Georg Schmidt (art historian)

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Georg Schmidt (born March 17, 1896 in Basel , † May 26, 1965 in Basel) was a Swiss art historian . From 1939 to 1961 he was director of the Kunstmuseum Basel .

Life

Georg Schmidt was born as the son of Professor of Geology at the University of Basel Carl Schmidt and his wife Charlotte Hudtwalker from Hamburg. He was a younger brother of the architect Hans Schmidt . Georg Schmidt received his doctorate from the University of Basel on Johann Jakob Bachofen's philosophy of history . As a committed socialist, he set up a contact point for refugees from Germany in the Zett House on Badenerstrasse in 1933 . The writer Friedrich Wolf was one of those he supported .

Act

From 1929 to 1939 Schmidt was assistant to the director of the Gewerbemuseum Basel , where in 1929 he showed an exhibition with works by Bauhaus artists. From 1921 to 1938 he wrote art reviews for the Basler Nationalzeitung and was the librarian of the Basler Kunstverein. Schmidt was an important mentor for « Group 33 ». On March 1, 1939, he was appointed curator (director) of the Basel Public Art Collection (Kunstmuseum Basel) as the successor to Otto Fischer . He immediately advocated the purchase of works from the " Degenerate Art " offered by Germany . From 1946 to 1954 he looked after the estate of Ernst Ludwig Kirchner .

He expanded the department for modern art, which under his direction became internationally important. In 1949 he showed a Gauguin exhibition in the art museum . As early as 1946, he planned to buy works by the artist Alberto Giacometti . In 1950 he was able to acquire two paintings ( La Table and Portrait d'Annette ) and a bronze sculpture ( Place , 1948–1949, 63 × 44 × 21 cm, for 4800 Swiss francs) for the Emanuel Hoffmann Foundation , which made Giacometti's first works ended up in a public collection in Switzerland. In 1961 Franz Meyer became his successor. Maria Netter was Schmidt's assistant from 1944 to 1945.

Schmidt was also an eminent art historian. From 1958 until his death in 1965 he was a professor at the Academy of Fine Arts in Munich .

Fonts

  • (with Hans Mühlestein ) Ferdinand Hodler 1853–1918. His life and his work. Rentsch, Erlenbach 1942; Unionsverlag, Zurich 1983, ISBN 3-293-00020-7 .
  • Writings from 22 years of museum activity. Phoebus Publishing House, 1964
  • A short history of modern painting. Friedrich Reinhardt, Basel 1998, ISBN 3-7245-0037-8 .

literature

  • Georg Kreis: "Degenerate Art" in Basel , Basler Zeitschrift für Geschichte und Altertumskunde, Vol. 78, 1978, pp. 163–191
  • Swiss Lexicon. Volume 5, Verlag Schweizer Lexikon, Lucerne 1993.
  • Gerd Presler; Georg Schmidt (1896–1965) , in: Otto Mueller on the eightieth anniversary of his death. In: Yearbook of the Otto Mueller Society, Volume I, Weimar 2010, pp. 72–77.
  • Ivonne Höfliger (Ed.): Group 33. Editions Galerie zem Specht, Basel 1983, ISBN 3-85696-006-6 .

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ As a place of death also is Binningen called
  2. ↑ Ursula Suter, Bruno Flierl: Hans Schmidt, 1893–1972: Architect in Basel, Moscow, East Berlin. GTA, 1993, ISBN 978-3-85676050-2 .
  3. ^ JJ Bachofen's philosophy of history. Beck'sche Verlagsbuchhandlung, Munich 1929.
  4. ↑ Gewerbemuseum Basel (ed.): The bauhaus in dessau. Exhibition catalog. Basel 1929.
  5. ^ Eberhard W. Kornfeld: The history of the estate of Ernst Ludwig Kirchner from 1938 until today. Galerie Kornfeld Verlag, Bern 2017, pp. 9-14.
  6. ↑ The Portrait d'Annette is now as a portrait of Marie-Laure de Noailles been identified
  7. ^ Reinhold Hohl : Alberto Giacometti in Basel. In: Jacques Herzog , Philip Origin: Herzog & de Meuron: Natural history. Springer, 2005, ISBN 978-3-03778049-7 , p. 131 ff.
personal data
SURNAME Schmidt, Georg
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Swiss art historian and curator
DATE OF BIRTH March 17, 1896
PLACE OF BIRTH Basel
DATE OF DEATH May 26, 1965
Place of death Basel