Günther von Pechmann

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Hans Max August Günther Freiherr von Pechmann (born November 10, 1882 in Neu-Ulm , † September 12, 1968 in Munich ) was a German museum director and cultural and economic politician.

Life

He was the son of the Bavarian captain Ludwig Freiherr von Pechmenn and his wife Anna, née Freiin von Malchus.

Pechmann graduated from the cadet corps and joined the infantry body regiment of the Bavarian Army on July 7, 1901 as a portepeefähnrich . There he was promoted to lieutenant at the end of October 1903 . On April 11, 1904, Pechmann was given a year of leave to study political science. He then had himself transferred to the regiment's reserve officers. Pechmann studied law and economics at the Ludwig Maximilians University in Munich and at the Albert Ludwigs University of Freiburg until 1907 . In 1908, on the recommendation of Richard Riemerschmid , he was obliged to prepare the "Munich 1908 Exhibition". From 1909 to August 1914 he was the head of the state-funded agency for applied arts , managing director of the Association for Applied Arts, and later of the "Münchner Bund". In 1910 he joined the German Werkbund .

From 1914 he took part in the First World War, was awarded the Knight's Cross of the Military Max Joseph Order on June 24, 1916 , and at the end of the war he was released from active service as a major in the reserve. In 1920 he completed his studies with a dissertation on quality work . Pechmann then worked for several years in the Rhenish and Central German industry. In May 1925 Pechmann was entrusted with the management of the newly established department for commercial art at the Bavarian National Museum, which in 1926 became an independent museum for applied arts as “ The New Collection ”. Pechmann built it up into one of the first European collections of modern arts and crafts from 1840 onwards. Education and communication were just as important to him as collecting. For example, Pechmann was committed to commercial technical schools, but also to promoting artistic taste development in school lessons. In 1929 he moved from Munich to become director of the State Porcelain Manufactory Berlin (KPM). There he consistently implemented the principle of the "form without ornament" in cooperation with the German Werkbund. In collaboration with contemporary artists such as Marguerite Friedlaender from the Kunstgewerbeschule Halle Burg Giebichenstein, with Gerhard Marcks and Trude Petri , he successfully developed high-quality utility porcelain for series production. At the same time he achieved the economic recovery of the KPM - despite the global economic crisis. At the same time, as a key member of the Deutscher Werkbund, Pechmann was one of the defining figures of German cultural policy in the Weimar Republic . Under pressure from the National Socialists, Pechmann had to give up the management of KPM in 1938 and retired to the Oberhof family estate near Tettnang in Württemberg until the end of the war . During this time he continued to write articles in magazines that dealt with the advantages of “simple” furnishings, for example about the Deutsche Werkstätten Hellerau in the magazine Die Interior Decoration . In 1946, Pechmann was once again entrusted with the reconstruction and management of the New Collection in Munich and the artistic supervision of the Bavarian arts and crafts schools. In 1951 he took over the chairmanship of the working group for industrial design, in 1952 he was a member of the council for design . After his retirement in 1952, he worked as a consultant and jury member for trade fairs and industrial exhibitions. He was a member of the German jury of the commission for the 1958 World Exhibition in Brussels.

In 1962 he was awarded the Great Cross of Merit of the Federal Republic of Germany .

Pechmann was married to the interior designer Alice, née Hesse (1882–1976). Her first marriage was to the critic and city planner Werner Hegemann .

Works (in selection)

  • with Walther Rietzler: The exhibition Munich 1908. Munich 1908.
  • The quality work. A manual f. Industrialists, merchants, trade politicians. Frankfurt am Main 1924.
  • Light earth, burned earth. Exhibition of the German glass industry a. the German fine ceramic. Industry. Edited for the exhibition German people, German work. Berlin 1934.
  • with Carl Georg Heise (Ed.): The Italian Comedy in Porcelain by Franz Anton Bustelli. The art letter, Berlin 1947.
  • Guidelines for the participation of the German federal government in international exhibitions. 1951.
  • The Werkbund idea in Munich. in: I think of Munich. ed. by Hermann Proebst, Karl Ude, Munich 1966, pp. 50–58.

literature

  • Rudolf von Kramer, Otto von Waldenfels , Günther von Pechmann: "VIRTUTI PRO PATRIA" The Royal Bavarian Military Max Joseph Order. 1914-1918. Munich 1966, pp. 371-372.

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ [1] (in the German biography, with further references)
  2. ↑ [2] .
  3. ^ Günther Freiherr Pechmann at Munzinger
personal data
SURNAME Pechmann, Günther von
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Pechmann, Hans Max August Günther Freiherr von (full name)
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German museum director and cultural and economic politician
DATE OF BIRTH November 10, 1882
PLACE OF BIRTH New Ulm
DATE OF DEATH September 12, 1968
Place of death Munich