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The gallery Der Spiegel was a gallery for modern art founded in December 1945 by Hein Stünke and his wife Eva Stünke in Cologne-Deutz . Hein Stünke continued to run the gallery until his death in 1994. Werner Hillmann continues to manage it today under the same name.

Act

founding

The gallery Der Spiegel was founded on December 12, 1945 by Hein Stünke and his wife Eva Stünke (* 1913 in Cologne, † 1988 in Cologne), who had a doctorate in art history, at Gotenring 10 in Cologne-Deutz as a gallery for modern art. In the early days of the gallery, the focus was initially on the art mediation of classical modernism , which was suppressed as " degenerate " in Germany during the Second World War - surviving artists from Cologne, Düsseldorf and the surrounding area - as well as promoting the younger generation of artists by giving their artists their Offered space for exhibitions. In addition, discussion groups, readings, and theatrical, musical and dance performances took place.

Moving, publishing and first editions

In 1949 Hein and Eva Stünke moved their gallery to Cologne on the left bank of the Rhine. The house at Richartzstrasse 10 was in the newly built city center. As a place of intellectual communication, the gallery drew writers like Jürgen Becker , Heinrich Böll , Albrecht Fabri , art historians and critics like Will Grohmann , Werner Haftmann , Carl Linfert , Albert Schulze-Vellinghausen , John Anthony Thwaites , Eduard Trier , artists like Joseph Fassbender , Georg Meistermann , Ernst Wilhelm Nay , Hann Trier and the collectors Josef Haubrich and Wolfgang Hahn.

At the same time, the gallery began to re-present its products as a publisher, following the example of French gallery owners and editors such as Ambroise Vollard , and became an important market leader in this field with graphic editions by high-ranking artists. The first edition in the publishing house Galerie Der Spiegel was the portfolio Die Rheinische Portfolio by Friedrich Vordemberge-Gildewart . Another edition of the gallery appeared in 1951, it was a portfolio with nine signed hand prints by Fritz Winter in an edition of 35 copies, which was introduced with a foreword by Ludwig Grote .

In the early 1950s, the gallery program was expanded to include the artists Max Ernst , Hans Hartung and Wols , who had emigrated to France, as well as the École de Paris . Many foreign artists received their first exhibition in Germany in the gallery, such as Henri Laurens with sculptures, Fernand Léger , Marino Marini , Henri Matisse with his painting book Jazz , Joan Miró , Richard Mortensen , Pablo Picasso with graphics, Serge Poliakoff and Victor Vasarely .

Relationship with Max Ernst

The Stünke couple took part in the first retrospective of the artist Max Ernst in Schloss Brühl in 1951, a collaboration that developed from 1953 onwards into a lifelong business and friendship relationship between the Der Spiegel gallery and Max Ernst and his fourth wife Dorothea Tanning . Max Ernst asked his gallery owner in Cologne for help in finding the divorce papers of his second marriage to Marie-Berthe Aurenche , which had been lost during the Second World War , who had asked the artist through her Paris lawyers to resume marital intercourse and maintenance. Hein Stünke commissioned the art collector and lawyer Josef Haubrich to locate the said documents, which he succeeded. In 1965, the Max Ernsts gallery brought out Histoire Naturelle from 1926 as an offset reproduction, including more of Ernst's only drama guide , in 700 handwritten numbered copies.

workshops

At the end of the 1950s, the gallery was expanded to include workshops for bookbinding, frame and small furniture construction. In 1954, under the title Geh durch den Spiegel, a bibliophile series of publications was published with original graphics signed by artists in editions of between 100 and 300 pieces on the gallery's main exhibitions. The workshops of the Der Spiegel gallery became famous when Hein Stünke worked from 1963 for Edition MAT ( Multiplication d'Art Transformable ) founded in 1959 by Daniel Spoerri and Karl Gerstner , an edition that published multiples, such as the lampshade by Man Ray from 1964. In 1965 it was taken over by Stünke, including the brand name, and continued until 1970.

Documenta and the art trade

In 1959, Hein Stünke was hired as a consultant for documenta II , an office he held until documenta 5 in 1972, when he suggested his former volunteer Rudolf Zwirner as head of the exhibition secretariat. Instead of receiving a fee, Stünke was given permission to operate a graphics stand at documenta II. As a result of his sales success, he made the experience that the public “not only wanted to see, but also wanted to own what they saw”, and together with Zwirner he developed the idea of ​​a new form of sales for modern and contemporary art. This gave rise to the idea for a “Cologne Modern Art Fair” in 1966. After Stünke merged with Zwirner and 16 other galleries in the autumn of 1966 to form the Association of Progressive German Art Dealers , whose 1st President was Stünke, the first Cologne art market took place in Cologne's Gürzenich from September 13 to 17, 1967 , the world's first trade fair for modern and contemporary art. The poster for this was designed by the pop-art artist Robert Indiana . In December 1973 the European Art Dealers Association was founded. It consisted of five gallery owners from five European countries each, with Hein Stünke representing the Federal Republic of Germany together with Rudolf Zwirner, Dieter Brusberg , Winfried Reckermann and Paul Maenz . In 1984 the Cologne art market was renamed ART COLOGNE .

Honors

Hein Stünke was honored with the ART COLOGNE Prize in 1991 for his life's work and took this award as an opportunity to bequeath his archive to the Federal Association of German Galleries and Editions (BVDG), which he co-founded in 1975. In 1992 the BVDG founded the Central Archive of the International Art Trade (ZADIK), where the archive of the Der Spiegel gallery is kept to this day.

literature

  • Helga Behn: Sincerely, Max. Artist mail from the ZADIK's holdings. Verlag für modern art Nuremberg, publisher. Central archive of the international art trade eV ZADIK, Cologne 2010, ISBN 978-3-86984-137-3 .
  • Karl Ruhrberg (Ed.): Zeitzeichen. Stations of fine arts in North Rhine-Westphalia. DuMont, Cologne 1989, ISBN 3-7701-2314-X .

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Dieter Honisch (Vorw.): 1945–1985 Art in the Federal Republic of Germany. National Gallery. Staatliche Museen Preußischer Kulturbesitz, Berlin 1985, p. 454.
  2. ↑ a b c d e f Helga Behn: Portrait. The Der Spiegel gallery in Cologne. In: Helga Behn: Sincerely, your Max. Artists' mail from the ZADIK holdings. Verlag für Moderne Kunst Nürnberg, Ed. Central Archive of the International Art Trade eV ZADIK, Cologne 2010, p. 80 f.
  3. ^ Karl Ruhrberg (ed.): Zeitzeichen. Stations of fine arts in North Rhine-Westphalia. DuMont, Cologne 1989, p. 456.
  4. ^ Günter Herzog: The central archive of the international art trade in Cologne and its collection profile using the example of the Der Spiegel gallery (PDF; 323 kB), p. 62 f.
  5. ↑ Martin Schieder, Karl Otto Götz: In the view of the other: the German-French art relations, 1945–1959 , google.books, accessed on August 12, 2011.
  6. ↑ Günter Herzog, p. 64.
  7. ↑ a b c Günter Herzog, p. 63.
  8. ^ Karl Ruhrberg (ed.): Zeitzeichen. Stations of fine arts in North Rhine-Westphalia , Cologne 1989, p. 492.
  9. ↑ Archived copy ( Memento from June 20, 2015 in the Internet Archive )
  10. ^ Karl Ruhrberg (ed.): Zeitzeichen. Stations of fine arts in North Rhine-Westphalia. P. 516.