Gallery Valentien

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Gallery Valentien Stuttgart

The gallery Valentien is an art gallery in Stuttgart . It was founded in 1929 by Fritz C. Valentien.

program

Committed to the modern , Fritz C. Valentien founded a collector's cabinet in Stuttgart in 1929, initially with his brother Tobias, with high-quality sales of modern art and the placement of exhibitions and artists. Fritz C. Valentien's activity, now single-handedly, soon developed into that of a classic art gallery; In addition, there was trading in art books, handicrafts and Bauhaus furniture. Fritz C. Valentien was already trading with French modernism in the early 1930s, where he painted pictures by Georges Braque (1), Pablo Picasso (2 pictures, 1 drawing, 1 collage), Jean Lurcat (3), Marie Laurencin (1) , Raoul Dufy (1) - a selection that reflects the demand for modernity and quality.

During the years of the Nazi dictatorship, Fritz C. Valentien steadfastly showed ostracized artists such as Oskar Schlemmer , Emil Nolde , Gabriele Münter , Adolf Hölzel , Ida Kerkovius , Otto Baum and HAP Grieshaber . In 1944 an air raid completely destroyed the gallery. Some stocks of art, art furniture and handicrafts could be saved in various camps, including in the area around Stuttgart.

After the reopening in 1947, the exhibition program of the post-war years focused increasingly on Spanish and French artists such as Pablo Picasso, Marc Chagall , Georges Braque and Joan Miró . In 1968 the gallery owner's son, Freerk C. Valentien, took over the gallery and expanded it to include political art, and a second gallery in a villa on the outskirts of the center. Artists such as Horst Antes and Alfred Hrdlicka , who had an apartment on the top floor of the villa for a few years and worked on sculptures in the gallery's sculpture garden, joined them.

Since 2013, the gallery owner and art historian Imke Valentien, daughter of Freerk C. Valentien, has been developing gallery work in the third generation. The program draws on the tradition of the gallery as well as contemporary artists.

history

Period of Nazi dictatorship, 1933–1944

Fritz C. Valentien came into conflict with the Reich Chamber of Culture during the first exhibition of the rooms he moved into in 1933 in the Königsbau in Stuttgart . After a retrospective set up by the Württembergischer Kunstverein for Oskar Schlemmer was forced to close in January 1933, Valentien, in consultation with the artist, took some of the pictures into the gallery, because at that time he believed "you have to show character, you have to resist". There the pictures were hung in the back room and placed one behind the other on the floor and shown to selected customers and connoisseurs of modern art. In an article in the magazine Die Weltkunst that same year, Fritz C. Valentien publicly opposed the closure of the Schlemmer retrospective. The fact that four pictures by Oskar Schlemmer from the Bauhaus era could be sold between 1933 and 1934 was described by Fritz C. Valentien in retrospect as a sensation, since "all modern endeavors ... died out in the general public at this point."

The follow-up exhibitions at Galerie Valentien, all of which were strongly attacked by the Nazi press, included an exhibition for the 80th birthday of Adolf Hölzel , originally also planned by the Württembergischer Kunstverein , which took place on a smaller scale in Galerie Valentien, as well as exhibitions by the artist Ida Kerkovius (1933 and 1936), Otto Baum and Walter Wörn with depictions of expressive, figure-like athletes in 1936. The Wörns archive contains a list of the vernissage guests, including the artists Willi Baumeister , Max Ackermann , Rudolf Schlichter , Otto Baum and Oskar Zügel u. a. found, as well as the collectors Max Fischer , Hugo Borst , Manfred Breuninger, Anulf Klett and many others who were close to modernism.

In 1937 the Gauleiter of Munich closed an exhibition by the artist Gabriele Münter before it opened. In the same year, regardless of this event, the artist's pictures were exhibited in Fritz C. Valentien's gallery. In 1938, the gallery owner Valentien opened HAP Grieshaber's first solo exhibition in his gallery under the cover title “Arabian Folk Books, Greek Folk Painting” . During his stays in Egypt and Greece, HAP Grieshaber was not only active artistically, but also agitated against the National Socialists. Thereupon he was not only banned from exhibiting, but also banned from working.

The gallery work became increasingly difficult in the course of the Nazi dictatorship, but works by Paul Klee , Emil Nolde , Karl Hofer , August Macke and Egon Schiele were traded, but "under the counter", where the works were stored in cardboard boxes without a passepartout or frame only selected visitors were shown, as the then employee Elisabeth Glaser remembered.

Hugo Borst (1881–1967), a great patron and hopeful of the artists classified as “degenerate”, used these cardboard boxes to purchase various sheets by Paul Klee, which are now in the graphic collection of the Stuttgart State Gallery . Due to his representation of ostracized artists, Fritz C. Valentien was invited several times to the Gestapo headquarters in the Hotel Silber in Stuttgart for interrogation. Despite the impending danger that increased over the years, he continued his work and later declared this decision as a consequence of his conception of art. "If you stand up for art with conviction, inclination and with an inner necessity, then you cannot act otherwise."

Stuttgarter Königsbau, 1933–1996 seat of the Valentien Gallery

Post-war years

The restart of the gallery work after the end of the war was marked by the arduous construction years. Shortly after the currency reform in 1948 , a barrack building financed by the gallery was installed in the burned-out ruins of the Stuttgart royal building . Coal stoves were used for heating and a cellar system from around 1850 was used as storage space. The large, accessible safe of the former copperplate cabinet, which had been preserved in the ruins of the neighboring Kronprinzenpalais (today the Stuttgart Art Museum), was rented as a further storage space . It was not until 1959 that the rooms in the Königsbau, which had been rebuilt by the state of Baden-Württemberg, could be occupied. In the 1950s and 1960s, Galerie Valentien sold sculptures, graphics and handicraft objects from the 16th to 18th centuries, as well as objects from Iran.

One of the supporters of the first years of development was Heinz Berggruen , who at that time was serving as a plastics officer in the American army and exchanging “ care packages ” for sheets from Paul Klee . A friendly business relationship developed that lasted until Hans Berggruen passed his Paris gallery in the Rue de l'Université into other hands. The exhibition program of the post-war years consisted mainly of French artists such as Pablo Picasso , Marc Chagall , Georges Braque , Georges Rouault , Jean Miró and Maurice de Vlaminck . In addition, HAP Grieshaber , Willi Baumeister , Max Ackermann , Ida Kerkovius , Eduard Bargheer u. a. shown in regular rotation.

From 1968: Head of Freerk C. Valentien

While the program from the 1930s to the late 1960s bore the signature of the gallery founder Fritz C. Valentien, after his retirement in 1968 artists such as Alfred Hrdlicka , Horst Antes , Fritz Genkinger , Moritz Baumgartl and others came to the fore. a. and have been exhibited regularly since then. An intensive collaboration began in 1973 with Martha Dix and later with the Otto Dix Foundation, which resulted in regular exhibitions and the transfer of important images to public institutions. In 1975 the gallery in Stuttgart's Königsbau was expanded to include a villa by Paul Bonatz (1911) on Stuttgart's Gänsheide . The strict architectural garden of the building was used for large sculptures from then on. Almost all of Hrdlicka's sculptural work was exhibited at the opening in 1975.

At the end of the 1970s, through a good contact with Dina Vierny , the former model Aristide Maillol and the administrator of his estate, the gallery was given the opportunity to show forty bronzes by Aristide Maillol in the Valentien gallery. The large sculpture La Nuit (1902–1909), one of the ten large sculptures exhibited in the sculpture garden of the Galerie Valentien, was acquired by the city of Stuttgart and installed in the Stuttgart Palace Square . In 1988 the gallery rooms in the Königsbau in Stuttgart were redesigned by the architect HG Merz.

The mural Die Familie (1940), an anti-war picture painted in secret by Oskar Schlemmer , was salvaged by Galerie Valentien from the “Dieter Keller” house in Stuttgart-Vaihingen, which was destined for demolition. The restoration and expansion of the painting were overseen by the Valentien Gallery (1992–1995).

From 1998 Freerk C. Valentien represented the artist Piero Dorazio , whose works were presented in three extensive exhibitions in 1998/1999, 2002 and 2004 in the Valentien Gallery before his death in 2005. In 1996, after more than 60 years, the rooms in Stuttgart's Königsbau were given up. In the years that followed, gallery operations concentrated on the rooms in the Bonatz building on Gänsheide in Stuttgart. The interior of the second gallery location, which opened in 2012 not far from the gallery in the Bonatz building, was designed by the architect Lika Valentien, daughter of Freerk Valentien.

From 2013: Head of Imke Valentien

The gallery owner and art historian Imke Valentien, the youngest daughter of Freerk Valentien, has been running the gallery since 2013 . Christoph Valentien, the gallery owner's son, is also frequently involved in exhibition projects. Under the direction of Imke Valentien, the contemporary artists Andreas Grunert, Anna Ingerfurth, Amely Spötzl, Jan Peter Tripp , Anne Sophie Tschiegg and Xuan Wang were included in the gallery program. Works of the classical modern as well as other contemporaries will continue to be exhibited. In her gallery work, Imke Valentien places particular emphasis on conveying the political, social and cultural influences that flow into works of art and are transported through them.

Publications (selection)

Editor of all works: Galerie Valentien, Stuttgart.

  • Pablo Picasso: graphics, ceramics, drawings. Exhibition Valentien Kunsthandel & Galerie GmbH (Stuttgart). Stuttgart 2012, ISBN 978-3-923481-40-8 .
  • Jan Peter Tripp: “Plein air” : New pictures; 25 miniatures in acrylic on silk on wood; Exhibition December 5, 2008 - February 28, 2009. Stuttgart 2008, ISBN 978-3-923481-38-5 .
  • Moritz Baumgartl: painting. Stuttgart 2007, ISBN 978-3-923481-37-8 .
  • Fritz Genkinger: Football and other “people-ge-layers”. Exhibition: June 13 to August 26, 2006. Stuttgart 2006, ISBN 978-3-923481-36-1 .
  • Alfred Hrdlicka: Claus von Stauffenberg and July 20, 1944: a cycle of drawings. Exhibition: May 29 to July 14, 2005. Text: Manfred Rommel; Trautl Brandstaller; Thomas Schnabel. Stuttgart 2005, ISBN 3-923481-32-2 .
  • Horst Antes: 25 pictures, 4 votives, exhibition February 27 to April 9, 2005. Stuttgart 2005, ISBN 3-923481-31-4 .
  • Moritz Baumgartl: painting and graphics. Texts Günther Diehl, Moritz Baumgartl. Stuttgart 2002, ISBN 3-923481-30-6 .
  • Piero Dorazio: paintings, watercolors, gouaches, prints , exhibition March 17 - May 4, 2002. Texts by Annette Papenberg-Weber, Piero Dorazio. Stuttgart 2002, ISBN 3-923481-29-2 .
  • Oskar Schlemmer: mural from Dieter Keller, mural designs and other works. Stuttgart 1994, ISBN 3-923481-23-3 .
  • Jürgen Brodwolf: Works 1962–1992; Exhibition June 24 - August 1, 1992. Stuttgart 1992.
  • Walter Wörn: The early days up to 1936; Reconstruction of an exhibition from 1936. Texts by Cornelia Stabenow, Karl Diemer and Freerk C. Valentien. Stuttgart 1991.
  • Jürgen Brodwolf: Figurines - installations, sculptures, reliefs, figurines, drawings, books. Exhibition October 18 - November 15, 1989. Stuttgart 1989, ISBN 3-923481-20-9 .
  • HAP Grieshaber: woodcuts, watercolors, letters, posters, books. Stuttgart 1984, ISBN 3-923481-13-6
  • Alfred Hrdlicka: drawings; Exhibition December 13, 1983 - January 21, 1984. Stuttgart 1983, ISBN 3-923481-12-8 .
  • Otto Dix: paintings, watercolors, drawings. Stuttgart 1983, ISBN 3-923481-10-1
  • Rodin: Bronzes. Exhibition Galerie Valentien, Stuttgart, April - July 1982, Bruton Gallery, Brussels, Belgium, September - October 1982, Bruton Gallery, Bruton, England, November - December 1982; Edited in collaboration with Bruton Gallery. Stuttgart 1982.
  • Horst Antes: graphics. Stuttgart 1981.
  • Horst Antes: Metal sculptures and pictures, exhibition September 18 - October 31, 1981. Stuttgart 1981, ISBN 3-923481-01-2
  • Aristide Maillol: bronze sculptures, exhibition July 3rd - 31st and September 1st - 13th, 1980. Stuttgart 1980.
  • HAP Grieshaber: Unique items 1977/78, exhibition for the 70th birthday, April 4 - May 5, 1979. Stuttgart 1979.
  • Fritz Genkinger: Pictures from South America, exhibition October 7-28, 1977. Stuttgart 1977.
  • Greece invites Grieshaber, HAP Grieshaber shows memorial pictures for freedom and human rights in the cultural center of Athens from March 16 - 31, 1977. Texts: Margarete Hannsmann. Stuttgart 1977.
  • Alfred Hrdlicka: sculptures and drawings. Stuttgart 1974.
  • Otto Dix: portrait and Nude drawings, exhibition April-May 1973. Stuttgart 1973.
  • Rudolf Bauer, exhibition April – May 1973. Stuttgart 1973.
  • Fritz Genkinger: New Pictures and Graphics, exhibition from November 5th to 30th, 1971. Stuttgart 1971
  • Max Beckmann: Graphics, exhibition October 1970. Stuttgart 1970.
  • Alfred Hrdlicka: graphics. Stuttgart 1969.
  • Georges Rouault: graphics, watercolors. Stuttgart 1969.
  • Karl Hofer: Oil paintings, drawings. Stuttgart 1969.
  • Braque, Chagall, Picasso: graphics. Stuttgart 1968.
  • Max Ackermann: 80th birthday exhibition - paintings, pastels, drawings, September exhibition. - October 1967 , ed. v. Galerie Valentien, Stuttgart 1967.
  • Georges Rouault: graphics, watercolors. Stuttgart 1967.
  • Eduard Bargheer: paintings, watercolors, drawings, graphics, exhibition July 15 - September 15, 1965. Stuttgart 1965.
  • Willi Baumeister: Graphics and drawings, exhibition March 1 - April 17, 1965. Catalog processing by Wilhelm F. Arntz. Stuttgart 1965.
  • Ida Kerkovius: Pastels, exhibition February - April 1964. Stuttgart 1964.
  • Georges Braque: 80 sheets of original graphics and 10 illustrated books, exhibition, November - December 1963. Stuttgart 1963.
  • Maurice de Vlaminck: paintings, watercolors, woodcuts, etchings, lithographs, exhibition May - June 1961. Stuttgart 1961.
  • Marc Chagall: Original graphic, 100 single sheets and the consequences of Gogol: Die toten Seelen and La Fontaine: Fables and the Bible, exhibition, August / September 1958. Stuttgart 1958.

Web links

Remarks

  1. ^ Letter of offer from Tobias Valentien to Oskar Reinhart, Archive Oskar Reinhart, Collection am Römerholz, Winterthur.
  2. ^ Offer letter to Oskar Reinhart, Winterthur, April 1, 1930, Archive Collection Oskar Reinhart, Winterthur
  3. ↑ The closing of the exhibition in the Württembergischer Kunstverein was commented on by the Stuttgart Nazi courier: "... Oskar Schlemmer the art Bolshevik, whose creations are described by some as original German art, has disappeared from the walls (of the Kunstverein)." Quote from: Uwe Fleckner: Attack on the Avant-Garde: Art and Art Politics under National Socialism. Berlin. Akad. Verlag, Berlin 2007, p. 29.
  4. ^ The art dealer FC Valentien in conversation with Karl Ebert. Südfunk Stuttgart, 1979, in the series "I was there".
  5. ↑ "The art dealer Dr. Fritz Valentien had the courage to show part of the exhibits (17 paintings and 17 watercolors)… in his gallery and to protest against the closure of this exhibition and against art politics in general in a long article in Weltkunst ”. Quote from: Karin von Maur : Oskar Schlemmer. Munich 1979, p. 234.
  6. ^ Südfunk Stuttgart, broadcast series: I was there: the art dealer FC Valentien in conversation with Karl Ebert . 1979.
  7. ↑ Hannelore Cyrus: It is all art. Ida Kerkovius August 31, 1879 - June 8, 1970. Books on Demand, Nordtstedt 2010, p. 24.
  8. ^ Walter Wörn: The early days up to 1936: Reconstruction of an exhibition from 1936. Galerie Valentien, texts by Cornelia Stabenow, Karl Diemer and Freerk C. Valentien. Stuttgart 1991, p. 22.
  9. ↑ Volker Rattemeyer: Artists of the 20th Century: Museum Wiesbaden, September 1 - November 25, 1990 , Kassel 1990, p. 369.
  10. ↑ HAP Grieshaber: Thanks does not expire. In: Blätter der Kulturgemeinschaft des DGB , Issue 3, May 1971, p. 23 ff.
  11. ↑ Freerk Valentien: Episodes from the History of the Valentien Gallery. In: Cat. Stuttgart, auction 29 Galerie Valentien, Lehr Kunstauktionen, Stuttgart 2009, p. 4ff.
  12. ^ Südfunk Stuttgart, broadcast series: I was there : The art dealer FC Valentien in conversation with Karl Ebert, 1979.
  13. ↑ Freerk Valentien: Episodes from the History of the Valentien Gallery. In: Auction 29 Galerie Valentien, Lehr Kunstauktionen, Stuttgart 2009, p. 4ff.
  14. ^ Freerk C. Valentien: Pablo Picasso, graphic ceramic drawings, Valentien art trade and gallery. Stuttgart 2012, ISBN 978-3-923481-40-8 , p. 5.
  15. ↑ Freerk Valentien: Episodes from the History of the Valentien Gallery. In: Auction 29 Galerie Valentien, Lehr Kunstauktionen, Stuttgart 2009, p. 4ff.
  16. ↑ Jörg Kurz: The Gänsheide: History and Culture. Verlag im Ziegelhaus, Stuttgart 2007, ISBN 978-3-925440-16-8 .
  17. ↑ Fate looks at us. Report on the rescue and restoration of Oskar Schlemmer's work. In: Der Spiegel , No. 42, October 16, 1995.
  18. ↑ Piero Dorazio - paintings, watercolors, gouaches, prints . Exhibition catalog, Galerie Valentien, Stuttgart 2002, ISBN 978-3-92348129-3 .