Friedrich Muthmann

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Friedrich Muthmann (born April 15, 1901 in Elberfeld , † March 17, 1981 in Bern ) was a German classical archaeologist , art historian and diplomat .

Life

Friedrich Muthmann, son of the factory owner Friedrich Muthmann (1869-1926, C. Blumhardt Fahrzeugwerke ), attended the Elberfeld high school until he graduated from high school in January 1919. He then began studying medicine in Göttingen , which he did after one semester in favor of one Broke off his studies at the Philosophical Faculty. From 1920 he studied classical archeology, ancient history and art history at the University of Heidelberg , interrupted by two semesters in Berlin . He was born in July 1927 in Heidelberg with Ludwig Curtius with the work Hadrianische und Antonine statue supports. Doctorate in contributions to the history of Roman copywriting . In 1951 the work appeared in an expanded form as statue supports and decorative accessories on Greek and Roman sculptures. A contribution to the history of the Roman copyist activity and still represents a standard work on statue supports . After graduating, he worked as a museum assistant at the antiquities department of the Badisches Landesmuseum in Karlsruhe until 1932 .

As a National Socialist " old fighter ", Muthmann was a friend of the Hamburg NSDAP Gauleiter . Therefore, in August 1933, he was the right successor to the recently deposed director of the Hamburger Kunstverein, Hildebrand Gurlitt . Even so, it was still possible to hold modern art exhibitions at the time. Exhibitions of conventional contemporary art alternated with exhibitions of avant-garde artists. That ended at the end of July 1936 with the exhibition of the German Association of Artists , which was personally canceled by the head of the Reich Chamber of Culture, Adolf Ziegler . Muthmann left Hamburg and was director of the Kaiser Wilhelm Museum in Krefeld from February 1937 to 1947 , interrupted by military service from 1943 to 1946. At the end of 1941, his appointment as deputy head of the Hamburg cultural administration was thwarted by his request to be appointed general director of all Hamburg museums , and his salary expectations. Under Muthmann's direction, works from the Krefeld Museum found their way into the Degenerate Art exhibition in Munich and were then sold. He also acquired works of art for the museum in occupied Paris, which were returned after the war.

From 1947 to 1953 Muthmann worked for the Musée d'art et d'histoire in Geneva , where he mainly dealt with the art of the Spanish colonial era in South America. In 1950 he received his habilitation for art history at the University of Geneva and taught as a private lecturer.

From 1954 he was active in the German diplomatic service, from 1954 to 1961 as cultural attaché in Bern , from 1961 to 1964 in Athens .

After leaving the diplomatic service, Muthmann lived in Bern from 1966, where he resumed his archaeological research, which resulted in the publications "Mutter und Quelle" (1975) and "Der Granatapfel" (1982), which were aimed at a wider audience . In 1976 he received an honorary doctorate from the University of Bern .

Muthmann left his photo collection of more than 10,000 negatives with motifs mainly from Greece, Italy and Turkey to the Archaeological Seminar of the University of Bern. Under the title Ancient Sources and Fountains of Greece - Photographs by Friedrich Muthmann , an exhibition of Muthmann's pictures was shown in 2001 at the Archaeological Institute of the University of Freiburg , from the end of 2003 and throughout 2004 at the Institute for Archeology of the Mediterranean Region of the University of Bern, the exhibition On the Trail of Odysseus. Photographs by Friedrich Muthmann .

Fonts

  • Hadrian and Antonine statue supports. Contributions to the history of the Roman copyist activity. Heidelberg 1927.
  • Statue supports and decorative accessories on Greek and Roman sculptures. A contribution to the history of the Roman copyist activity. Winter, Heidelberg 1951 ( treatises of the Heidelberg Academy of Sciences, Philosophical-Historical Class , born 1950, treatise 3).
  • L'argenterie hispano-sud-américaine à l'époque coloniale. Essai sur la collection du Musée d'éthnographie de la ville de Genève suivi d'un catalog complet et raisonné. Geneva 1950.
  • Alexander von Humboldt and his image of nature in the mirror of Goethe's time. Artemis, Zurich-Stuttgart 1955 ( Erasmus library ).
  • The silver baptismal bowl for victories. A work from the Spanish colonial times of Peru. Winter, Heidelberg 1956 ( Treatises of the Heidelberg Academy of Sciences, Philosophical-Historical Class , born 1956, Treatise 1).
  • Mother and source. Studies on source worship in antiquity and in the Middle Ages. Archäologischer Verlag / von Zabern, Basel / Mainz 1975.
  • A Peruvian knitting from the Spanish colonial era. Abegg Foundation, Bern 1977 ( Monographs of the Abegg Foundation Bern , Volume 13).
  • The pomegranate. Symbol of life in the old world. Abegg Foundation / Office du Livre publishing house, Bern / Friborg 1982.

literature

  • Hans Jucker : Farewell to Friedrich Muthmann. In: Der Bund Vol. 132, No. 67, March 21, 1981, p. 39.
  • Wolfgang Schiering : Appendix. In: Reinhard Lullies , Wolfgang Schiering (Hrsg.): Archäologenbildnisse . Portraits and short biographies of classical archaeologists in the German language. Zabern, Mainz 1988, ISBN 3-8053-0971-6 , p. 335.
  • Dietrich Willers : The advice of an old archaeologist, archaeological art trade and the anniversary of the Swiss Confederation. In: Booklets of the Archaeological Seminar of the University of Bern 14, 1991, pp. 61–71.
  • Biographical manual of the German Foreign Service 1871–1945. Vol. 3, Paderborn u. a. Schöningh, Paderborn u. a. 2008, ISBN 978-3-506-71842-6 , pp.
  • Maike Bruhns: Art in Crisis. Vol. 1 Hamburg Art in the “Third Reich”. Dölling and Galitz, Munich 2001, ISBN 3-933374-94-4 , pp. 64, 70, 75, 102-103. 179, 432.

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Bruhns 2001, p. 102: " Old fighter from the circle of acquaintances of the Hamburg Gauleiter" Karl Kaufmann .
  2. ↑ Bruhns 2001, p. 103.
  3. ↑ Bruhns 2001, p. 70, 113, note 108.
  4. ↑ Hans Dieter Peschken: When the Nazis stole Krefeld's pictures. In: RP Online [1] ; Hans Dieter Peschken: "Degenerate Art" in Krefeld. In: RP Online [2] .
  5. ^ Opening of the exhibition "Ancient sources and fountains of Greece - Photographs by Friedrich Muthmann".
  6. ↑ In the footsteps of Odysseus .
personal data
SURNAME Muthmann, Friedrich
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Muthmann, Fritz
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German classical archaeologist, art historian and diplomat
DATE OF BIRTH April 15, 1901
PLACE OF BIRTH Elberfeld
DATE OF DEATH March 17, 1981
Place of death Bern