Hugo von Tschudi

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Hugo von Tschudi (1895)

Hugo von Tschudi (born February 7, 1851 at Gut Jakobshof near Edlitz in Austria; † November 23, 1911 in Stuttgart ) was an important art historian and museum director .

Life

family

Hugo von Tschudi came from an old Swiss aristocratic family. His father Johann Jakob von Tschudi was an explorer and Swiss diplomat, his mother Ottilie a daughter of the painter Ludwig Ferdinand Schnorr von Carolsfeld .

Vienna

After finishing high school, Tschudi initially devoted himself to law studies at the University of Vienna , which he completed in 1875 with a doctorate . During this time he also attended his first lectures in art history . He then went on study trips to Germany, Holland, Belgium, England, France and Italy for two years. His first publication appeared in 1876: A Tour of Modern Paris . In Italy he met the painter Hans von Marées in 1877 . 1878 to 1879 followed a traineeship at the Austrian Museum for Art and Industry in Vienna. Tschudi then went on further study trips to France and Italy. In the meantime, he was working on the new edition of Nagler's artist lexicon, a volume on the Gemäldegalerie in Budapest and for the yearbooks of the Royal Prussian Art Collections .

Berlin

Hugo von Tschudi (1903)

In 1883 he met Wilhelm Bode , who brought him to work as an assistant at the Berlin Gemäldegalerie . Bode initially accepted Tschudi in his villa on Uhlandstrasse , and a constructive collaboration developed. During this time, the review of the sculptures of the Christian epochs appeared in the Royal Museums in Berlin and a friendly relationship with Alfred Lichtwark developed . In 1889 Tschudi moved into his own apartment. During his travels through several European countries for study purposes and sales negotiations, Tschudi had many works of art photographed in order to use them as a basis for work, which Bode met with incomprehension. Since 1887 close contact was established with Cosima Wagner , and Tschudi repeatedly attended the Richard Wagner Festival in Bayreuth. In Berlin he frequented the literary salon of Carl and Felicie Bernstein , where he got to know French impressionist painting . Together with Henry Thode , Tschudi published the respected art journal Repertorium für Kunstwissenschaft from 1894 onwards . In the same year he was appointed professor.

Édouard Manet: In the winter garden

In 1896 Hugo von Tschudi became director of the National Gallery in Berlin . Together with Max Liebermann he traveled to Paris and bought over 30 works of art by foreign artists, with Manet , Monet and Degas in the center. The money came partly from donors and partly from special funds. In December of that year, Édouard Manets was exhibited in the Wintergarten in the National Gallery. It was the artist's first work to be bought for a museum. During this time Tschudis was appointed a member of the Senate of the Prussian Academy of the Arts .

Paul Cezanne: The mill on the Couleuvre near Pontoise

In 1897, with The Mill at the Couleuvre near Pontoise , a picture of Cézanne entered a museum for the first time . The new acquisitions were presented in a completely new way on the first floor of the Nationalgalerie: the pictures were generously hung on a light wall covering, with a maximum of two rows of pictures being arranged one above the other. The works of the academic painters, however, came into the depot. Anton von Werner and Kaiser Wilhelm II were outraged by this and demanded that the old hanging be restored. Tschudi implemented this, but continued to show French painting. This did not detract from his reputation. On the contrary: in 1898 he received the Order of the Red Eagle, IV class .

During this time friendships developed with Count Harry Kessler , Henry van de Velde , Gerhart Hauptmann and close contacts with the painters Hans Thoma , Wilhelm Trübner , Max Klinger and Arnold Böcklin . In 1900 he married Angela Fausta Olivares, who gave birth to their son Hans Gilg in 1901. In 1902 Tschudi published the first German-language book about Édouard Manet, and he met Rodin . Tschudi had great success in 1905 with the Menzel memorial exhibition. For the purchase of the Menzel estate he received a special donation of 1.5 million marks . In 1906 this success was surpassed by the exhibition of the century of German art . Together with Alfred Lichtwark and Julius Meier-Graefe , Tschudi presented German art here from 1775 to 1875. Artists such as Caspar David Friedrich and Carl Blechen now attracted a great deal of attention. Tschudi again received special funds to purchase works of art from this exhibition. At the same time, he used the positive mood to approve further donations of impressionist paintings. For his services he was appointed a secret councilor.

In the period that followed, there were more and more differences with Wilhelm Bode. This intrigued more and more against Tschudi, because he saw increasing competition, especially in relation to the favor of the patrons. Finally, in 1908 the “Tschudi Affair” broke out. When purchasing works from the Barbizon School , Tschudi initially received the emperor's approval, but the emperor no longer wanted to remember. Tschudi, who had suffered from lupus vulgaris for years (and therefore also wore a partial face mask), was initially on leave for a year and Anton von Werner was appointed as his representative. Tschudi used this time for an extensive study trip to Japan.

Munich

In 1909 Tschudi moved to Munich as director of the State Galleries. Here, too, he began to reorganize the collections. The first impressionist works were acquired for the Neue Pinakothek . There was a lively exchange with Wassily Kandinsky and Carl Sternheim . "He was not just a great man, he was also a great man," said Wassily Kandinsky about Tschudi, because Tschudi had "forced" Heinrich Thannhauser's exhibition rooms in 1909 for the New Artists' Association in Munich (NKVM). In April 1911 Carl Vinnen published the text Ein Protest deutscher Künstler , in which he denounced the degradation of contemporary German painting and attacked the preference given to foreign artists. Hugo von Tschudi came into the line of fire.

Hugo von Tschudi died in November of that year. Julius Meier-Graefe and Max Liebermann spoke at his grave. A large part of the foreign works already purchased by Tschudi for Berlin and Munich and mainly financed by Berlin donors ended up in the New Pinakothek in Munich as a “ Tschudi donation ” in 1912/1913. Four weeks after Tschudi's death, on December 18, 1911, the exhibition The Blue Rider , a Secession that had split off from the NKVM, opened in the Thannhauser Gallery . In May 1912, the Almanac Der Blaue Reiter, edited by Wassily Kandinsky and Franz Marc, was published with the dedication “In memory of Hugo von Tschudi”. Marc wrote in his text contribution Geistige Güter im Almanach: "So we dare to dedicate this first book to Tschudi's noble memory, for which he still promised his active help a few days before his death."

Some pictures of the Tschudi donation

literature

Web links

Wikisource: Hugo von Tschudi  - sources and full texts

Individual evidence

  1. Kandinsky / Franz Marc: Der Blaue Reiter , Piper, Munich 1912 (reprint of the 1912 edition. Piper Verlag, Munich 2004, ISBN 3-492-24121-2 ); Quotation from Kandinsky there in the commentary by Klaus Lankheit , p. 255
  2. ^ Contents, author