Hans Goltz

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Hans Goltz

Hans Goltz (born August 11, 1873 in Elbing ; † October 21, 1927 in Baden-Baden ) was a German art dealer and a pioneer of modern art.

Live and act

Hans Goltz was born as the fourth of five children of linen weaver and businessman Benjamin Goltz in Elbing, then East Prussia. The successful school days of the “quiet, tender dreamer”, as he was described by his only sister three years older than him, experienced a sudden break when the family lost all their property in 1886 and moved to Königsberg . Attending the grammar school was no longer possible for financial reasons, which is why Hans Goltz's school career at the Latin high school in Königsberg ended. The subsequent training as a bookseller led the 17-year-old to Bamberg , as his original training company had to be closed for economic reasons.

In 1904 Hans Goltz settled in Munich . In 1910 he took over the Ulrich Putze book and art store at Brienner Strasse 8, which he continued to run independently as a book and art store and which over the years should develop into a sensational art center. He gained a good reputation as an art connoisseur with the “Goltz volumes” published in his own publishing house, books in very small editions and in binders hand-painted by artists such as Georg Schrimpf by the art bookbinders Carl Herkomer and Carl Sonntag jun.

The Goltz Gallery in Munich, 1912

From February 2 to March 18, 1912, the second exhibition by the editorial staff of Der Blaue Reiter , which was controversially received by the Munich population, took place under the title “The second exhibition by the editorial staff of Der Blaue Reiter Black and White”.

With the founding of the Galerie Neue Kunst - Hans Goltz in a prime location, directly on Odeonsplatz , Goltz took the decisive step in art dealer professionalism in September 1912. In more than 160 exhibitions, Goltz tried to familiarize the Munich public with modern art at home and abroad and presented paintings, graphics, sculptures and handicrafts from Fauvism , Cubism and Expressionism . The almost unmanageable number of avant-garde artists in the alphabetical list ranges from Hans Arp to Emil Zoir .

Numerous print portfolios that were self-published were intended to ensure the additional dissemination of contemporary art. After the Galerie Neue Kunst - Hans Goltz was relocated to the Goltz bookstore, lectures on new literature were held alongside exhibitions. Else Lasker-Schüler and Franz Kafka were among the speakers. Kafka held his only reading outside of Prague in the Goltz bookshop.

The aftershocks of the First World War , which for example resulted in the Munich Soviet Republic, induced Hans Goltz to publish the leaflet “Ararat” with political content. “Ararat”, however, turned into a richly illustrated art magazine in 1920. At that time, Hans Goltz had already become the general representative of the German-Swiss painter Paul Klee , who remarked in February 1920: "Goltz has been working very well so far". Not everyone was enthusiastic about Hans Goltz's commitment to modern art. Hans Goltz experienced mixed reactions from the population and the press. One of the most negative is probably the one in the Völkischer Beobachter of March 29, 1923:

“For ten years a strange spiritual epidemic has raged in our city, New Art, Expressionism, which we call the art plague. […] It is gratifying that this plague did not lead to a general septic contamination, but instead gathered in abscesses that only need to be cut open. The art dealership 'Goltz' is such an abscess, Mr. Goltz is currently celebrating the tenth anniversary of the art plague with an exhibition. Using the values ​​of the fine arts, it shows the whole pestilent inflammation, phosphorescent putrefaction and the rigid agony of the mendacious, stray ghosts in all their forms - from uninhibited rabies to hollow idiocy - from the most shameless meanness to religious madness. "
Back of a painting by Johann Benjamin Godron from 1926 with sticker from Galerie Neue Kunst

Hans Goltz was by no means unaffected by such hostility. He looked for distance and relaxation in Baden-Baden, for which his daughter Charlotte reported that he had loved the spa town. His health was badly affected by press attacks and death threats. In autumn 1927 he also sought peace and quiet in Baden-Baden and died there unexpectedly on October 21, 1927. The book and art trade was continued by his widow Gertrud and his son Hans-Joachim. In 1928 they moved to Briennerstrasse 55 and opened the Goltz-Eck there .

The Bavarian writer Oskar Maria Graf set him a literary monument in his last autobiography “Laughter from the outside” with the assessment that Hans Goltz was the “most famous pioneer of modern art” . The art bookstore Goltz existed in the Türkenstrasse in Munich until January 2013, which was owned by his descendants.

In Munich-Obermenzing the Hans-Goltz-Weg is named after him.

literature

  • Five years of Goltz-Verlag, Munich: 1912-1917 , Munich: Goltz-Verlag 1917

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Hans von Weber : Assortment volumes. In: The onion fish , III. Volume 2, June 1911, p. 69 f.
  2. ↑ Hans Goltz on bad-bad.de
  3. ↑ a b Hans Goltz - a pioneer of modern art
  4. ↑ see Franziska Hein: A place of stories: Kafka held his only reading outside of Prague in the Goltz bookstore, Thomas Mann also read his works there - but the shop has to close after 150 years in January. The owner's sadness is limited. in: Süddeutsche Zeitung December 12, 2012, page R 4
personal data
SURNAME Goltz, Hans
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German art dealer and a pioneer of modern art
DATE OF BIRTH August 11, 1873
PLACE OF BIRTH Elblag
DATE OF DEATH October 21, 1927
Place of death Baden-Baden