Ernst Gosebruch

Ernst Gosebruch (born May 4, 1872 in Essen , † February 2, 1953 ) was a German art historian . For modern art he was one of the most important German museum directors in the first third of the 20th century.

Life

Ernst Gosebruch received a humanistic education at the Royal High School at Burgplatz in Essen . After studying philology in Munich, Geneva and Berlin and a few years as a private teacher, he studied art history in Berlin and Paris. From 1906 traineeship at the art museum in Essen, whose management he took over from 1909. He acquired works by Chagall , Derain , van Gogh , Heckel , Kirchner , Lehmbruck , Macke , Mueller , Nolde , Pechstein , Schmidt-Rottluff , Signac and made the museum into one of the most progressive German houses within a few years. When the art patron Karl Ernst Osthaus died in 1921 , he succeeded in convincing the city of Essen and potent patrons to acquire the Osthaus'sche art collection from his Hagen Folkwang Museum for the Essen Museum, which has been called Museum Folkwang ever since .

With the new acquisition, Essen was obliged to build a new house for this sophisticated collection. This task posed many problems for Gosebruch. The new building was built between 1925–1929, but the lofty plans soon reached their limits due to the onset of the global economic crisis . Gosebruch wanted to give German artists the opportunity to paint murals in the new museum building. A painting of the fountain area by Oskar Schlemmer was completed. Gosebruch could not finance a painting of the ballroom by Ernst Ludwig Kirchner and it also failed because of deep misunderstandings between Gosebruch and the artist.

The Folkwang Museum in Essen had been catapulted to the top of German museums as a house for modern art as a result of the major acquisition from Hagen. However, Gosebruch's own purchases were entirely subjective. Many important modern artists and art movements were missing from his museum. Also, the Essen audience by no means always agreed with the course of the house. Gosebruch found himself exposed to increasing public hostility.

In 1933, the National Socialists took the lead in these currents . Although it was not possible for them to dismiss Gosebruch due to the legal structure of the museum, he was put under so much pressure that he agreed to take early retirement in September 1933. Gosebruch went to Berlin and had to watch as his successor, the staunch National Socialist Klaus Graf von Baudissin , destroyed his life's work. He himself worked as an advisor to prominent art collectors for many years. He completely lost his personal small art collection during the war. After the war he moved to Lübeck and later to Munich.

His son Martin Gosebruch also became an art historian.

literature

• Paul Vogt : The Museum Folkwang Essen , Cologne 1972.
• Claudia Gemmeke: Ernst Gosebruch. In: Henrike Junge (Ed.): Avantgarde and Audience , Cologne, Weimar, Vienna 1992.
• Ulrike Wendland: Biographical handbook of German-speaking art historians in exile. Life and work of the scientists persecuted and expelled under National Socialism. Part 1: A – K. Saur, Munich 1999, ISBN 3-598-11339-0 , pp. 234-235.

Web links

• Literature by and about Ernst Gosebruch in the bibliographic database WorldCat