Felix Kuetgens

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Felix Kuetgens

Felix Kuetgens (born April 16, 1890 in Aachen ; † February 8, 1976 there ) was director of the municipal museums in Aachen from 1923 to 1955 .

Live and act

After graduating from the Schiller-Gymnasium in Cologne , Felix Kuetgens studied art history both at the University of Bonn with Paul Clemen and at the University of Berlin with Adolph Goldschmidt . His final dissertation on Parmigianino was rated very good .

In 1920 Kuetgens received the post of assistant to the director of the city museums in Aachen, Hermann Schweitzer , and in 1923 took over the board of this institution. While Schweitzer was primarily interested in the sculpture collection, Kuetgens, as a hermeneuticist, turned his attention to the picture gallery.

Together with archive director Albert Huyskens , Kuetgens was commissioned in 1924 to organize the exhibition A Thousand Years of Affiliation of the Rhineland to the Reich from May to September 1925 in the Imperial Hall of Aachen City Hall . The main focus of this exhibition was the importance of the city of Aachen in the history of the German Empire. One of the works of art was Dietrich von Rath's centerpiece , a miniature of the Aachen market fountain that Kuetgens acquired for the Suermondt Museum .

In 1925, during the Aachen Millennium Exhibition , Kuetgens headed the Aachen Goldsmithing Department with Gustav Grimme , the father of the Aachen art historian Ernst Günther Grimme , and the Architecture and Applied Arts exhibition . For the 50th anniversary of the Aachen Museum Association , he paid tribute to the painter Johann Baptist Joseph Bastiné with a monograph and an exhibition homage in 1927/28 . In 1928 Kuetgens upgraded the CHIO Aachen with a special exhibition in which he presented 75 paintings and graphics by around 20 artists under the motto of horse and rider, horse and carriage in multiple sporting achievements . As museum director he was also the editor of the Aachener Kunstblätter (AKB).

Among the special merits of Kuetgens the establishment of one Couven Museum in 1925 acquired by the city of Aachen and by Jakob Couven built house Fey on Seilgraben to which he also built by Johann Joseph Couven garden shed Nuellens let translocate. This museum presented the Aachen- Liège living culture of the 18th and 19th centuries. After its destruction in World War II , Kuetgens founded the Couven Museum for the second time in 1958, this time in the Monheim am Hühnerdieb house , also a couven building. The inventory included works by Petrus Nicolaas Gagini , Bastiné and Billotte , among others .

At the beginning of the Second World War, Kuetgens personally made sure that the Aachen works of art were moved to safe locations. After the German occupation of France in 1940, he was appointed head of the war administrative council of the art protection department at the military commander in France and charged with protecting existing and deposited works of art in Paris and protecting them from unauthorized access. In Aachen itself, on September 11, 1944, Kuetgens was commissioned to represent the absent city administration. The incumbent Mayor Quirin Jansen authorized him to set up an interim administration as an emergency administrator under the city commandant Gerhard Graf von Schwerin . This was supposed to take care of the approx. 30,000 inhabitants who remained after the ordered evacuation of Aachen and who were unable or unwilling to be transported, as well as the infrastructure, and to hand over the administration of Aachen to the Allies in a hopeless military situation. Kuetgens was appointed because he had not emerged politically as a senior member of the authority and had confidence among the population. However, only four days later he and his staff were removed from office by district leader Eduard Schmeer .

At the end of his work as museum director of the Suermondt Museum, the exhibition The 17th Century with Flemish and Dutch paintings from private collections in Aachen was held in 1955 . During his entire tenure, Kuetgens was instrumental in promoting the museum presentation and journalistic cataloging of the works of art. After leaving office, he was elected chairman of the Aachen History Association from 1955 to 1962 . For his many services, Kuetgens received honorary membership of the Aachen Museum Association. In addition, Kuetgens had been a member of Club Aachener Casino since 1923 and was also a member of its board in the 1960s.

In 1956 he received the Cross of Merit 1st Class of the Federal Republic of Germany.

Felix Kuetgens found his final resting place in the family crypt in Aachen's Ostfriedhof .

Publications (selection)

  • Report on the activities of the city museums . Aachener Kunstblätter (AKB) 11 (1924), pp. 5–22.
  • Report on the activities of the museum association . AKB 11 (1924), pp. 23-30.
  • with OE Mayer: Report on the activities of the city museums in 1924 and 1925 . AKB 12/13 (1926), pp. 5-22.
  • Report on the activities of the museum association . AKB 12/13 (1926), pp. 23-27.
  • Bastiné memorial exhibition. April 10 to May 31, 1927 . Victor and Mindel, Aachen 1927.
  • Johann Baptist Joseph Bastiné. The forgotten student of David and Alfred Rethel's first teacher . Aachen 1928.
  • Report on the activities of the municipal museums in the administrative year 1926 (April 1, 1926 to March 31, 1927) . AKB 14 (1928), pp. 19-31.
  • Report on the activities of the museum association . AKB 14 (1928), pp. 31-36.
  • The restoration work on the Rethel frescoes in the Kaisersaal of the town hall . In: Zeitschrift für Rheinische Heimatpflege (ZfRH) 2 (1930/31), pp. 13-17.
  • Report on the activities of the city museums from 1927 to 1930 . AKB 15 (1931), pp. 13-36.
  • Report on the activities of the museum association . AKB 15 (1931), pp. 37-39.
  • City Suermondt Museum Aachen. Painting catalog . Aachen 1932.
  • with CE Köhne: The twelve works of art from 1936 in the city's Suermondt Museum in Aachen . AKB, 1936, 3rd special issue.
  • with CE Köhne: The twelve works of art from 1937 in the city's Suermondt Museum in Aachen . AKB, 1937, 4th special issue.
  • with CE Köhne: The twelve works of art from 1938 in the city's Suermondt Museum in Aachen . AKB, 1938, 5th special issue.
  • The Charles frescos by Alfred Rethel along with the color reproduction of the eight wall paintings in the Kaisersaal of the City Hall of Aachen , Verlag Meister der Farbe, Leipzig 1941.
  • Aachen in 1951 , Rheinischer Verein für Denkmalpflege und Heimatschutz, born 1951, p. 81ff.
  • The old Couven Museum . AKB 16 (1957), pp. 7-10.
  • The new Couven Museum . AKB 17/18 (1958/59), pp. 17-24.
  • Heinz Heinrichs . AKB 17/18 (1958/59), pp. 84-85.
  • Gifts . AKB 17/18 (1958/59), pp. 101-102.
  • For the 100th birthday of Professor August von Brandis . AKB 19/20 (1960/61), pp. 131-132.
  • Edwin Suermondt - Heinrich Nauen . AKB 22 (1961), pp. 83-86.
  • A gift from Napoleon to the Aachen family property . In: Journal of the Aachen History Association (ZAGV) 77 (1965), pp. 105-109.

literature

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Official guide through the historical millennium exhibition in Aachen. May to August 1925. La Ruelle , Aachen 1925.
  2. ↑ Use of Kuetgens as an emergency administrator, p. 38/39, et al. ( Memento of November 7, 2013 in the Internet Archive ) (PDF; 616 kB)
  3. ↑ Cf. Felix Kuetgens: Report on my time as deputy mayor of the city of Aachen from September 11 to September 15, 1944 , ZAGV 66/67 (1954/55), pp. 240–249.
personal data
SURNAME Kuetgens, Felix
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German museum director
DATE OF BIRTH April 16, 1890
PLACE OF BIRTH Aachen
DATE OF DEATH February 8, 1976
Place of death Aachen