Hedy Hahnloser-Bühler

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Hedy Hahnloser-Bühler with daughter Lisa and girlfriend

Hedy Hahnloser-Bühler (born February 5, 1873 in Winterthur ; † May 9, 1952 there ) was a Swiss painter , craftswoman , art collector and patron .

Life

Hedwig (Hedy) was the second of four children of the married couple Carl and Ida Bühler-Blumer. The Bühler family was a respected industrial family in Winterthur and the surrounding area who ran various spinning mills . The mother also came from a family that owned a spinning mill in the canton of Glarus . Hedy is described as a curious and alert child who suffered greatly from the strict, unconditional obedience-demanding upbringing of their parents. There was no doubt in the Bühler household: the next generation of women should receive a musical education and otherwise be prepared for the role of the future hostess and mother. In 1889, Hedy was allowed to enter the drawing school for industry and commerce in St. Gallen .

In 1891, the 18-year-old girl met the medical student Arthur Hahnloser at a rifle festival and fell in love with him. The parents, however, vehemently opposed this relationship with a Catholic son of a merchant family. They forbade her to interact with him. From 1894 to 1898 Hedy attended the painting school in Gauting near Munich . The parents hoped that she would forget Arthur Hahnloser there, and Hedy hoped that she would be able to better live the relationship with him that had been secretly maintained up to then. Hahnloser-Bühler later described that these Munich years were very happy and an ongoing festival. She associated with the artists Wassily Kandinsky , Paul Klee , Franz Marc and Arnold Böcklin . When her father died, she married the ophthalmologist Arthur Hahnloser on October 24, 1898. They moved to the " Villa Flora " in Winterthur, which was already owned by the Bühlers. The Hahnloser-Bühler couple set up an eye clinic there and lived in the other rooms privately. Hedy Hahnloser-Bühler supported her husband in running the practice. In the years 1899 and 1901 the son Hans and the daughter Lisa were born.

"Villa Flora" in Winterthur

The young woman also worked as a craftsman, which was very en vogue in those years . In the "Flora" around 1905 a custom had become established that was to have far-reaching consequences for the city of Winterthur: every Tuesday afternoon, a small party gathered around the round table in the "Salon Rittmeyer" for black coffee. There were friends and relatives who were interested in art, monument preservation and architecture . These included Robert Rittmeyer (architect), Jules de Praetere (director of the Zurich School of Applied Arts), Richard Bühler (Hedy Hahnloser-Bühler's cousin) and others. They were very dissatisfied with the work of the Kunstverein Winterthur and achieved that various board members had to resign at the general assembly of 1907 and members of their group were elected to the board. From now on they determined the course of the association and shaped its work.

In 1907/1908 the eye clinic was moved from the “Villa Flora” to the newly built “Lindberg Private Hospital”. In the converted villa there was now room for the paintings, which became more and more numerous due to the Hahnloser couple's passion for collecting. In 1908 they traveled to Paris, where they met the painters Felix Vallotton , Odilon Redon , Pierre Bonnard and others and became friends with them. In Switzerland they kept in contact with Ferdinand Hodler , Giovanni Giacometti and many other artists. A difficult time began when Hedy Hahnloser-Bühler was diagnosed with pulmonary tuberculosis in 1909 . In 1911 her condition worsened so that various spa stays were necessary. For Hahnloser-Bühler, preoccupation with art was a source of energy. After the First World War , the Parisian art scene ( Henri Matisse , Henri Manguin , Aristide Maillol ) shifted to the Côte d'Azur . The Hahnlosers also visited them there and decided in 1923 to buy the "Villa Pauline" in Cannes . The climate had a positive effect on Hahnloser-Bühler's illness, and from then on they spent the winter in southern France. An inheritance from the Hahnloser family enabled them to expand their art collection with expensive works by Vincent van Gogh , etc. Arthur Hahnloser died of a heart attack in Cannes on May 17, 1936. His widow therefore considered the collection to be complete and stopped collecting. She also stopped going to the south of France, as many of her artist friends had also died.

Hedy Hahnloser-Bühler remained active, gave advice and guided interested people through her private collection in the “Villa Flora”. In 1952 she died in Winterthur at the age of 79. The collection of paintings was made accessible to the public as a museum by the descendants in the "Villa Flora" and transferred to a foundation .

Create

Hedy Hahnloser-Bühler was a painter and craftsman, but her actual work unfolded as an art expert, collector and patron. The group that met regularly in her home was her forum where she could contribute her ideas and suggestions and thus exert her influence on the Winterthurer Kunstverein. At that time, no women were allowed to join the association. The couple's work as a collector was also very much influenced by her. As a patron, she commissioned some portraits of herself and her children. In self-study she developed into a respected art expert and published many art reviews in magazines and newspapers. There is an extensive, partly published correspondence between the art lover and her many artist friends. Through their work, Winterthur advanced to an important destination for art lovers. For a long time, the city was the only place in Switzerland where you could deal with modern art in a museum, and nowhere in Switzerland was modern art maintained as consistently and persistently as in this small, bustling industrial city.

Fonts (selection)

  • Felix Vallotton. In: Das Graphisches Kabinett, Volume 2, No. 2, 1916
  • Honoré Daumier and its importance for our time. In: Das Graphisches Kabinett, Vol. 3, No. 7, 1917.
  • Models of Swiss art. In: National-Zeitung (Basel), No. 364, August 18, 1919.
  • Art care in Switzerland. In: National-Zeitung (Basel), special issue "Swiss Art", No. 431, September 26, 1919.
  • Odilon Redon as a graphic artist. In: Das Graphisches Kabinett, Vol. 4, No. 5/6, 1919.
  • Eugène Delacroix. In: Das Graphisches Kabinett, vol. 6, no. 6, 1921.
  • Felix Vallotton. In: Das Graphisches Kabinett, vol. 11, no. 2, 1926.
  • The question of costume in the Knonaueramt. In: Das Werk: Architektur und Kunst = L'oeuvre: architecture et art, Vol. 13, 1926, H. 5, pp. 265–267. Digitized
  • Felix Vallotton 1865–1925 , Vol. 1, The graphic artist, Vol. 2, The painter. New year sheet. Publishing house of the Zürcher Kunstgesellschaft, Kunsthaus Zürich , 1927 and 1928.
  • To Felix Vallotton. Judgments of artists and critics about Felix Vallotton. In: The work. Architecture, fine arts, applied arts , vol. 8, no.10, 1931.
  • Felix Vallotton et ses amis. Sedrowski, Paris 1936. [With œuvre catalog]
  • Felix Vallotton et ses amis. In: Gallery and Collectors (Zurich), Vol. 4, No. 8, 1936.
  • Les Impressionnistes in the Hahnloser collection. Preface to the exhibition catalog La Peinture française du XIX e siècle en Suisse. In: Gazette des Beaux-Arts, Paris 1938.
  • Pierre Bonnard. In: Main works of the Kunstmuseum Winterthur. 1949.
  • Memories of Bonnard. In: Neue Zürcher Zeitung , June 11, 1949.

Honors and commemorations

In 2006 the Hedy Hahnloser-Strasse in Winterthur was named after her.

literature

  • Bettina Hahnloser: Revolution in black coffee. Verlag Neue Zürcher Zeitung, Zurich 2008, ISBN 978-3-03823-414-2 .
  • Margrit Hahnloser-Ingold (ed.): The Arthur and Hedy Hahnloser Collection. Benteli Verlag, Bern 2011, ISBN 978-3-7165-1681-2 .

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Bettina Hahnloser: Revolution in black coffee. Verlag Neue Zürcher Zeitung, Zurich 2008, ISBN 978-3-03823-414-2 , p. 28.
  2. ↑ Bettina Hahnloser: Revolution in black coffee. Verlag Neue Zürcher Zeitung, Zurich 2008, ISBN 978-3-03823-414-2 , p. 69.
  3. ↑ Margrit Hahnloser-Ingold (ed.): The Arthur and Hedy Hahnloser Collection. Benteli Verlag, Bern 2011, ISBN 978-3-7165-1681-2 , p. 61.
  4. ↑ Review in: Das Werk: Architektur und Kunst = L'oeuvre: architecture et art, Vol. 24, 1937, H. 5, pp. 153–156. Digitized
personal data
SURNAME Hahnloser-Bühler, Hedy
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Hahnloser-Bühler, Hedwig (full name)
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Swiss painter, artisan, art collector and patron
DATE OF BIRTH February 5, 1873
PLACE OF BIRTH Winterthur
DATE OF DEATH May 9, 1952
Place of death Winterthur