Device from the east

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Gert Christian von der Osten (born May 17, 1910 in Otterndorf ; † November 30, 1983 in Brühl ) was a German art historian and museum director. From 1960 to 1975 he was general director of the museums of the city of Cologne and director of the Wallraf-Richartz-Museum as well as professor of art history at the University of Cologne .

life and work

Gert von der Osten was born as the son of the school principal Gustav von der Osten , who worked in Otterndorf an der Niederelbe , and Marie Böschen, daughter of a pastor in Mittelwarden. He grew up in Hanover and graduated from high school in 1928 at what was then the humanistic Kaiserin-Auguste-Victoria-Gymnasium in Hanover, of which his father was director. He then studied at the universities of Marburg , Munich , Berlin and Halle an der Saale the subjects art history , classical archeology and history . As early as 1930 he was working as a student assistant at the Lower Saxony State Museum in Hanover . In 1933 he received his doctorate in Halle by Paul Frankl ; his dissertation dealt with the iconographic topic "The Man of Sorrows - Art and History of a German Devotional Image".

After his studies, von der Osten worked as an assistant at the State Museums in Berlin and in 1937 he was hired as curator of the Lower Saxony State Gallery in Hanover, where he worked until he was called up for military service in 1940. In 1944 he completed his habilitation at the University of Berlin under Wilhelm Pinder on mannerism in German art around 1520 . At the end of the war he was taken prisoner by the Soviets as an officer. After his return in 1948, he continued to work in the state gallery. In 1954 he became director of the Städtische Galerie Hannover and from 1952 he taught as a private lecturer and from 1960 as an adjunct professor at the Technical University. In 1957/58 he conducted research at the Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton, USA.

On September 1, 1960 von der Osten was appointed general director of the museums of the city of Cologne and director of the Wallraf-Richartz-Museum, in 1961 he was also appointed professor of art history at the University of Cologne. In his function, he succeeded in taking over the well-known Peter Ludwig collection on loan in 1968, which has been incorporated into the newly founded Museum Ludwig since 1976 and has been part of the collection of the new building built by the architects Busmann + Haberer since 1986 . In addition, he expanded the museum education department and the collection of the 20th century and organized numerous important exhibitions, including a major Max Ernst exhibition in 1964 . He also initiated the new building of the Wallraf-Richartz-Museum, whose topping-out ceremony he was able to witness in 1983. From 1960 to 1968 von Osten was a board member of the Association of German Art Historians and from 1966 he was a member of the German National Committee of the International Council of Museums (ICOM). So he organized the eighth general conference of the Museum Council in 1968 in Cologne (2nd part in Munich).

In 1975 von der Osten retired , in the same year he was awarded the Federal Cross of Merit for his services . He was married twice, first to Erika von der Osten-Baare, lastly to Hildegart von der Osten, née Müller, and he had a son Georg and a daughter Ulrike. He died on November 30, 1983 in Brühl in the Rhineland.

Fonts (selection)

  • Hans Baldung Grien. German publishing house for art studies, Berlin 1983.
  • German and Dutch art from the Reformation period. DuMont Schauberg, Cologne 1973.
  • Museum for a society of tomorrow. Wienand, Cologne 1971.
  • Painting and sculpture in Germany and the Nederlands 1500 to 1600. Penguin Books, Harmondsworth 1969.
  • 20th century plastic in Germany, Austria and Switzerland. Langewiesche, Königstein im Taunus 1961.
  • Lovis Corinth. 2., through Edition. Bruckmann, Munich around 1959.
  • Images from three centuries in Hanover. Bruckmann, Munich 1957.
  • Catalog of the pictures in the Lower Saxony State Gallery in Hanover. Bruckmann, Munich 1957.
  • The new acquisitions of the Städtische Galerie. City Gallery Hanover, 1956.
  • German impressionists. Museum zu Allerheiligen, Schaffhausen 1955.
  • Lovis Corinth. Bruckmann, Munich 1955.
  • The sculptures from Pöhlde. Art department of the State Museum, Hanover [circa 1950].
  • List of works of art after 1800 in the Landesmuseum Hannover. Art collections of the Landesmuseum Hannover, 1950.
  • Lower Saxony carving of the late Middle Ages. German Association for Art History, Berlin 1940 [Ed. 1941].
  • The Man of Sorrows. German Association for Art History, Berlin 1933 and 1935 [Ed. 1936].

literature

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Katja Brandt:  East, Gert Christian von der. In: New German Biography (NDB). Volume 19, Duncker & Humblot, Berlin 1999, ISBN 3-428-00200-8 , p. 611 f. ( Digitized version ).
  2. ^ Letter of thanks for student collaboration to G. Michel from August 18, 1968
personal data
SURNAME East, device from the
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Osten, Gert Christian von der (full name)
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German art historian and museum director
DATE OF BIRTH May 17, 1910
PLACE OF BIRTH Otterndorf
DATE OF DEATH November 30, 1983
Place of death Bruehl