Folkwang Museum Association

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Folkwang-Museumsverein e. V.
(FMV)
logo
legal form registered association
founding June 1, 1922 in Essen
Seat Essen ( ⊙ coordinates: 51 ° 26 ′ 30 ″  N , 7 ° 0 ′ 15 ″  E )
purpose Promotion of art and culture
Chair Ulrich Blank
Members about 400
Website www.folkwang-museumsverein.de

The Folkwang-Museumsverein e. V. (FMV) is a non-profit association of art-interested citizens, patrons and companies founded on June 1st, 1922. According to the statutes, its main goal is " to manage and expand the Folkwang Museum founded by Karl Ernst Osthaus together with the city of Essen and to make it permanently usable as a public collection for the purposes of research and popular education". The association is based in Essen, where the Folkwang Museum has been located since October 1922. A special feature of the association compared to almost all other museum associations is that, together with the city of Essen, it is an equal co-owner of the collections of the Folkwang Museum. The association publishes its own periodical for its members, the Folkwang-Mitteilungsblätter.

History of the foundation

The reason for the founding of the Folkwang Museum Association was to fulfill a testamentary decree by Karl Ernst Osthaus and thus to keep the collections of the Folkwang Museum, which he founded in Hagen in 1902, together. Osthaus, who died in March 1921 at the age of 45, had determined, in order to protect his family, that the collection should not be sold for less than ten percent of its value and only as a whole. Despite great efforts, the city of Hagen was unable to do this in the difficult economic times after the First World War. In order to avert the collapse of Osthaus' life's work, an initiative group consisting of local politicians, artists and patrons was formed in Essen in the summer of 1921 to use private funds, in particular donations from large companies, to purchase the amount required by the heirs of Osthaus to purchase the holdings of the Folkwang Museum to raise. Soon the goal was added to enforce Essen as the future seat of the museum. Among the driving forces were District Administrator Friedrich Schöne (from 1922 founding chairman of the Museum Association), Lord Mayor Hans Luther and the director of the Essen Art Museum Ernst Gosebruch .

At the beginning of September 1921, Gosebruch wrote an appeal to local and regional industry and private patrons to raise the amount demanded by the Osthaus family, initially ten million Reichsmarks, then 15 million Reichsmarks given the already advancing inflation. In this appeal, Osthaus already emphasized the modern character of the Folkwang Collection, which should be retained. Already at the beginning of October, after large donations from the Essen citizenship, especially from industry, it became apparent that the amount could be raised, which was finally achieved in March 1922. The largest single donor was the Rheinisch-Westphalian Coal Syndicate (RWKS) with a contribution of six million marks. One of the expectations of the syndicate, including the employee representatives who were already involved in the decision at that time, was "that the museum would only be made accessible to a really large number of people through the relocation to the more centrally located city of Essen and also through ... traveling exhibitions". This involvement of the RWKS would not have been possible without the consent of the industrialist Hugo Stinnes , whose company had acquired parts of the RWKS in 1920. Stinnes later also confessed to promoting the Folkwang Museum, but renounced membership in the museum association; he obviously wanted to be informed exactly, but not invited. He behaved like Gustav Krupp von Bohlen and Halbach , the second of the three largest industrialists in the Ruhr area at the time. The third in this group, August Thyssen , actually did not want to support the project, recognizable because he did not like the museum's focus on modern and contemporary art. After the Second World War, the museum was also sponsored by Thyssen.

Reasons for the position of the Folkwang Museumsverein as co-owner

The fact that the museum association co-owns the holdings of the Folkwang Museum is a major exception in the German and international museum landscape. At the time of its founding in 1921/22, such a public-private partnership was even more unusual; it was actually one of the first collaborations of its kind in Germany. The reason for this solution was that this was the only way to reconcile the interests of the three main parties involved - the public sector (especially the city of Essen), the financing companies and the Osthaus heirs. As early as October 1921 it was the common goal of the Osthaus family and the city of Essen that a private sponsoring association should take responsibility for a Folkwang Museum in Essen. The Osthaus family and Ernst Fuhrmann, who were the administrators of Karl Osthaus’s estate, wanted to maintain influence over the collection through a board of trustees that had to be formed, which was supposed to be sold at a price well below market value. The city of Essen wanted to spend as little tax money as possible on the planned cultural project in the emergency after the First World War. In this context, Lord Mayor Luther succeeded in tough negotiations with the Reich Ministry of Finance, to the advantage of all involved, in getting the Reich and Prussia to largely waive taxes and duties on the planned sale. For this tax reason, the purchase price of 15 million euros from the aforementioned collection of donations was not paid directly to the heirs of Karl Osthaus. Rather, the amount was initially made available to the Prussian Ministry of Finance so that the state could transfer these funds to the city of Essen for the purpose of acquiring the Folkwang Collection.

In the contract with the city of Essen it was determined that the city had to pay for the museum building with its running costs for personnel and maintenance. However, the museum association later contributed significantly to the costs of the various building projects. It was also agreed that the Osthaus Collection would be combined with the holdings of the Essen City Art Museum. - In turn, it was agreed with the heirs of Karl Osthaus that, together with the collection, the rights to the name "Folkwang Museum" would also be transferred to the City of Essen and the Folkwang Museum Association. The actual establishment of the museum association, which emerged from the aforementioned initiative group, then happened on June 1, 1922.

Goals and bodies

Purpose of the association

The purpose and tasks of the Folkwang Museum Association are set out in its statutes as follows: "1. The purpose of the association is to work with the city of Essen to manage the Folkwang Museum founded by Dr. Karl Ernst Osthaus in Hagen, to expand it and to make it public To make the collection permanently usable for the purposes of research and popular education 2. In addition, the association has the general task of promoting the visual arts 3. It is also the association's task to maintain and maintain the international rank and character of the museum by supporting the activities of the academic staff in the field of teaching and research as well as all efforts of the museum for international cooperation in the artistic field. " The purpose of the association as defined in point 1 has been in effect literally since 1922, as has the task of promoting the visual arts. The conscious internationality of the museum and its activities was later anchored in the statutes, in fact it had existed from the beginning - interrupted only during the time of National Socialism.

Bodies

The two governing bodies of the association are the board of directors elected by the general assembly (currently 14 members, according to the statutes at least seven) and the board (currently six members). This is elected by the general meeting on the proposal of the board of directors. In the beginning, the board of directors had eight members (at least five according to the statutes), while the board of directors consisted of only three people who at that time still had to belong to the board of directors.

The cooperation with the city of Essen and the heirs of Karl Osthaus as well as the supervision of the museum operations are carried out by the Board of Trustees of Museum Folkwang. It consists of up to 20 people, ten representatives from the city, five from the museum association and up to five representatives from the Karl Ernst Osthaus Foundation as well as the director of the museum (since 2018 Peter Gorschlüter ). The chairmanship of the board of trustees changes annually between the mayor of the city of Essen and the chairman of the museum association.

Members and Chairmen

The Folkwang Museum Association has around 400 members, including legal entities (mostly companies). Its chairmen (since 1960 "first chairmen") since the foundation were:

From the history of the museum association

1922 to 1929: From the foundation to the opening of the first new museum building

  • October 29, 1922: The Folkwang Museum in Essen opens. The collection transferred from Hagen will initially be housed and shown in the Hans-Goldschmidt-Haus, the former Essen art museum on Bismarck-Straße. In doing so, the city of Essen followed a suggestion by Ernst Gosebruch and the Museum Association. The limited space was accepted because there was the possibility of acquiring a neighboring villa with its property and building a new museum building on it. It is still the location of the Folkwang Museum today.
  • January 10, 1923: In the course of the occupation of the Ruhr , French troops march into Essen. As a result, the hopes and plans of the museum association to develop the Folkwang Museum into the leading museum for modern and contemporary art in a wide area are dashed. Because he had resisted the occupation, District Administrator Schöne, the founding chairman of the museum association, was arrested and given five years' imprisonment for insulting. After a few months he was released early, but had to leave the Ruhr area. That is why he gave up the chairmanship of the association in 1924, but remained an honorary member until the end of his life. Several leading entrepreneurs in the area are arrested for a short time or have to leave the region because of imminent arrest, including co-founders of the FMV.
  • November 13, 1924: The Essen Art Association is re-established as the Folkwang Art Association . It is aimed at all users and visitors of the Folkwang Museum and should also take over its educational work. Members get free entry to the Folkwang Museum. The Folkwang Museum Association, on the other hand, remains the association of the museum's major sponsors and supporters with high contributions and membership only with the approval of the administrative board.
  • from 1925: After the end of the occupation of the Ruhr and inflation in September and December 1923 and the overcoming of the economic crisis in 1924, the Folkwang Museum in Essen began to flourish, which lasted until the beginning of the Great Depression at the end of 1929. At the instigation of and with the support of the Museum Association, the Folkwang collection, which was initially rather small, was significantly expanded and a new museum was built.
  • Spring 1926: In order to move forward with the construction of a suitable museum building, the museum association takes out a loan of almost 1.2 million Reichsmarks. The loan was brokered by the city of Essen, which also paid interest and repayments and in fact assumed the rights and obligations of a builder. This complied with the 1922 contract, according to which the city of Essen and not the museum association is responsible for the appropriate storage of the collection. It now proved to be politically advantageous that the city did not have to officially appear as the owner of the museum due to the special partnership with the museum association. Indeed, in addition to its obligations under the 1922 contract, the museum association soon succeeded in acquiring considerable donations from industry for the building project.
  • May 5, 1929: The newly built Folkwang Museum opens. In 1929 it registered 52,100 visitors, in 1925 there were only 12,500 and in 1927 21,000.

1929 to 1933: Economic crisis, Nazi seizure of power and conformity of the association

  • 1929 to 1932: The global economic crisis drastically reduces the city of Essen's ability to provide funds for the acquisition of art. Donations from the museum association are also falling. The association and its Jewish members in particular are worried about the rise of National Socialism, which was hostile to most of the directions in modern art.
  • 1931: On the initiative of the banker Georg Hirschland , founding member of the FMV, museum director Gosebruch compiles a list of all new acquisitions by the museum association since 1922. The documentation emphasizes that these acquisitions are the property of the museum association and have only been made available to the museum as permanent loans for exhibitions be. The documentation was evidently intended primarily as evidence of the FMV's performance. However, Hirschland may already have recognized the dangers threatening the museum from a National Socialist government.
  • April 5, 1933: Theodor Reismann-Grone (NSDAP) becomes Lord Mayor of Essen. He had been a member of the Nazi-affiliated " Kampfbund für deutsche Kultur " ( Kampfbund für deutsche Kultur ) since 1928 and announced in Berlin in 1932 that he wanted to "smoke out" the Museum Folkwang because it was an "eyesore on Essen", on the one hand because of its "degenerate ladder" (meaning were Ernst Gosebruch and exhibition curator Kurt Wilhelm-Kästner ) and on the other hand because of the "degenerate art" shown there. On June 4th, as the acting mayor, he rushed the local national newspaper as follows: "This museum association, on whose board the Jews Hessberg , Hirschland and Heinemann and others still sit, is not even thinking of joining the conception of the new Germany, and that's it and to clear the table: namely to rob the proven cultural Bolsheviks of their influence ... "
  • November 26, 1933: Mayor Reismann-Grone forces a change to the contract of May 29, 1922 between the city of Essen and the Folkwang Museum Association, specifically: a drastic change in the distribution of votes in the board of trustees at the expense of the association. This should only have five seats, the city of Essen, however, ten. The Osthaus heirs retained a seat with five votes on the board of trustees. The museum director was given a seat with an advisory vote, the Prussian State (succeeding the Reichskunstwarts) a seat with voting rights. The association agreed to this change, also in the hope of keeping Gosebruch as museum director. However, with the new voting ratio, Reismann-Grone was able to force a dismissal of the director, who preceded him in September 1933 with his request for a leave of absence.

1934 to 1945: The museum association under Nazi dominance

  • Beginning of 1934: Against stubborn resistance from the museum association, Mayor Reismann-Grone succeeded in establishing Klaus Graf von Baudissin as the new museum director. Count von Baudissin, a member of the NSDAP since 1929, had made a career in the Staatsgalerie Stuttgart since 1925 and was then still open to modern art. The FMV's preferred candidate was Eberhard Schenk zu Schweinsberg . The members of the association react to the forced changes with a massive reduction in their donations. Their contributions fell from 11,000 RM in 1934 to only 1,500 RM two years later. In contrast, the city of Essen has now doubled its purchase budget to 20,000 RM.
  • 1935/36: After the Nuremberg Laws came into force , Museum Director Graf von Baudissin enforces the exclusion of Jewish members from the museum association. This turns out to be not easy, because the majority of the members were companies, i.e. legal persons, and the regulations of the Nuremberg Laws were hardly applicable to them. Nevertheless, the Jewish members withdrew from the FMV by March 1936. However, the museum association kept its account with Bank Simon Hirschland.
  • Summer 1937: In two waves, on March 6-11 July and on 24./25. On August 28th, the Museum Folkwang lost a large part of its holdings of modern and contemporary art, almost 150 paintings, watercolors and prints, a total of around 1,400 works, with the active participation of the director, Count von Baudissin, who was forced on it. Both expropriations violated the property rights of the museum association and the continuing rights of the Osthaus heirs. A few days later, some of the objects expropriated in July were shown in the Munich exhibition " Degenerate Art ". The larger, second expropriation campaign also violated the legal norms still in force at the time so massively that the museum staff had to commit themselves in writing to the strictest confidentiality. Among the works lost in the summer of 1937 was Franz Marc's "The Three Red Horses", which the museum - like most of the works that were lost at the time - did not get back after 1945.
  • As a result, the Folkwang Museum increasingly became a 19th century gallery. Numerous "Aryanized" works of art were shown there, not least from the holdings of Georg Hirschland, who did not emigrate to the USA until 1938, as well as works of art that had been requisitioned in countries occupied by Germany or bought at unreasonably low prices, especially in France.
  • March 11, 1945: During the last war air raid on the city of Essen, the museum building, which opened in 1929, is largely destroyed. A large part of the holdings had been relocated in 1942, but some were destroyed in the air raid or later looting. One month later, on April 11, 1945, Essen was captured by American troops.

1945 to 1960: From the end of the war to the opening of the second new museum building

  • May 1946: With a meeting of the remaining board members of the Folkwang Museumsverein in Adalbert Colsmann's house in Langenberg, the FMV resumes its activities. The six attendees confirmed Colsmann as chairman and formulated four goals: 1. The remaining part of the collection should be exhibited again as soon as possible. 2. The original proportion of votes in the Board of Trustees should be restored. 3. The whereabouts of the works confiscated in 1937 should be clarified. 4. Exhibition rooms should be sought as close as possible to or in the city of Essen.
  • May 24, 1946: The British military administration makes it clear to museum directors from the Rhineland that all "war acquisitions" must be returned - even those that were possibly acquired without compulsion at market prices and / or with the expressed or tacit consent of the previous owner. In the case of the Folkwang Museum, this particularly affected paintings from the possession of Georg Hirschland. The museum association soon succeeded in making a comparison with the Hirschland family, and the good collaboration that had been in place since 1922 was able to continue over the long term.
  • June 1, 1946: In Hugenpoet Castle , the holdings of the Folkwang Museum that were moved there are made accessible to the public again. - After the British zone administration had released its accounts, the FMV decided to purchase the first two works of art, sculptures by the sculptor Hermann Blumenthal, at the end of 1946 .
  • January 1947: Essen Mayor Gustav Heinemann , who later became Federal President, welcomes two FMV board members. Heinemann refers to the achievements of the city of Essen for the Museum Folkwang since 1922 and assures further good cooperation. However, he is not prepared to return to the proportion of votes in the Board of Trustees that existed before November 1933. In fact, the city of Essen provided the Museum Folkwang with 8,000 Reichsmarks for its running costs between 1946 and 1948, 10,000 DM in 1949 and 15,000 DM in each of the following two years. In addition, from 1949 contributions were made for the purchase of works of art.
  • 1950: The museum association can again book membership fees and donations from the industry. A first phase of construction is being completed on the old museum grounds on Bismarckstrasse, so that exhibitions could be shown there again. In the years that followed, intensive negotiations were held about whether the Folkwang Museum should be rebuilt at this old location or whether it should become part of a large museum project at Villa Hügel .
  • October 1954: Ernst Henke learns from Essen's Mayor Hans Toussaint (CDU) that the city has decided to continue building the museum at the old location. It should now move forward quickly, the then financially strong city wants to provide several million marks for it. Construction finally began in 1957. Hermann Josef Abs , who in his capacity as a member and then chairman of the RWE supervisory board, actively promoted the project through the museum association, played an important role . RWE is a member of the FMV, Abs joined in person in June 1960, shortly after the opening of the second new museum building.
  • 1959 Federal President Theodor Heuss donates 25,000 DM to the Folkwang Museum Association, "because of the great losses that the Museum Association suffered as a result of National Socialism".
  • The new building was opened on May 27, 1960. As the new chairman of the FMV, Ernst Henke succeeds in increasing the number of members to 78, including 64 companies and 14 personal members. The annual contribution income increases to 73,000 DM plus donations of several hundred thousand marks.

The further development of the museum association up to the opening of the extension in 1983

  • In the 1960s and 1970s, the Folkwang Museum's holdings were significantly expanded. The FMV and third party sponsors acquired by it played a significant role in the financing of the purchases, especially since the financial situation of the city of Essen deteriorated again with the start of the mining crisis in 1958 and from the mid-1960s onwards it had hardly any funds for art purchases.
  • From the beginning / middle of the 1960s, the work of the FMV became increasingly international. Works from the Folkwang Collection are loaned to outstanding museums around the world. The FMV also cooperates more and more closely with museums in what was then the Eastern Bloc.
  • January 27, 1969: Ernst Henke retires from the office of FMV chairman for reasons of age. His successor is Berthold von Bohlen und Halbach. The association has been holding festive annual receptions since 1970, which was introduced by Ernst Henke.
  • Due to the many acquisitions, the exhibition space in the museum building from 1960 is no longer sufficient, and around 40 percent of the new acquisitions can no longer be shown. In the mid-1970s, plans for an extension were concretized. Financed by the FMV, an architectural competition takes place in 1976.
  • On October 28, 1983, the extension in Bismarckstrasse was inaugurated.
  • In the 1980s, many companies changed their engagement as patrons by building up their own art collections. This form of "cultural sponsoring" should be more precisely tailored to the appearance of the respective company and promote its image more than donations to a museum operated by a third party. This development is problematic for the FMV. He reacts to this by increasingly holding special exhibitions in which the sponsoring company appears more clearly. Several exhibitions of this kind since the 1970s have become great successes.

The development of the museum association since the 1990s

  • In the years 1996 to 1999 the building from 1960 will be renovated. In addition to its contractual obligation, the building project is co-financed to a considerable extent by the museum association.
  • A few years later it becomes clear that for reasons of fire protection, the new building opened in 1983 must also be renovated or replaced. The FMV soon found that there was hardly any sponsorship money to be raised for a renovation. Since the city of Essen could not provide any funds for a large building project of a cultural nature at this time, even demolishing the new building and reducing the museum to the renovated Albau was considered at times. Finally, it is possible the museum association in 2006, with significant participation of Berthold Beitz the Alfred Krupp von Bohlen to Halbach Foundation to win a major donation of 55 million euros for a new building.
  • David Chipperfield prevails in the architectural competition for the new building . At the same time, the London architect's office is rebuilding the New Museum on Cathedral Island in Berlin . Soon there is agreement that the new building must be completed by 2010, when the Ruhr area is the European Capital of Culture . The Folkwang Museum Association will donate a total of 3.2 million euros to the city of Essen between 2005 and 2010 for the structural adaptation of the listed old building to the new Chipperfield building and for planning measures.
  • In 2008 the heirs of Karl Osthaus set up the Karl Ernst Osthaus Foundation at the suggestion of the Folkwang Museum Association in order to pool their voices in the Board of Trustees. In the following, the City of Essen, the Museum Association and the Osthaus heirs, amending the 1922 contract, agree that the votes of the heirs in the museum's board of trustees will be transferred to the newly established foundation. The dissent that has existed since 1946 between the FMV and the city of Essen about the change in voting rights of 1933, which however did not affect the close cooperation, is formally resolved.
  • The new museum building will open at the beginning of 2010. This year, the Folkwang Museum achieved a new visitor record with over a million guests.
  • In November 2016 it became known that the married couple Walter and Liselotte Griese bequeathed their extensive art collection and a fortune running into the millions to the Folkwang-Museumsverein. The two patrons were members of the FMV themselves. "This estate is unique to us," said FMV Chairman Ulrich Blank, welcoming the donation.

literature

  • Folkwang-Museumsverein (Ed.): Collector diligence and foundation will. 90 years of the Folkwang Museum Association - 90 years of the Folkwang Museum , author: Ulrike Laufer, Edition Folkwang / Steidl, Göttingen 2012, ISBN 978-3-86930-601-8 .
  • Folkwang-Museumsverein (ed.): Pictures for a collection. Museum Folkwang Essen . DuMont, Cologne 1994, ISBN 3-7701-3433-8 .
  • Tayfun Belgin , Christoph Dorsz (Ed.): The Folkwang Impulse. The museum from 1902 until today . New Folkwang Verlag, Hagen 2012.
  • Andreas Lepik: The return of art to life: Karl Ernst Osthaus and the Folkwang Museum. In: Manet to van Gogh, Hugo von Tschudi and the struggle for modernity. Exhibition catalog. Prestel, Berlin / Munich 1996, ISBN 3-7913-1748-2 .

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Laufer (2012), p. 42f.
  2. ↑ Laufer (2012), p. 43
  3. ↑ Laufer (2012), p. 46
  4. ↑ Laufer (2012), p. 48
  5. ^ Archive Museum Folkwang, D2, report on "Facts concerning the Folkwang Museum".
  6. ↑ Laufer (2012), p. 51
  7. ↑ Laufer (2012), p. 52
  8. ↑ Laufer (2012), p. 49
  9. ↑ Laufer (2012), p. 48f.
  10. ↑ § 1 of the statutes of the association in the version of April 5, 2011, source: FMV website.
  11. ↑ https://www.folkwang-museumsverein.de/ueber-uns/#Kuratorium
  12. ↑ Laufer (2012), p. 57f.
  13. ↑ u. a. Laufer (2012), p. 64
  14. ↑ Laufer (2012), p. 65
  15. ↑ Laufer (2012), p. 69ff
  16. ↑ Laufer (2012), p. 74
  17. ↑ Laufer (2012), p. 93
  18. ↑ Laufer (2012), p. 102
  19. ↑ Laufer (2012), p. 104
  20. ↑ Laufer (2012), p. 106
  21. ↑ Laufer (2012), p. 118
  22. ↑ Laufer (2012), p. 120
  23. ↑ Laufer (2012), p. 122f. and p. 203
  24. ↑ Laufer (2012), p. 122
  25. ↑ Laufer (2012), p. 124f.
  26. ↑ Laufer (2012), pp. 141–144
  27. ↑ Laufer (2012), pp. 146–153 and Chronicle of the Folkwang Museum
  28. ↑ Laufer (2012), p. 174
  29. ↑ Laufer (2012), pp. 163–173
  30. ↑ Laufer (2012), pp. 185ff
  31. ↑ Laufer (2012), p. 190; Year corrected according to the chronicle on the Folkwang Museum website
  32. ↑ Laufer (2012), p. 202
  33. ↑ Laufer (2012), pp. 207ff.
  34. ↑ Laufer (2012), p. 214
  35. ↑ Laufer (2012), pp. 202f.
  36. ↑ Laufer (2012), p. 203
  37. ↑ Laufer (2012), p. 220
  38. ↑ Laufer (2012), p. 220
  39. ↑ Laufer (2012), p. 235
  40. ↑ Laufer (2012), p. 251
  41. ↑ Laufer (2012), p. 261ff
  42. ↑ Laufer (2012), p. 283
  43. ↑ Laufer (2012), pp. 278f
  44. ↑ Laufer (2012), p. 285
  45. ↑ Laufer (2012), p. 300, 304
  46. ↑ Laufer (2012), p. 329f.
  47. ↑ Laufer (2012), p. 346f.
  48. ↑ Laufer (2012), p. 356
  49. ↑ Laufer (2012), p. 386ff
  50. ↑ Laufer (2012), p. 388
  51. ^ Laufer (2012), pp. 389, 406
  52. ↑ Laufer (2012), p. 406
  53. ↑ Laufer (2012), p. 406
  54. ↑ Laufer (2012), pp. 407-410
  55. ↑ Martina Schürmann: Heritage for the Folkwang Museum, in WAZ from November 16, 2016