Friends of the Kunsthalle

from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

The Friends of the Kunsthalle eV are a non-profit association that was founded in 1923. According to the statutes, its purpose is "to promote scientific research and popular education in the cultural field as well as art life in Hamburg in connection with the Hamburger Kunsthalle through lectures, guided tours and publications". The Kunsthalle uses all surpluses to purchase works of art, finance exhibition projects and publish catalogs. Ekkehard Nümann has been chairman since 1989 . The Friends of the Hamburger Kunsthalle say they have over 18,000 members (as of December 31, 2016).

The logo of the Freundeskreis
Entrance portal of the founding building of the Hamburger Kunsthalle from 1869. Architects: Hermann von der Bude and Georg Theodor Schirrmacher

history

Foundation (1923)

Museum director Gustav Pauli initiated the founding as early as 1914. His vision was a support group that would unite existing societies interested in art. He was only able to implement his idea after the First World War . The founding meeting of the Friends of the Kunsthalle took place on January 15, 1923. Hamburg's First Mayor Carl Petersen was elected first chairman, Gustav Pauli as deputy. The special thing about the friends of the Kunsthalle: They recruited members from all social classes, whether workers or financially strong clientele. Here everyone should have the opportunity for cultural stimulation. Therefore teachers, nurses and office workers joined as well as members of the Jewish community and merchants. In the year it was founded, the association had 3680 members.

Invitation to join the association from the 1920s.

First activities (1920s)

Mainly guided tours and lectures were offered. Gustav Pauli was responsible for the selection of topics and prominent speakers. Including the architect and Hamburg chief building director Fritz Schumacher , the art historian Rosa Schapire and the musicologist and music teacher Hans Mersmann . The variety of topics was based on the founding idea that Johannes Gerhardt quotes from the founding meeting in his book “The History of Friends of the Kunsthalle”: “In a time of severe economic shock, we want our population to have hours of edification, instruction and spiritual enjoyment prepare."

Period of National Socialism (1933–1945)

After the seizure of power in 1933 by the Nazis and the Friends of the Kunsthalle were brought into line . The consequences were the loss of independence and the alignment of activities with the government. As a representative of the "Combat League for German Culture", which is close to the NSDAP , the poet and art historian Wilhelm Niemeyer presented a correspondingly revised list for a new board at the meeting on June 10, 1933. This was not elected as usual, but appointed by the First Mayor Carl Vincent Krogmann . Hermann Maetzig took over the chairmanship, and from October of that year also head of the official business of the Kunsthalle. Museum director Gustav Pauli retired at the end of September 1933. Maetzig also had to give up all offices in April 1934 because he was a Freemason .

Wilhelm Freiherr Kleinschmit von Lengefeld took over the chairmanship of the Friends and management of the Kunsthalle until August 1937. During his time, all Jewish members and donors were excluded. As early as September 1935, membership cards were only available for people of Aryan descent. At the beginning of 1936, the association officially added a corresponding Aryan paragraph to its statutes . With 1124 members, the friends reached the lowest point in their history. Kleinschmit von Lengefeld, on the other hand, was not involved in the destruction of the Modernist Collection that Gustav Pauli had built up and whose works were considered degenerate art under the National Socialists .

Secretary Wilhelm Niemeyer put the program together for the members during the Nazi era. The art gallery was closed since the beginning of the Second World War , but the friends continued to offer lectures. But they had little relation to the works of the museum.

the post war period

On October 22, 1945, the members elect the new board. Hans Harder Biermann-Ratjen , President of the Cultural Authority, becomes First Chairman. The new museum director, Carl Georg Heise, will develop the program for the Kunsthalle's Circle of Friends and will help it to become more international again, for example through the lecture series “English Art” from 1948 onwards.

The lecture hall of the Kunsthalle was badly damaged by bombs in 1944. The lectures will therefore take place in different locations until the mid-1950s. However, the newly built hall with 750 seats can hardly withstand the rush. A recording stop is ordered for fire protection reasons. It was only canceled in 1958 when the friends offered each lecture three times. In the 1950s, excursions and art trips are again on the program. The number of members increases to 2500 to the level of the founding years.

Decline in membership (1960s to 1980s)

The popularity declined from the 1960s, the number of members shrank by a third. In 1974 it was 1134 members. The art lovers competed with the increased cultural offer in the city. They tried to take countermeasures by addressing the respective exhibitions with their lectures even more than before. These included 1972 “Manet's Nana - Myth and Reality”, 1974 “Landscape painting in the time of Caspar David Friedrich”, 1980 “Goya” and 1981 “Picasso”.

Realignment from the 1990s

In order to stop the membership decline in the 1970s, the Freundeskreis relied on recipes for success from the founding years from the 1980s. Cultural trips that have not been offered since 1971, special openings for members, exclusive tours and previews in the Kunsthalle. Day trips and seminars were added from the 1990s. With 2731 members, the association began to support the Kunsthalle financially in 1990. On the one hand through the purchase of works of art for the museum, on the other hand with the further development of the sales stand, which has existed since 1924, into a modern museum shop. In addition, since 1996 the friends have financed the academic Gustav Pauli internship at the Kunsthalle, named after the founder of the association.

In 2000 the association had 10,000 members. From 2001 he offered his own program especially for younger members and was one of the first groups of friends to initiate “Young Museum Friends”.

The chairman of the Friends of the Kunsthalle, Ekkehard Nümann, relied on networking from 2003 onwards. He initiated the founding of the “Federal Association of Friends of German Museums for Fine Arts”. In the meantime, 86 groups of friends are members, representing a total of more than 120,000 members. Since 2007 the Hamburger Freunde have also been a member of the “World Federation of Friends of Museums” through the federal association.

The Friends of the Kunsthalle Hamburg got involved politically in 2010 when the “Gallery of the Present”, which opened in February 1997, was supposed to be closed due to a lack of funds in the cultural budget of the Hanseatic city of Hamburg under the pretext of defective fire dampers. They called on their members to demonstrate on June 3, 2010 and formed a human chain around the museum. In addition, the Freundeskreis printed 25,000 protest postcards, addressed to Mayor Ole von Beust with the inscription “Show the flag! Art is not a luxury ”.

present

Commitment and research

In addition to the art education, the friends also fulfill their statutory obligation to scientific research. On the one hand, this includes the financing of the Gustav Pauli traineeship at the Hamburger Kunsthalle. On the other hand, exhibition catalogs are financed and sold for the art gallery. The printed art magazine "freunde" has been published for members every six months since 2014. It is financed through advertisements and has a circulation of 15,000 to 18,000 copies. It deals with exhibition announcements and reviews in the Hamburger Kunsthalle and other museums, artist portraits and reports on excursions or individual works.

Events and target groups

The Friends of the Hamburger Kunsthalle are traditionally open to everyone. In order to meet this requirement, they tailor the form of address and their event program specifically to individual target groups. So all friends get a printed program booklet. Company members are informed about special formats for employees and customers in a flyer. The “young friends” between 20 and 30 years of age receive event invitations via Facebook and a newsletter. The “Advanced” group is aimed at friends who are interested in young and recent art. The friends of the Kunsthalle are targeting working people via Facebook with the program “After work: Art and sandwiches”. Parents with infants can find suitable tours on Facebook under “Father Mother Art”.

Support of the art gallery

According to the statutes, all surpluses of the association go to the museum at the end of the financial year and are used for purchases, exhibitions and publications. The association obtains the funds for this less from donations than from members' contributions. In addition, the friends operate the museum shop and an online shop as a commercial business. In addition to the Kunsthalle's publications, books, stationery and gift items are primarily sold.

Promotion of exhibitions

The Friends of the Hamburger Kunsthalle regularly sponsor several exhibitions each year and have also acted as collateral guarantors since 2011: so that the preparations for an exhibition do not have to be interrupted while the search for donors and sponsors, the Friends secure the project with their acceptance. The most important exhibitions since 2002 include “Expedition Art. The discovery of nature from CD Friedrich to Humboldt ”(2002),“ The black square. Homage to Malevich ”(2007),“ Louise Bourgeois , Passage Dangereux ”(2012),“ Giacometti . Die Spielfelder ”(2013),“ Nolde in Hamburg ”(2015) and“ Manet - Seeing ”(2016).

Acquisitions for the Kunsthalle

Half nude in front of prickly pear
Anita Rée , oil on canvas (1922–1925)

Since the founding until 2016, more than 100 works of art were purchased with funds from friends and given to the art gallery as gifts. All with the condition that they cannot be sold without the consent of the friends. The first donation was made in 1926: Max Slevogt , portrait of Gustav Pauli, director of the Hamburger Kunsthalle, 1924, oil on canvas.

Other works in the following years include:

Rosa Schapire Art Prize

The Rosa Schapire Art Prize, which the Friends of the Hamburger Kunsthalle has been awarding since 2016, is endowed with 20,000 euros. According to the sponsoring group, the art prize is intended as “an homage to being different”. Instead of a jury, an individual juror appointed by the respective director of the Kunsthalle decides annually on the awarding of the prize to an artist. In making his choice, the juror is solely committed to the spirit of the namesake Rosa Schapire , who at the beginning of the 20th century stood against the zeitgeist by advocating expressionist art. The first juror in 2016 was the art professor, curator and museum director Kasper König , the first winner was the Romanian artist and editor Dan Perjovschi . The 2017 award winner was Portuguese Ana Jotta. Natalia LL (Natalia Lach-Lachowicz) from Poland followed in 2018 and Tatiana Trouvé from Italy in 2019 .

Legacy 2019

In March 2019 it became known that the grandson of Gustav Schiefler , Otto Georg Schiefler, who died on January 7, 2019, had bequeathed the villa at Oberstrasse 86, his parents' house, to the Friends of the Kunsthalle. In the future, the association's events will take place there on the mezzanine floor of the house.

Chairperson

literature

  • Johannes Gerhardt: The history of the friends of the art gallery . Beisner, Buchholz / Nordheide, p. 9 ff., ISBN 3-938002-24-7
  • Matthias Dreyer and Rolf Wiese (eds.): Friends are priceless. Friends' associations and groups of friends of museums . In: Writings of the open-air museum on the Kiekeberg . Volume 86, pp. 125-133, ISBN 978-3-935096-47-8
  • Uwe Fleckner and Hubertus Gaßner (eds.): Idea: Yearbook of the Hamburger Kunsthalle 2005 to 2007 . Hachmann, Bremen, pp. 226-229, ISBN 978-3-939429-63-0

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Johannes Gerhardt: The history of the friends of the art gallery . Ed .: Ekkehard Nümann. Meisner Druck GmbH & Co. KG, Buchholz / Nordheide 2007, ISBN 3-938002-24-7 , p. 9 .
  2. ↑ This is how you make young friends . In: Federal Association of Friends of German Museums for Fine Arts e. V. (Ed.): Young friends art museums . tape 1 , 2010, p. 7 and 61 ( bundesverband-der-foerdervereine.de [PDF; accessed on May 22, 2017]).
  3. ↑ Uwe Flecken and Hubertus Gaßner (eds.): IDEA - Yearbook of the Hamburger Kunsthalle 2005 to 2007 . Hachmann editionprint, Bremen, ISBN 978-3-939429-63-0 , p. 226-229 .
  4. ↑ a b Kathrin Erggelet: From fan club to failure guarantor. What groups of friends achieve using the example of the Friends of the Kunsthalle eV in Hamburg . In: Matthias Dreyer and Rolf Wiese (eds.): Writings of the open-air museum on the Kiekeberg . tape 86 . Ehestorf 2014, ISBN 978-3-935096-47-8 , p. 131-132 .
  5. ↑ Vera Fengler: Kunsthalle friends inherit villa in Harvestehude , abendblatt.de, March 18, 2019, accessed on March 18, 2019