Hans Werner Grohn

Hans Werner Grohn (January 1968)

Hans Werner Grohn (born March 12, 1929 in Hagen ; † July 9, 2009 in Hanover ) was a German art historian and museum director.

Career

Born in Hagen, the son of the chemist and later university professor Hans Grohn , who initially worked in industry, and his wife Hertha, b. Green his youth mainly in Berlin . After starting to study art history in Greifswald , he returned to Berlin, where he studied at the Humboldt University in Berlin . He wrote his dissertation in 1952 under Professor Richard Hamann on The Portrait of Mannerism in Tuscany . During his studies he met his future wife, the art historian Ursel Grohn , née. Schönrock (1927-2020), whom he married in 1958.

During his studies he volunteered with Ludwig Justi - who was director of the Berlin National Gallery until he was dismissed by the National Socialists in 1933 and was appointed general director of the State Museums in the eastern part of Berlin by the Berlin magistrate in 1946 . With his doctoral certificate, Grohn received an assistant and curator position at Justi. Given the extent of the destruction of the city and the ruinous condition of Museum Island , Grohn faced enormous tasks. When the after end of the war in the Soviet Union spent precious paintings of the Dresden Art Collections should return to Germany in 1955, Hans Werner Grohn and Grohn Ursel to have been Leningrad dispatched to the Cultural Heritage in the basement of the Hermitage catalog and packaging. The return of the works was also a political act, which was made known to the German public through the representative exhibition “Treasures of World Culture Saved by the Soviet Union” in Berlin. Both the organization of the show under the most difficult conditions and its art-historical-didactic objectives led to a complete success and confirmed Grohn as an expert in his field. He was appointed custodian (head) of the collection of the former Kaiser Friedrich Museum in the Gemäldegalerie of the State Museums in East Berlin .

In 1960, three years after Justis's death and one year before the wall was erected , Grohn and his wife, who had meanwhile become director of the Berlin Sculpture Collection, decided to flee to the western part of the city , giving up all their possessions, in order to cope with the growing To avoid pressure from the political situation. The professional problems associated with his relocation to the Federal Republic found an initial compensation through scholarships, which allowed him to resume the research he had already started in Berlin in the following years, first in Würzburg and then at the German Art History Institute in Florence and the Bibliotheca Hertziana in Rome . He reported on cultural events in Italy for the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung and ARD broadcaster .

In April 1968, Grohn succeeded Dietrich Roskamp as head custodian and department director at the Hamburger Kunsthalle.In his years of service in Hamburg, at the end of 1970 he bought the painting The Wanderer above the Sea of ​​Fog , which was attributed to Caspar David Friedrich , and Caspar David Friedrich, organized with the then museum director Werner Hofmann -Exhibition in 1974 with 95 Friedrich canvas paintings and 137 drawings and graphics - including "many loans from Copenhagen, Leningrad, Moscow, Oslo, Prague, Vienna, from Dresden and many other cities in the former GDR" - and one resulting from this hitherto unknown high number of visitors for the Hamburger Kunsthalle.

On October 1, 1975, Grohn was appointed director of the Lower Saxony State Museum in Hanover, succeeding Harald Seiler , in which, in addition to the State Gallery, the collections of prehistory and natural history and ethnology are kept. He has successfully mastered the reorganization of this extensive property and, through important exhibitions, has also drawn attention to the museum's less-noticed holdings. In his era valuable acquisitions of works by the artists Agnolo Bronzino , Bernardo Bellotto , Giovanni Battista Tiepolo , Salomon van Ruysdael , and Nicolaes Pietersz were made for the Gemäldegalerie . Berchem , Michiel Sweerts , Théo van Rysselberghe and Claude Monet . At the end of May 1992 he retired. He was a Rotarian .

Publications (selection)

• The portrait of mannerism in Tuscany , dissertation Berlin 1952.
• Hans Holbein the Younger. Portrait drawings , Dresden 1956.
• Vincent van Gogh , Leipzig 1959.
• Caspar David Friedrich , exhibition catalog, Hamburg Kunsthalle 1974.
• Three memorial designs by Caspar David Friedrich . In: Low German Contributions to Art History 16, 1977, pp. 121–132.
• A newly acquired portrait from the Lower Saxony State Gallery in Hanover and the self-portraits of Wallerant Vaillant . In: Low German Contributions to Art History 19, 1980, pp. 137 ff.
• An unpublished work by the Bronzino . In: Low German Contributions to Art History 21, 1982, p. 58 ff.
• From Cranach to Monet. Ten years of new acquisitions , Hanover 1985.
• Venice's fame in the north. The great Venetian painters of the 18th century, their clients and their collectors , exhibition catalog, Hanover 1991.
• Lower Saxony State Museum Hanover. The Italian paintings. Critical catalog , Hanover 1995.

literature

• Who is who? The German Who's Who : Schmidt-Römhild, Lübeck, 2001/02, p. 472.
• In memoriam Hans Werner Grohn: Speeches at the funeral service on July 27, 2009 in the chapel of the Engesohde cemetery . Dräger + Wullenwever, Lübeck 2009.
• Ines Katenhusen : 150 years of the Lower Saxony State Museum in Hanover . In: Heide Grape-Albers (ed.): The Lower Saxony State Museum Hanover 2002. 150 years of the museum in Hanover, 100 years of the building at the Maschpark. Festschrift for the year of the double anniversary . Lower Saxony State Museum, Hanover 2002, ISBN 3-929444-29-1 , pp. 18–94 especially pp. 87–91 Fig. 70.

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Who is who? Das Deutsche Who is Who, Schmidt-Römhild, Lübeck, 2001/02, p. 472.
2. ↑ http://d-nb.info/480256101
3. ↑ Christiane Buddenberg-Hertel u. a .: In memory of Dr. Ursel Grohn born Schönrock, Hannover 2020. (Remembrance address at the funeral service for U. Grohn on March 16, 2020.)
4. ↑ Who is who? Das Deutsche Who is Who, Schmidt-Römhild, Lübeck, 2001/02, p. 472.
5. ↑ Against Stubengeehre , abendblatt.de of May 18, 1968.
6. ↑ Christiane Buddenberg-Hertel u. a .: In memory of Dr. Ursel Grohn born Schönrock, Hannover 2020, p. 10 f., (Memorial address at the funeral for U. Grohn on March 16, 2020.)
7. ↑ Christiane Buddenberg-Hertel u. a .: In memory of Dr. Ursel Grohn born Schönrock, Hannover 2020, pp. 12 and 14, (memorial address at the funeral service for U. Grohn on March 16, 2020.)
8. ↑ Against Stubengeehre , abendblatt.de of May 18, 1968.
9. ↑ Christiane Buddenberg-Hertel u. a .: In memory of Dr. Ursel Grohn born Schönrock, Hannover 2020, p. 16, (memorial address at the memorial service for U. Grohn on March 16, 2020.)
10. ↑ As followers of Roskamp , abendblatt.de of 24 April 1968th
11. ↑ Klaus Mlynek, Waldemar R. Röhrbein (ed.): Stadtlexikon Hannover: From the beginnings to the present. Schlütersche Verlagsgesellschaft, Hanover 2009, p. 229.
12. ↑ Die Zeit - On the Edge of All Religions , October 17, 1980.
13. ↑ Star guests are insured for 50 million DM , Abendblatt.de from August 31, 1974.
14. ↑ 50,000 came - a record , Abendblatt.de of September 30, 1974.
15. ↑ Appeal - Briefly noted , Abendblatt.de of August 2, 1975.
16. ↑ Who is who? The German Who's Who : Schmidt-Römhild, Lübeck, 2001/02, p. 472.