Hugo Borst

Emil Stumpp : Hugo Borst (1926)

Hugo Albert Borst (born January 13, 1881 in Göppingen , † October 20, 1967 ) was a German businessman, private art collector and art patron. For a long time he was commercial director of Robert Bosch GmbH Stuttgart .

Life

Hugo Borst was the son of the businessman Otto Herrmann Borst. At the age of 19, Borst joined his uncle Robert Bosch's company . He was part of the rise of the Robert Bosch partnership before the First World War to become a major international company in the industry. After the economic crisis in 1925, Robert Bosch fired his nephew, whom he had held responsible. After that, Borst concentrated on his art collection.

Art collector

Borst started his art collection even before the First World War. His first works included pictures by Paula Modersohn-Becker . In particular, he added works by the founding members of the Stuttgart Secession to his collection ( Reinhold Nägele , Jakob Wilhelm Fehrle , Bernhard Pankok and Heinrich Altherr ). He also bought works by Adolf Hölzel and his students. In cooperation with Otto Fischer, the then director of the Staatsgalerie in Stuttgart , he collected French expressionists that Otto Fischer was not allowed to buy for the Staatsgalerie.

As a private art collector, Borst maintained his own public gallery "Künstlerhaus Sonnenhalde" in Stuttgart. From the opening of this gallery at Gähkopf 3 in the north of Stuttgart in 1931 until his death in 1967, he made over 600 sculptures and paintings accessible to the public.

During the time of National Socialism Hugo Borst held works by ostracized artists such as B. Rudolf Schlichter open to the public. From 1946 to 1961 the gallery served as an alternative accommodation for the Württembergischer Kunstverein Stuttgart , which held its first exhibitions here after the war. Artistically, Borst was primarily interested in German Expressionism and French Modernism. As a patron, he promoted young talents like Adolf Hölzel , Oskar Schlemmer , Willi Baumeister , Reinhold Nägele and Jakob Wilhelm Fehrle . Borst's collection of works by these artists represents Stuttgart's important contribution to classical modernism .

In addition to his work as an art collector, Hugo Borst took on leading positions in Stuttgart's cultural institutions. From 1927 to 1948 he was chairman of the Stuttgart gallery association, the friends of the Staatsgalerie Stuttgart. On his 75th birthday in 1956, Borst was awarded the Great Cross of Merit of the Federal Republic of Germany by Federal President Theodor Heuss . On the one hand, this recognition went to his outstanding services to art culture in Stuttgart. On the other hand, the great entrepreneurial personality Hugo Borst was honored with the Cross of Merit.

After his death, almost all of his private art collection was transferred to the Staatsgalerie Stuttgart, which has its own Hugo Borst hall.

Works

• Hugo Borst: Books that moved the big and small world: Attempting a cultural history in first editions from 1749 - 1899, sorted by year of publication as part of my collection of aesthetic and scientific German and foreign-language literature , Stuttgart 1969.
• Hugo Borst: How I became a collector: Memories and Confessions , Stuttgart 1941.
• Hugo Borst: heads from the collection of Hugo and Martha Borst in Stuttgart , Stuttgart 1938.
• Hugo Borst: New Art in Stuttgart Private Collection: Hugo Borst Collection , Stuttgart 1931.
• Hugo Borst and W. Hellpach, The problem of industrial work , Berlin 1925, ISBN 978-3-642-93885-6 .
• Hugo Borst: Cheer up! 60 soldiers songs for the war years 1914-1917 dedicated to our brave Württemberg troops in the field, Stuttgart 1914.
• Hugo Borst: The so-called Taylor system from the point of view of the organizer (lecture from January 15, 1914), Stuttgart 1914.

literature

• The luck of the collector: Homage to Hugo Borst, friend and patron of the fine arts , Stuttgart 2006.
• Self-portraits from the Hugo Borst collection: Staatsgalerie Stuttgart (exhibition catalog), Stuttgart 1992.
• Trude Fischer-Borst u. a .: The Hugo Borst Collection in Stuttgart: Documentation and Chronicle. Pictures and sculptures from Germany, France and Switzerland , Stuttgart 1970.
• Rudolf Adolph: Hugo Borst , Aschaffenburg 1963.
• Switzerland in the Hugo Borst Collection, Stuttgart: Pictures, Sculptures, Books (exhibition catalog), Stuttgart 1949.

Web links

• Hugo Borst collection at the Württemberg State Library in Stuttgart
• SWR broadcast about Hugo Borst in the SWB online catalog

Individual evidence

1. ^ ^{A b} Dietrich Heißenbüttel: Stuttgart without a history . In: Swabian homeland . No. 1 , 2019, p. 13 .