Franz Josef Kohl-Weigand

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Franz Josef Kohl-Weigand

Franz Josef Kohl-Weigand (* December 26, 1900 in Ludwigshafen am Rhein as Franz Josef Kohl ; † March 15, 1972 in St. Ingbert ) was a German entrepreneur , art collector and patron .

biography

Franz Josef Kohl was born as the first child of the Ludwigshafen bank director, commercial councilor and sponsor of the Palatinate local history research Heinrich Kohl. He grew up in Ludwigshafen am Rhein and spent his youth there. In 1930 he married the daughter Auguste of the St. Ingbert entrepreneur Ernst Weigand (iron goods), moved to St. Ingbert and took the surname Kohl-Weigand. One year later, Kohl-Weigand joined the company's management. After the Second World War , he and his brother-in-law Fritz Saeftel managed the reconstruction of the company "Otto Weigand & Sohn", building new office buildings, workers' apartments and warehouses. In 1966 Kohl-Weigand reached his entrepreneurial high point.
In addition to his professional commitment, Kohl-Weigand also got involved in regional history and local research. For many years he was chairman of the St. Ingberter Heimat- und Verkehrsverein.

Franz Josef Kohl-Weigand was buried on March 20, 1972 in the old cemetery in St. Ingbert.

The art collector and patron

In addition to his work as an entrepreneur, Kohl-Weigand developed into a profound connoisseur of contemporary visual arts, a collector and an art patron. He inherited his love of art from his father Heinrich Kohl, who, among other things , devoted himself to the work of contemporary Palatinate artists, especially his friend and painter Max Slevogt . Kohl-Weigand built up his own art collection, the focus of which was on the St. Ingbert artists Albert Weisgerber and Fritz Koelle as well as the Palatinate artists Hans Purrmann , Max Slevogt and Carl Johann Becker-Gundahl . In a special way he promoted the artistry of Albert Weisgerber, a native of the Saar Palatinate, by collecting his works more and more and thus making a significant contribution to the recognition of the artist in his afterlife. In art circles, the collection was described as the "largest collection of German impressionists in southwest Germany". The future German Chancellor Helmut Kohl also visited Kohl-Weigand's collection in 1974. By the 1970s, Kohl-Weigand's company had accumulated significant tax debts. After negotiations with the Saarland tax authorities, in which the then Saarland Minister-President Franz-Josef Röder played a key role, Kohl-Weigand transferred most of his collection to Saarland, thereby settling his tax debt. The collection was then transferred to the Saarland Cultural Heritage Foundation . Another part of the estate of the Kohl-Weigand collection is in the possession of the St. Ingbert city archive.

  • Collection focus: the Saar-Palatinate artist Albert Weisgerber (self-portrait, 1911)

  • Max Slevogt (self-portrait, 1915)

  • Fritz Koelle : The Walzmeister (bronze sculpture)

  • Portrait sculpture (bronze) by Hans Purrmann

  • Portrait photo of Carl Johann Becker-Gundahl

Honors - awards

The family business

Family coat of arms of the entrepreneurial family Weigand
Logo of the Otto Weigand & Sohn company on the occasion of the 100th anniversary

The Weigand entrepreneurial family settled in St. Ingbert in 1826, three years before they were granted city rights. August Joseph Weigand, previously a court pharmacist at one of the Counts of Löwenstein-Wertheim's courts , opened the municipality's first pharmacy in Kaiserstrasse in May 1826. The location was considered to be prosperous, as the coal, iron and glass industries developed sustainably and the population in the city rose steadily. Weigand's marriage to Anna Maria Lamarche resulted in two sons. The eldest son Karl August (1830–1900) continued his father's pharmacy. The second son Otto Weigand (1839–1910) opened the town's first hardware store in St. Ingbert's Ludwigstrasse in 1866. Furthermore Otto Weigand founded the fourth glassworks in St. Ingbert in 1889 together with other partners .

Otto Weigand's son Ernst (1874–1949), who had learned the trade of a businessman, joined the company in 1902 at the age of twenty-eight. When he joined, the company was renamed "Otto Weigand & Sohn" and kept this name until it was dissolved. Under the leadership of Ernst Weigand, the company was able to expand considerably. An important move was the track connection of the company premises near the freight station to the national and international rail network.

In 1931, then in 1936, Ernst's sons-in-law Franz Josef Kohl-Weigand and Fritz Saeftel joined the management. Under their leadership, the company was again able to expand considerably. The number of employees in 1941 was 61, in 1956 it was 120 and in 1966, the peak of the company, 200 employees. With Kohl-Weigand's son Ernst Heinrich (1932–1988), the fourth and last generation joined the company in 1953, which had to experience its slow downturn at the end of the sixties. The company "Otto Weigand & Sohn" was dissolved in November 1994.

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ As a collector, he also discovered Weisgerber . In: Saarbrücker Zeitung from 15./16. March 1997
  2. ^ Saarland biographies ( Memento from February 22, 2014 in the Internet Archive )

literature

  • Ulrich Christoffel: Albert Weisgerber. Ed .: City administration St. Ingbert. Selection of pictures by FJ Kohl-Weigand. St. Ingbert 1950.
  • Albert Weisgerber: words of his friends . Ed .: Franz Josef Kohl-Weigand. City of St. Ingbert 1955.
  • Hans-Jürgen Imiela , Wilhelm Weber : The Kohl Weigand Collection. Moos, Heidelberg 1961 ( Private art collections. Volume 1).
  • Fritz Heinsheimer, Franz Josef Kohl-Weigand (ed.): Max Slevogt as a teacher, artist and person. Self-published by the publisher, St. Ingbert 1968.
  • Albert Weisgerber draws for “Die Jugend”. Ed .: Palatinate Artists' Cooperative. With contributions by Karl Graf and Franz Josef Kohl-Weigand. Karl Graf, Speyer 1971 ( The new art archive. Volume 28).
  • Kirsten Fitzke: Loss and build-up: Hans Purrmann and his collectors Johannes Guthmann and Franz Josef Kohl-Weigand, in: Felix Billeter / Christoph Wagner (eds.): New ways to Hans Purrmann, Berlin 2016, pp. 305-317.
  • Literature by and about Kohl-Weigand in the SULB Saarbrücken.

Web links

personal data
SURNAME Kohl-Weigand, Franz Josef
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Kohl, Franz Josef
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German entrepreneur, art collector and patron
DATE OF BIRTH December 26, 1900
PLACE OF BIRTH Ludwigshafen am Rhein
DATE OF DEATH March 15, 1972
Place of death St. Ingbert