Hanna Stirnemann

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Hanna Stirnemann , also Johanna Hofmann-Stirnemann or Johanna Hofmann (born October 12, 1899 in Weißenfels , † November 25, 1996 in Berlin ), was a German art historian and curator . She is considered to be the first female museum director in Germany.

Career

Johanna Stirnemann was born as the daughter of the businessman Albert Stirnemann. In 1922 she passed the Abitur at the Realgymnasium Weißenfels and studied art history, philosophy and education at the universities of Vienna and Halle. There she received her doctorate in 1927 with Paul Frankl with a dissertation on the concept of style of the “late Gothic” in old German painting . In the same year she accepted a position as a research assistant at the Oldenburg State Museum for Art and Cultural History . Here Hanna Stirnemann learned not only all functions of a museum business from museum director Walter Müller-Wulckow . She worked with Müller-Wulckow on the second volume of his monographs on new architecture on residential buildings and settlements from the German present and published in preparation for an exhibition on Dutch contemporary painting . At the same time she supported the work of the sculptor Elsa Oeltjen-Kasimir , some of which can be found in the Oldenburg Museum.

Director in Jena

In April 1929, Stirnemann was appointed to Greiz , where she set up the Reussische Heimatmuseum, which was reopened in the same year, in the Lower Castle. In November 1929 she was appointed by the museum's founder and director Paul Weber as a research assistant at the Jena City Museum , which was located in the former town house on Weigelstrasse on the first and second floors. Shortly afterwards, Weber died unexpectedly in January 1930 and, on April 1, 1930, at the age of 31, Stirnemann became Weber's successor and thus Germany's first (female) museum director. On July 29, 1930, she also took over the management of the Jenaer Kunstverein in the Prinzessinnenschlösschen, which had become well-known through Walter Dexel's avant-garde exhibitions .

In 1930, Stirnemann showed works by Paula Modersohn-Becker (paintings and drawings) and Aenne Biermann (photographs) in exhibitions, as well as eight painters , including Erich Heckel and Karl Schmidt-Rottluff . This was followed by works by a “group of young painters from the Bauhaus Dessau”, including Otto Hofmann , a painter who confessed to abstract art in press articles. With him, Stirnemann befriended. As a KPD member, Hofmann fled temporarily to Switzerland and Paris in 1933 after a search of his Jena studio. In October 1933, Stirnemann spent a vacation in Murnau am Staffelsee and on this occasion met Gabriele Münter . In 1934 she showed von Münter in Jena works from 25 years of creativity. In the same year, two portraits in oil were created in which Münter portrayed the museum director as a modern woman. After quarrels with the museum sponsor, which could have been about her exhibition activities, which were not in line with the new rulers and also did not take into account local artists, as well as a non-Aryan great-grandfather, Stirnemann resigned from the service. Her successor in office was Werner Meinhof , who came from the Oldenburg State Museum and who sympathized with the National Socialists at an early age.

Hainichen and Berlin

In 1935 Otto Hofmann returned to Jena, the couple married and moved to Berlin, where Johanna Hofmann-Stirnemann gave private lessons in art history. 1938 they moved "into the inner emigration " to Hainichen where they work closely with the ceramicist Otto Lindig worked together and produced glaze paintings.

Immediately after the end of the war in May 1948, the "unencumbered" Hofmann-Stirnemann became mayor of Hainichen. She then took over the management of the castle museum on the Heidecksburg and became the museum curator of the State of Thuringia in Rudolstadt . But she could not come to terms with the restrictive and patronizing cultural policy of the new GDR .

From 1950 she lived again, now called Johanna Hofmann, with her husband in West Berlin . She became the managing director of the German Werkbund Berlin and worked at the master school for arts and crafts. In 1955 she participated in the exhibition Material Glass of the Deutscher Werkbund and the University of Fine Arts.

Fonts

  • Hanna Stirnemann: The concept of the “late Gothic” style in old German painting. Issue 268 of Studies on German Art History, JHE Heitz Verlag, Strasbourg, 1929 (dissertation).
  • Hanna Stirnemann: Dutch painting of the present. For the exhibition in the Oldenburg State Museum. In: Kunstwanderer. Volume 10 (1928/29), pp. 107-109.
  • Hanna Stirnemann: Guide through the Siedelhof in Jena. An established Altjena wine farm. Neuenhahn, 1930.
  • Living in our time. Documentary publication for Interbau Berlin 57th published by the Deutscher Werkbund Berlin, introduction and editing by Johanna Hofmann. Verlag Das Example, Darmstadt 1957.
  • Johanna Hofmann: The permanent exhibition "WOHNEN" of the German Werkbund in Berlin . A first experience report. In: cultural work. Issue 11, 1959, pp. 32-33.

literature

  • Birgitt Hellmann: Johanna-Hofmann-Stirnemann. The first female museum director in Germany. In: Gisela Horn (Ed.): Design and Reality. Women in Jena 1900 to 1933 (= building blocks for Jena city history. Volume 5). Hain, Rudolstadt / Jena 2001, pp. 325–338.

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Article in: Adolph Donath (Ed.): Der Kunstwanderer. Magazine for old and new art, for the art market and collecting. Volume 10/11 (1928/29), November 1928, ISSN  2365-6808 , pp. 107-109, doi: 10.11588 / diglit.25877.33 .
  2. ↑ Intoxication and disenchantment: the picture collection of the Jenaer Kunstverein. Fate of an avant-garde collection in the 20th century. Jenaer Kunstverein, Jena Municipal Museums, Jena Cultural Foundation, Bussert & Stadeler, Quedlinburg 2008, p. 24.
  3. ^ Ingrid Mössinger (Ed.): Gabriele Münter: Works in the Museum Gunzenhauser, on the occasion of the exhibition Gabriele Münter. Paintings, reverse glass painting, works on paper, November 2, 2008–19. April 2009. Kerber, 2008, p. 33.
  4. ↑ Today in the Gabriele Münter and Johannes Eichner Foundation in Munich.
personal data
SURNAME Stirnemann, Hanna
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Hofmann-Stirnemann, Johanna; Hofmann, Johanna
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German art historian and curator
DATE OF BIRTH October 12, 1899
PLACE OF BIRTH Weissenfels
DATE OF DEATH November 25, 1996
Place of death Berlin