Hans Mayenfisch

Mayen fish as Zürcher Tiguriner, 1902/03

Grave site of the Mayenfisch family in the Sihlfeld cemetery

Hans Ernst Caspar Mayenfisch (born April 14, 1882 in Zurich ; † January 11, 1957 there ) was a Swiss banker , art collector and patron .

Life

Mayenfisch's ancestors came from Kaiserstuhl , Canton Aargau . The most important representative in the 18th century was the marshal in French service and builder of the marshal's house in Kaiserstuhl Johann Jakob Mayenfisch (1726-1802). Mayenfisch was the son of a doctor and writer practicing in Zurich and his wife Mathilde, née Honegger.

Mayenfisch attended grammar school and was strongly influenced by the historian and author of a building history of the Muri monastery , Otto Marquardt. After passing the Matura, Mayenfisch studied law at the universities in Zurich and Leipzig . In Zurich he was a member of the Corps Tigurinia . After receiving his doctorate in 1907, he spent a long time as a banker in London (Swiss Bank Corporation) and in New York (Redmond & Co.). In 1914 he joined the Julius Baer banking house in Zurich as a partner . In 1937 he became a member of the Board of Directors of the Rüti AG machine factory.

When Mayenfisch was 65 years old, he withdrew mostly from business life and devoted himself to art, science and literature until his death. Mayenfisch made a name for himself as a collector and sponsor of contemporary Swiss artists. In 1929 he donated 150 works from his collection to the Zurich Kunsthaus . In the end, Mayenfisch contributed 450 works to the Kunsthaus's inventory of modern art.

From 1932 to 1953 Mayenfisch was on the board of directors of the Zürcher Kunstgesellschaft and from 1940 to 1953 President of the Collection Commission. A special exhibition showed his collection in the Kunsthaus in 1952.

Mayenfisch married Olga, née Kopp, in 1939 and was friends with Othmar Schoeck , Oskar Reinhart , Paul Basilius Barth , Hermann Haller , Otto Charles Bänninger , Ernst Morgenthaler and Wilfried Buchmann (1878–1933) , among others .

In 1953, Hans Mayenfisch was named "the steadfast patron of Swiss contemporary art, the disinterested collector serving the Zurich public". hc from the University of Zurich.

literature

• Ernst Fischer: Hans Ernst Mayenfisch (1882–1957). In: Argovia , annual journal of the Historical Society of the Canton of Aargau, Vol. 68–69, 1958, pp. 517–518 ( digitized version ).

Web links

• Martin Illi: Maienfisch [Mayenfisch], Hans E .. In: Historisches Lexikon der Schweiz .