Jan Krugier

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Jan Krugier (born May 12, 1928 in Radom ; † November 15, 2008 in Geneva ) was a Polish - Swiss gallery owner and art collector .

Life

Krugier was born in 1928 to middle-class parents. As a Jew on the run from National Socialist persecution , he lived underground until he was arrested and deported to the Auschwitz concentration camp . He survived one of the death marches and was liberated in the Bergen-Belsen concentration camp by members of the Allied English troops. In the summer of 1945 he came to Switzerland as part of a children's aid campaign (“Buchenwald-Aktion”) of the Red Cross . There he was taken in as a foster son by Margaretha Bleuler, who worked in the Swiss aid organization for émigré children. His meeting with the religious philosopher Martin Buber on the occasion of the Eranos conference in Ascona in 1947 was of decisive importance for his attitude towards Judaism .

From 1946 to 1950 he attended the Zurich School of Applied Arts, mediated by Carlo Schmid , where he received lessons from Johannes Itten , Ernst Gubler and Otto Morach . Through Alberto Giacometti - with whom he became friends - he was initially convinced to continue his education in Paris , later also that he was an artist-to-be, but rather a pedagogue gifted in dialogue . In 1953 he settled in Geneva , initially continued to paint and worked in the art trade. He learned this in the gallery of David Bernador.

In 1962, Krugier opened his own Geneva gallery. From the beginning he exhibited young international painting there, as well as works by the already established Bram van Velde , Alexej Jawlensky , Wifredo Lam , Alberto Giacometti, Giorgio Morandi , Oskar Schlemmer , Jean Pougny and Gustave Courbet . From 1963 he won the future Roswitha Haftmann as an employee. In 1966 he opened a gallery in New York in collaboration with Albert Loeb . Here, too, he endeavored to establish a dialogue between European and American art.

In the 1970s, Krugier gained further influence as a representative of the Marina Picasso collection. This part of Pablo Picasso's estate included hundreds of pictures, thousands of drawings and graphics, as well as numerous sculptures. He was responsible for the Picasso exhibition in 1982 at the Kunsthaus Zürich and conveyed important works to Peter Ludwig and the Staatsgalerie Stuttgart .

Artists supported by Krugier include Balthus , Alberto Giacometti , Edward Hopper , Wifredo Lam, Giorgio Morandi and Bram van Velde .

Since the early 1970s, Krugier and his second wife, the painter and draftsman Marie-Anne Poniatowska (* 1931) built up an important art collection. This includes around 500 works from the Renaissance to the present day, including many drawings, for example by Fra Bartolomeo , Annibale Carracci , Vittore Carpaccio , Peter Paul Rubens , but also Paul Cézanne and Paul Klee . So far they have been exhibited in Berlin, Paris, Madrid, Venice and Vienna.

Appreciation (quotations)

  • “At Krugier, awe of art and critical consideration are mutually dependent. He loves to debate with artists, and sometimes he even urges a painter to make corrections. Communicating it with a wider audience is just as important to him as the dialogue with art and artists. "
  • “In Jan and Marie-Anne Krugier-Poniatowski's house, Malraux's Musée imaginaire has become a reality. The collection of master drawings that the couple has built up over the past forty years, ranging from the early Renaissance to Alfred Hofkunst , Thomkins and Marc-Antoine Fehr , is embedded in a cosmos in which epochs and continents, high and popular cultures merge where the archaic meets the classic, the primitive meets the avant-garde. "
  • “Krugier, who has probably always worked with contemporaries, is only of limited interest in the current art scene. All these self-inquiries of the art system leave him cold. He is convinced that art cannot be “made”, but rather that it arises out of an inner necessity, a friction with reality. That it has to be authentic and speak directly. Krugier is not afraid to compare the artist with a shaman who has to pass on something hidden [...]. "

Exhibitions (selection)

Own works
  • 1951: Galerie Palette, Zurich
Galerie Jan Krugier, Ditesheim & Cie , Geneva
Krugier Gallery, New York
Krugier-Poniatowska Collection


Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ a b c The little man and the fire - How Jan Krugier found paradise in Switzerland and salvation in art. , Article by Caroline Kesser in the NZZ on May 2, 2006, accessed on June 14, 2019.
  2. ↑ One with passion. Obituary by Werner Spies on November 18, 2008 in the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung , accessed on November 2, 2011.
  3. ↑ Alexander Dückers (Ed.): Line, Light and Shadow - Master Drawings and Sculptures from the Jan and Marie-Anne Krugier-Poniatowski Collection. Exhibition catalog and complete list of drawings. G-und-H-Verlag, Berlin 1999, ISBN 3-931768-27-9 .
  4. ^ Institut de France (ed.): La passion du dessin. Exhibition catalog. Musée Jacquemart-André, Culture Espaces , Paris 2002, ISBN 2-9518182-0-3
  5. ^ Paul Jandl: The chiaroscuro of the world - The Vienna Albertina shows works from the Krugier collection. Review in the NZZ on August 16, 2005, accessed on April 25, 2019.
  6. ^ Christiane Lange , Roger Diederen: The Eternal Eye - From Rembrandt to Picasso: Masterpieces from the Jan Krugier and Marie-Anne Krugier-Poniatowski Collection. Exhibition catalog. Hirmer, Munich 2007, ISBN 978-3-7774-3695-1 .
  7. ↑ Confirmation of authorship by email by the NZZ's online editorial team on November 1, 2011.
personal data
SURNAME Krugier, Jan
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Krugier, Janek; Krygier, Janick Jakov (maiden name)
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Polish-Swiss gallery owner and art collector
DATE OF BIRTH May 12, 1928
PLACE OF BIRTH Radome
DATE OF DEATH November 15, 2008
Place of death Geneva