Franz Meyer (art historian)

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Franz Meyer (born June 4, 1919 in Zurich ; † March 3, 2007 ibid) was a Swiss art historian and lawyer. From 1955 to 1961 he headed the Kunsthalle Bern and from 1962 to 1980 he was director of the Kunstmuseum Basel . One of his special merits is the expansion of the museum's modern art department.

Career

Meyer grew up in an art-loving family, surrounded by paintings of classical modernism. His father, Franz Meyer Senior, was a lawyer, entrepreneur, long-time president of the Zurich Art Society and an art collector. The art collection of his grandfather Fritz Meyer-Fierz included works by Hodler, van Gogh, Cézanne, Gauguin, but also from Dutch art of the 19th century. Meyer studied law in Zurich and received his doctorate in 1947. He then began to study art history with Hans Robert Hahnloser at the University of Bern and received his doctorate from the University of Zurich with a thesis on the stained glass windows of Chartres Cathedral ; he supplemented his studies with stays in Rome and from 1951 in Paris . It was there that Meyer met Ida Chagall, the daughter of the painter Marc Chagall , whom he married in 1952. The marriage had three children. In 1955 he became director of the Kunsthalle Bern as the successor to Arnold Rüdlinger . In 1956 he showed a first comprehensive retrospective by Alberto Giacometti . He later became President of the Alberto Giacometti Foundation in Zurich (1990–1995). In 1961 Meyer left the Kunsthalle and was succeeded by Harald Szeemann .

Art collection Basel

In 1961 Franz Meyer was elected director of the Basel Public Art Collection (Kunstmuseum Basel) as the successor to Georg Schmidt . At his instigation, Robert Delaunay's “Hommage à Blériot” was purchased in 1962 and Edgar Degas “Jockey Blessé” and Kasimir Malewitsch's “Landscape with Red Houses” (around 1910) in 1963 . He expanded his portfolio of paintings by Pablo Picasso in 1967 with the purchase of “Femme assise dans un fauteuil”, “Demoiselles du bord de la Seine” (1950) and from the Staechelin collection Picasso's “Deux frères” from 1905 and the “Arlequin assis” ". Picasso then spontaneously donated “Homme, femme et enfant” from 1906 and two of his more recent paintings to the collection.

In 1968 Meyer set up the now legendary Alberto Giacometti Hall in the Kunstmuseum , which, on the second floor, contained 19 bronze casts and plaster originals. Barnett Newman's sculpture Here II from 1966 corresponded - through four rooms - with Giacometti's Grande Figure from 1947. The constellation was only changed in 1992 by the later director Katharina Schmidt .

With the help of foundations and donations, Meyer acquired works by Sam Francis , Mark Tobey, and Barnett Newman . Major works by Hans Arp , Eduardo Chillida and Constantin Brâncuși complete the sculpture collection . In 1980, together with Maja Sacher , he realized the Museum of Contemporary Art for the joint collections of the Kunsthalle Basel and the Basel public art collection, in which the works of Carl Andre , Jasper Johns , Frank Stella , Walter De Maria , Donald Judd , Dan Flavin , Bruce Nauman and Andy Warhol , but also concept artists like On Kawara and Hanne Darboven found their place.

After his resignation in Basel in 1980, Franz Meyer lived with his art collection in a neo-Gothic villa - his parents' house - on Zurich's Südstrasse. In 1976 he married the artist Pia Rüdlinger-Federspiel (* 1925), the widow of Arnold Rüdlinger, in his second marriage. Meyer taught at the Universities of Basel , Zurich and Bern and was the author of numerous art history studies, including test cases from art history. From Odilon Redon to Bruce Nauman or Barnett Newman. The Stations of the Cross . From 1965 to 1972 Meyer was a member of the Federal Art Commission , from 1962 to 1980 he was a member of the Emanuel Hoffmann Foundation .

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Philip Ursprung (eds.): Herzog & de Meuron: Naturgeschichte Gabler Wissenschaftsverlage, 2005 ISBN 978-3-03778-050-3 , pp. 138 ff.
  2. ^ Neue Zürcher Zeitung March 7, 2007
personal data
SURNAME Meyer, Franz
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Swiss art historian and curator
DATE OF BIRTH June 4, 1919
PLACE OF BIRTH Zurich
DATE OF DEATH March 3, 2007
Place of death Zurich