Irene Ludwig

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Peter and Irene Ludwig (left) with Johannes Rau , Norbert Burger and Annemarie Burger

Irene Maria Therese Ludwig b. Monheim (born June 17, 1927 in Aachen ; † November 28, 2010 there ) was a German art historian , art collector and art patron .

Live and act

Grave of Irene and Peter Ludwig in St. Aldegund

Irene Monheim was the daughter of the Aachen entrepreneur Franz Monheim and his wife Olga Ella and the great-granddaughter of Leonard Monheim , who founded the Trumpf chocolate factory. She passed her Abitur in Aachen in 1946 and began studying art history, archeology, and prehistory at the Johannes Gutenberg University in Mainz in 1947 . During her studies, she began collecting historical and contemporary art and cultural assets.

In 1951 she married the art historian Peter Ludwig , who then joined the company. Together with him she continued her collecting activity for over 40 years. Irene and Peter Ludwig worked together with several museums in Cologne and Aachen, sponsored artists and supported museums worldwide. They made their collections accessible to the public, they were also looked after scientifically by Irene Ludwig.

In the mid-1960s they began to build up a contemporary art collection with works by artists from Germany, Western Europe and the USA, which was later expanded to include works from Central and Eastern Europe.

After her husband's death in 1996, Irene Ludwig continued to look after the extensive collection. She established the Peter and Irene Ludwig Foundation , which emerged from the Ludwig Foundation for Art and International Understanding GmbH .

After the Ludwig couple transferred 90 works from their Picasso property to the city of Cologne in 1994 , Irene Ludwig donated a further 774 works by Picasso to the Cologne Museum Ludwig on October 31, 2001 on the occasion of the reopening . This means that the Museum Ludwig now has the third largest Picasso collection in the world after Barcelona and Paris.

On the occasion of her 80th birthday, Prime Minister Jürgen Rüttgers paid tribute to Irene Ludwig and her deceased husband as "Germany's most important art collector couple".

Irene Ludwig died on November 28, 2010 after a short, serious illness at the age of 83 in her hometown. She was buried next to her husband in the crypt built for the couple below the Renaissance altar in the old church of Sankt Aldegund, which they returned to the parish as a permanent loan .

honors and awards

Honorary doctorates

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Irene Ludwig at ludwigmuseum.org
  2. ↑ Wolfgang Hippe: Stifte go to geschichte.nrw.de, accessed on January 18, 2017.
  3. ↑ Irene Ludwig is dead. In: Spiegel Online . November 28, 2010 (hpi / dpa message), accessed on January 18, 2017.
  4. ↑ Art collector Irene Ludwig has died. In: The press . November 29, 2010 ( APA notification), accessed January 18, 2017.
  5. ↑ Merit holders since 1986. State Chancellery of the State of North Rhine-Westphalia, accessed on March 11, 2017 .
  6. ^ Message from the Russian Academy of Arts ( Memento of December 11, 2004 in the web archive archive.today ) (Russian).
  7. ^ Entry in the list of all decorations awarded by the Federal President for services to the Republic of Austria from 1952, Austrian Parliamentary Administration, December 23, 2012, p. 1058 (PDF; 6.9 MB).
personal data
SURNAME Ludwig, Irene
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Monheim, Irene Maria Therese (maiden name)
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German art patron
DATE OF BIRTH June 17, 1927
PLACE OF BIRTH Aachen
DATE OF DEATH November 28, 2010
Place of death Aachen