Franz Catzenstein

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Franz Catzenstein (also: Zatzenstein-Matthiesen and Francis M. Matthiesen , born around 1900 in Hanover ; died around 1963) was an important gallery owner and art dealer .

Life

Born at the time of the German Empire , Franz Catzenstein was the son of the medical councilor Leo Catzenstein , who worked in Hanover, and brother of the sculptor Ellen Bernkopf-Catzenstein .

During the Weimar Republic , Franz Catzenstein initially worked, later owner and manager of the important gallery Matthiesen , which was named after the maiden name of Catzenstein's wife. The gallery was based in Berlin “in a palace on the elegant Viktoriastrasse ”.

Franz Catzenstein cultivated international contacts. After the October Revolution in Russia he was involved in the sale of top works from the Hermitage in what was then Leningrad by the government of the Soviet Union .

1933, the year the seizure of power by the Nazis , emigrated Catzenstein first to Zurich , and later into exile to London , where he then Francis M. Matthiesen called. However, he remained "until 1935 managing director of his gallery GmbH ."

Also in 1933, Catzenstein's sister Ellen had an exhibition in her hometown of Hanover, which, however, "was defamed in the newspapers as part of the National Socialist cultural policy". Ellen was the first of the family to emigrate to Palestine via detours , while both parents initially stayed in Hanover.

In 1938, two years before his father had died in Hanover, Franz Catzenstein was served the “ Jewish property tax ” in London : “You are no longer a person in these times,” wrote Matthiesen with resignation . Finally, in 1939 the Galerie-GmbH von Zatzenstein-Matthiesen , as Franz Catzenstein was called in Germany, aryanized : Typically for the time, the gallery was taken over by two of the previous employees , "who sensed their opportunity for" good deals "and henceforth sales for Hitler's museum at the planned »retirement home« carried out the infamous » special order Linz «. "

In the same year the mother, Anna Catzenstein , followed her daughter Ellen and the newborn granddaughter Yael to Palestine in 1939 .

Franz Catzenstein did not get the works of art that he had relocated to Holland back until 1950 - "after all, as one has to say when comparing with so many other Jewish colleagues who were robbed of their property."

Exhibition 2011

2011 took place under the title Good Business. Art trade in Berlin 1933–1945 an exhibition in Berlin instead of in the Active Museum in the Centrum Judaicum as well as in the Berlin State Archives , at the same time “a reminder to clarify the… outstanding property issues due to“ cultural assets confiscated due to persecution ”. The exhibition also showed that others had also suffered from the terror of the Nazi regime .

See also

literature

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ a b c d e f g h i Peter Schulze: Catzenstein, Leo. In: Hannoversches Biographisches Lexikon . P. 84.
  2. ↑ a b c d e f g h i Bernhard Schulz: Berlin / dealers and fences.
  3. ↑ Information in the German National Library DNB 12929991X
  4. ↑ a b c Manfred Mayer (responsible for Internet editing): Ellen Bernkopf Archive , online on the website of the Academy of Arts in Berlin
  5. ↑ Christine Fischer-Defoy, Kaspar Nürnberg (Ed.): Good business ... (see literature)
personal data
SURNAME Catzenstein, Franz
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Matthiesen, Francis M .; Matthiesen, Francis; Zatzenstein-Matthiesen, Franz; Matthiesen, Franz
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German gallery owner
DATE OF BIRTH 19th century or 20th century
PLACE OF BIRTH Hanover
DATE OF DEATH around 1963