehler, who came from a merchant family, founded the mechanical workshops in Berlin in 1876 for the manufacture of metal goods, stamps and engravings for industrial, office and jewelry needs. His company, based in Berlin-Kreuzberg , was internationally successful and earned the considerable family fortune.
Elisabeth Gerhardt , a niece of Koehler, told her uncle in 1907 about a planned trip to Paris by her friend August Macke . Without knowing Macke personally, Koehler supported the young painter with 300 francs to enable a longer stay in the French capital. Only after returning from Paris did they get to know each other and an intense friendship developed. Macke recommended that Koehler read Julius Meier-Graefe's book Development History of Modern Art for a better understanding of contemporary painting . This book served Koehler as a guide in expanding his art collection, which was previously limited to German art of the 19th century and handicrafts. In 1908 he traveled to Paris with Macke and Elisabeth Gerhardt to purchase works by French artists from the art dealers Bernheim-Jeune , Paul Durand-Ruel and Ambroise Vollard .
Elisabeth Gerhardt married August Macke in 1909 and moved with him to the Tegernsee. During Koehler's visits to Macke and his niece in 1910, he met Franz Marc . Koehler's son Bernhard had the Munich gallery owner Franz Josef Brakl send some of Marc's pictures to his father. This then visited Marc in his studio at the end of January 1910 and bought the 1905 painting The Dead Sparrow , which stood on Marc's desk and which the artist was extremely reluctant to part with. The picture formed the cornerstone of Koehler's extensive Marc collection. As a result, he supported the artist, who lived on the poverty line, with 200 marks a month and received pictures of his choice in return, initially limited to one year. Marc also advised him on building his collection. Through his mediation, Koehler also got to know the artists of the Neue Künstlervereinigung München in 1911 . In the same year, the artist community Der Blaue Reiter emerged from this group , whose only almanac he supported financially.
In addition to the works listed in the catalog for the first exhibition of the Blue Rider, such as Marc's Yellow Cow and Deer in the Forest I , his monkey frieze was hung, which was not listed in the catalog because Bernhard Koehler had made it available from his collection at short notice. His material donations also made the First German Autumn Salon possible in 1913. This exhibition, organized by Herwarth Walden , August Macke and Franz Marc in Berlin, showed works by 90 artists of the international avant-garde and is still considered one of the most important exhibitions of modern art before the First World war . Koehler also contributed financially to August Macke's trip to Tunis in early 1914.
Those interested in art were always able to view the Koehler collection in his home on request. Here he showed works by modern French artists and expressionism on three floors under museum conditions. Wilhelm Worringer , Ernst Gosebruch and Julius Meier-Graefe were among the numerous German and international art scholars and museum directors who visited his collection .
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Bernhard Koehler died in Berlin on March 30, 1927. His grave is in the old churchyard of the St. Jacobi parish in Neukölln .
Bernhard Koehler Foundation
After Koehler's death, his son Bernhard (1882–1964) inherited the extensive art collection. During the Great Depression at the end of the 1920s, he was forced to sell some Impressionist pictures from his father's collection. Towards the end of the Second World War , a bomb attack destroyed the factory as well as the home of the Koehler family. The main part of the art collection, which was irretrievably destroyed, was in the house. Some of the Impressionist paintings and one of El Greco's works had previously been stored in the Berlin National Gallery and ended up in Russia as looted art after the end of the war . They are currently in the Hermitage in Saint Petersburg and in the Pushkin Museum in Moscow. Some of the Expressionist paintings that were outsourced by the family have been on view as the Bernhard Koehler Foundation in the Städtische Galerie im Lenbachhaus in Munich since 1965 .
The collection
Before meeting August Macke, Bernhard Koehler's art collection corresponded to typical upper-class tastes in Berlin at the turn of the century. The Berlin entrepreneurial villa of the Koehler family was adorned with numerous works by German artists of the 19th century and showed no innovative features. It was only through Meier-Graefe's descriptions that Koehler discovered modern French artists. In expanding his collection, he followed Meier-Graefe and acquired at least one work from each of the artists he named. On his first visit to Paris, he first acquired a work of realism in the form of Femme couchée by Gustave Courbet . There were also the first impressionist paintings by Claude Monet and Pierre-Auguste Renoir . Later he also acquired Camille Pissarro , Edgar Degas , Édouard Manet ( portrait of the dancer Rosita Mauri ) and Paul Cézanne . In addition, Koehler chose works by the neo-impressionists Vincent van Gogh , Paul Gauguin , Georges Seurat and Paul Signac for his collection. Koehler also bought pictures by Pierre Bonnard and Henri Matisse and a bronze figure by Aristide Maillol . At the same time, Koehler built up an extensive collection of his artist friends August Macke and Franz Marc. Koehler owned more than 50 paintings, watercolors and drawings from Macke, and he received more than 70 works from Marc, including some small bronzes. Both artists advised the collector on further purchases. After 1910, images of Fauvism came to the Koehler Collection, which included works by Albert Marquet , Charles Camoin and Charles Henri Manguin .
Of the members of the Neue Künstlervereinigung München , works by Pierre-Paul Girieud and Alexander Kanoldt found their way into Koehler's collection. There was also a picture by Pablo Picasso and the painting Rock Landscape by André Derain . In addition, Koehler acquired two works by Henri Rousseau , who received special recognition from the artists of the Blue Rider . In 1911 Koehler bought the painting Tour Eiffel from Robert Delaunay and was the first private collector in Germany to acquire one of his works. Inspired by Julius Meier-Graefe's rediscovery of El Greco , his 1605 John the Baptist also found its way into Koehler's collection as a forerunner of modern painting. Other artists represented in this collection were Umberto Boccioni , Heinrich Campendonk , Marc Chagall , Lovis Corinth , Lyonel Feininger , Ferdinand Hodler , Alexej Jawlensky , Wassily Kandinsky , Paul Klee , Oskar Kokoschka , Walter Leistikow , Amedeo Modigliani , Wilhelm Morgner , Gabriele Münter , Edvard Munch and Max Slevogt .
gallery
Gustave Courbet:
Femme couchée
today Hermitage,
St. Petersburg
Pierre-Auguste Renoir:
La Promenade
today Getty Museum,
Los Angeles
Paul Gauguin:
Where are you going?
today State Gallery,
Stuttgart
Vincent van Gogh: Fishing Boats in Saintes-Marie
today Hermitage,
St. Petersburg
Paul Cezanne:
Mont Sainte-Victoire
today Hermitage,
St. Petersburg
Georges Seurat:
View of Fort Samson
today Hermitage,
St. Petersburg
August Macke:
Indians on horses
today Lenbachhaus, Munich
Franz Marc:
Cats on a red cloth , 1909/10, private collection
Franz Marc:
Franz Marc: Deer in the monastery garden , 1912,
today Lenbachhaus, Munich
literature
- Berlinische Galerie (Ed.): Stations of Modernism Berlin 1988 ISBN 3-87584-256-1
- Albert Kostenewitsch: From the Hermitage, lost masterpieces of German private collections, Munich 1995 ISBN 3-463-40278-5
- Andrea Pophanken, Felix Billeter (ed.): The modern age and their collectors Berlin 2001 ISBN 3-05-003546-3
Web links
- Cemetery Alter St. Jacobi-Friedhof : Photos of the grave site and short biography
Individual evidence
- ^ Silvia Schmidt-Bauer: The Bernhard Koehler Collection in Pophanken / Billeter: The Modern Age and Its Collectors, p. 267
- ↑ Susanna Partsch: Franz Marc , Taschen, Cologne 2005, ISBN 978-3-8228-5585-0 , p. 21 f.
- ^ Helmut Friedel, Annegret Hoberg: The Blue Rider in the Lenbachhaus Munich . Prestel, Munich 2004, p. 61 f
- ^ Berlinische Galerie: Stations of Modernism, p. 131
- ↑ Albert Kostenewitsch: From the Hermitage S. 16
- ^ Factory, house and collection Bernhard Koehler , berlinintensiv.de, accessed on March 12, 2013
| personal data | |
|---|---|
| SURNAME | Koehler, Bernhard |
| BRIEF DESCRIPTION | German industrialist and patron of the arts |
| DATE OF BIRTH | November 7, 1849 |
| PLACE OF BIRTH | Berlin |
| DATE OF DEATH | March 30, 1927 |
| Place of death | Berlin |