Christian Geelhaar

from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Christian Geelhaar (* 1939 in Bern ; † December 31, 1993 in Basel ) was a Swiss art historian and museum director.

Career

After graduating from high school, Geelhaar first worked as a designer in the London studios of the Bally AG shoe factory from 1959 to 1964 . Numerous designs by Geelhaar for women's shoes are kept in the archive of the Zurich University of the Arts . He then began studying art history, English and musicology at the University of Bern , which he completed with a dissertation on the work of Paul Klee and his relationship with the Bauhaus . On January 1, 1976, as a DFG scholarship holder, he became a research assistant at the Staatliche Graphische Sammlung in Munich, but on January 1, 1977, he switched to the Art Museum Basel as curator of the modern department of the Gemäldegalerie .

In 1981 he was appointed director of the Kunstmuseum Basel. He became the successor of Franz Meyer , who no longer wanted to submit to the attempts by Basel interest groups to influence his collection policy. In April 1991 Geelhaar resigned from his position for health reasons, and in 1993 he died of AIDS . Geelhaar has been a board member of the Stonewall Foundation for Lesbians and Gays since 1989 .

Exhibitions and new acquisitions

Pablo Picasso was one of the most important exhibitions he curated . The late work (1981), the presentation of the Nymphéas by Claude Monet in the summer of 1986 and the show of bathers by Paul Cézanne in the fall of 1989. In the first half of 1990, Geelhaar provided the founders when he took over the exhibition at the New York Museum of Modern Art of Cubism in a 190-work dialogue under the title Picasso and Braque. The birth of cubism before.

With the new acquisitions, Geelhaar continued the focus on works of American post-war painting that his predecessor had begun. These included Frank Stella's paintings Sewars Park and West Broadway, both from 1958, Jasper Johns ' paintings Construction with Toy Piano (1954) and The Bath (1988), and Cy Twombly's Untitled (New York City) from 1952.

Fonts

  • Paul Klee. Life and work. DuMont, Cologne 1974, ISBN 3-7701-0726-8 .
    • French: Paul Klee et le Bauhaus Paul Klee and the Bauhaus . Editions Ides et calendes, Neuchâtel 1972; English Paul Klee and the Bauhaus . Adams & Dart, Bath 1973.
  • Clover drawings. Journey to the land of better knowledge. DuMont, Cologne 1975, ISBN 3-7701-0790-X .
  • Jasper Johns: Working Proofs. Traveling exhibition. Kunstmuseum, Basel 1979, ISBN 3-7204-0006-9 .
  • with Monica Stucky: Expressionist painting in Basel around the First World War . Birkhäuser, Basel 1983, ISBN 3-7643-1582-2 .
  • Art Museum Basel. The history of the painting collection and a selection of 250 masterpieces. Association of Friends of the Kunstmuseum Basel, Basel 1992, ISBN 3-7204-0073-5 .

literature

  • Dorothea Christ : The Kunstmuseum Basel - a decade under the direction of Christian Geelhaar . In: Basler Stadtbuch 1991, pp. 146–153 ( digitized version ).
  • Sabine Wölfel: Biographies . In: Michael Semff , Kurt Zeitler (Hrsg.): Artists draw - collectors donate. 250 years of the State Graphic Collection in Munich . Hatje Cantz, Ostfildern 2008, ISBN 978-3-7757-2179-0 , Vol. 3, p. 144.

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Archive of the Zurich University of the Arts .
  2. ^ Paul Klee and the Bauhaus. DuMont, Cologne 1972.
  3. ↑ Catalog: Pablo Picasso. The late work. Kunstmuseum Basel, Basel 1981.
  4. ↑ Catalog: Claude Monet: Nymphéas. Impression, vision. Kunstmuseum Basel / Swiss publishing house, Basel / Zurich 1986.
  5. ↑ catalog: Mary Louise Krumrine: Paul Cezanne: The Bathers. Swiss publishing house, Zurich 1989.
  6. ^ Catalog: William Rubin : Picasso and Braque. Prestel, Munich 1990 (English: Picasso and Braque: Pioneering Cubism. Museum of Modern Art, New York 1989).
personal data
SURNAME Geelhaar, Christian
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Swiss art historian and museum director
DATE OF BIRTH 1939
PLACE OF BIRTH Bern
DATE OF DEATH December 31, 1993
Place of death Basel