Gustav luck

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Gustav Glück (born April 6, 1871 in Vienna , Austria-Hungary , † November 18, 1952 in Santa Monica , California, USA) was an Austrian art historian and museum director.

Gustav Glück , Photo by Carl Pietzner
( Vienna Pictures , January 4, 1914)

Life

Gustav Glück was the son of Moritz (1832–1914) and Therese (1838–1914) Glück. Growing up in the milieu of this culturally interested and respected old Austrian wholesale merchant family, Glück studied in Vienna and Bonn, particularly supported by Franz Wickhoff and Carl Justi , first classical philology , then classical archeology and art history and received his doctorate in Vienna in 1894. Study trips enriched his art history work throughout his life and enabled him to establish valuable scientific connections.

In 1899, Glück entered court service and was employed as a research assistant at the Kupferstichkabinett of the court library under Friedrich Dörnhöffer to reorganize the early graphic collections. A year later he took over the scientific work of the picture gallery of the "Art History Collections of the Very Highest Imperial House" (later the Art History Museum ) as an assistant . In 1911 he was the first art historian to be entrusted with the management of the Gemäldegalerie, which he was in charge of until he retired in 1931. From 1919 to 1923 he headed the entire art history museum as "Gustav Glück as First Chairman of the College of Scientific Officials". The Gemäldegalerie owes the first modern hanging to Glück, which removed the individual painting from the abundance of "picture walls" previously offered and enabled an isolated viewing of the work of art. The pictures removed from the permanent collection were combined into a "secondary gallery" set up as a study collection. The expansion of the restoration facility, which was equipped with an X-ray and quartz lamp facility early on , shows Glück's great sense of responsibility for the preservation of the masterpieces. After the First World War , Glücks international relations and his energetic intervention both verbally and in writing made a decisive contribution to the fact that the stock of the picture gallery did not suffer any further losses apart from the pictures confiscated from Italy. Artistic sensitivity, a developed sense of quality and precise knowledge of the art market made it possible for Glück to "round off the strengths of the existing holdings" with a considerable number of new acquisitions. He systematically expanded the collection of old Austrian panel painting (“Museum of Medieval Austrian Art”), which is now in the Austrian Belvedere Gallery . He worked as a clerk and editor on the catalogs and guides of the Gemäldegalerie published between 1904 and 1928. When Glück retired from civil service, there were not only his books on Renaissance art and Van Dyck , but also a considerable number of essays on Old Dutch and Old German art and on the problems surrounding Peter Paul Rubens and his school. In addition to studies on Flemish and Dutch painting, two works on Pieter Bruegel the Elder and their translations followed in quick succession . They showed the Bruegel research new ways. He also wrote a comprehensive work on landscapes by Rubens and, among other things, numerous studies on the Habsburg portraits and, as the last study, "Peter Bruegel the Elder and the Legend of St. Christopher in Early Flemish Paintings" (1950).

Glück married Else von Schönthan (1877–1965), a daughter of the writer Franz von Schönthan , in 1898 . The son Franz Glück (1899–1981) became museum director, Gustav Glück became a banker (1902–1973), the daughter Elisabeth (Lisl, 1908–1993) was married to Anton Edthofer and from 1936 to the actor Paul Henreid .

After Austria's annexation in 1938, Glück had to emigrate. He moved to London and the United States in 1940, receiving American citizenship in 1949.

Publications (selection)

  • Rubens love garden. In: Yearbook of Art History Collections. Vienna 1920/1921.
  • The picture gallery of the Kunsthistorisches Museum in Vienna. 1923, 4th edition 1946, engl. 1925
  • The hand drawings of Peter Paul Rubens. published with FM Haberditzl, Vienna 1928
  • The art of the Renaissance in Germany, the Netherlands, France, etc. In: Propylaen-Kunstgeschichte Vol. 10, 1928, 2nd edition 1933, span. 1936
  • Van Dyck, The Master's Painting (= Classics of Art 23). 1931
  • Collected essays , edited by L. Burchard and R. Eigenberger, 2 volumes, 1933 (selection from more than 180 additional essays and introductions to art books)
  • Bruegel's painting , 1936, 5th edition 1951 and T. The great Bruegel work
  • The Bruegel Book , 1936, 85th thousand 1949 (Dutch 1936, French and English 1937)
  • De Landschappen by Peter Paul Rubens , Antwerp and Amsterdam 1940, German 1945/48, 2nd edition 1949
  • The way to the picture. Experienced, listened to, invented . Schroll, Vienna 1948.
  • Peter Bruegel the Elder and the Legend of St. Christopher in Early Flemish Paintings . In: The Art Quarterly 13, 1950.

literature

  • Ludwig Baldass : The history of the Vienna picture gallery in the years 1911–31. In: Yearbook of the Art History Collections in Vienna. NF 5, 1931, p. 1 ff.
  • Ernst Heinrich Buschbeck : Directory of the gallery's acquisitions in the years 1911–31. In: Yearbook of the Art History Collections in Vienna. NF 5, 1931, p. 21 ff.
  • Ludwig Baldass: Gustav Glück, April 6, 1871–1951. In: Wiener Zeitung. April 6, 1951, p. 3.
  • Otto Benesch : Gustav luck in memory. In: Wiener Zeitung. from December 25, 1952, p. 3 f.
  • Erwin M. Auer :  Happiness, Gustav. In: New German Biography (NDB). Volume 6, Duncker & Humblot, Berlin 1964, ISBN 3-428-00187-7 , p. 470 f. ( Digitized version ).
  • Glück, Gustav , in: Werner Röder; Herbert A. Strauss (Ed.): International Biographical Dictionary of Central European Emigrés 1933-1945 . Volume 2.1. KG Saur, Munich 1983, ISBN 3-598-10089-2 , pp. 382f.
  • Ulrike Wendland: Biographical handbook of German-speaking art historians in exile. Life and work of the scientists persecuted and expelled under National Socialism. Part 1: A – K. KG Saur, Munich 1999, ISBN 3-598-11339-0 , p. 201 ff.
  • Wencke Deiters: The Vienna picture gallery under Gustav Glück. From the imperial collection to the modern museum. Hirmer, Munich 2016, ISBN 978-3-7774-2732-4 .

Web links

personal data
SURNAME Good luck, Gustav
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Austrian art historian
DATE OF BIRTH April 6, 1871
PLACE OF BIRTH Vienna
DATE OF DEATH November 18, 1952
Place of death Santa Monica