Cornelius Prize

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The Cornelius Prize was an art prize for the fine arts . The city ​​of Düsseldorf donated it in 1936, named it after Peter von Cornelius , the first director of the Düsseldorf Art Academy , which was re-established in 1819 , and awarded it annually on the anniversary of the death of the activist Albert Leo Schlageter (May 26, 1923). As an important instrument of urban cultural policy , the prize was taken up again after the National Socialist era and was awarded to painters and sculptors from 1948 to 1967 on the day the city ​​was founded (August 14, 1288) .

history

The Cornelius Prize of the City of Düsseldorf was founded in 1936 to “promote 'contemporary' art”. Connections with the history of the Weimar Republic and with the cultural policy of National Socialism as well as the so-called "Schlageter cult" consist in the fact that the prize was awarded annually on the anniversary of the death of the " Ruhrkampf " activist Schlageter, who was fused in Düsseldorf . With the planning and construction of the Schlageter National Monument, Düsseldorf had made a name for itself as one of the main centers of this cult since 1926 .

In 1947 the prize, which in addition to the Immermann Prize and the Robert Schumann Prize functioned as a central instrument of the city's cultural promotion, was revived by an annual call for proposals and awarded again from 1948 to 1967. Representatives of important institutions dealing with the visual arts from the city of Düsseldorf were appointed to a jury. In 1952 it included Werner Doede , the head of the municipal art collections , Hildebrand Gurlitt , the head of the art association for the Rhineland and Westphalia , Friedrich Tamms , representative of the Düsseldorf city administration, and Zoltan Székessy , professor of sculpture at the Düsseldorf Academy. From 1954 onwards, the price, which went to painters and sculptors at DM 5000, was supplemented by a sponsorship award for younger and less established artists of DM 2000.

Award winners (selection)

literature

  • Karla Fohrbeck, Andreas Johannes Wiesand: Handbook of cultural prizes and individual artist support in the Federal Republic of Germany, 1978 . DuMont, Cologne 1978, ISBN 978-3-7701-1089-6 , p. 219.
  • Daniela Wilms: Competition for the Modern. On the history of the art trade in Cologne after 1945 . Writings on modern art historiography, Akademie Verlag, Berlin 2012, ISBN 978-3-05-005197-0 , p. 299 ( Google Books ).
  • Wolfgang Horn: Cultural Policy in Düsseldorf. Situation and new beginning after 1945 . Leske Verlag, Opladen 1981, ISBN 978-3-8100-0396-6 , p. 94 ( Google Books ).

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Peter Trumpf: Awards, premiums, privileges . Keyser, Heidelberg / Munich 1959, pp. 133, 143