Julius Stern (banker)

Julius Stern, photograph from 1912

Julius Bernhard Stern (born July 26, 1858 in Hamburg ; died March 23, 1914 in Berlin ) was a German banker, art collector and patron.

Life

Julius Stern was born in Hamburg in 1858 as the son of Siegmund Emanuel Stern and his wife Katharina. Professionally, he rose within a few years at the National Bank for Germany and in 1883 at the age of 24 he became one of the directors of the bank. He held this position until his death in 1914. He also held numerous positions on the supervisory board, including at Dresdner Bank and the arms manufacturer Ludwig Loewe & Co.

Julius Stern was married to Malgonia Karpeles (1871-1914). The couple lived on Bellevuestrasse 6a in Berlin's posh Tiergarten district . From 1912, the Sterns had Paul Baumgarten build a country house in Geltow near Potsdam . Baumgarten had previously built villas on Berlin's Wannsee, including the Liebermann Villa . The architect and designer Henry van de Velde created part of the interior fittings for both the Berlin apartment and the Villa Stern in Geltow . The Stern couple lived in an artistic environment. Malgonia Stern was a student of the painter Dora Hitz , the writer Otto Julius Bierbaum dedicated a poem to her and the sculptor Georg Kolbe created a portrait bust of her. Julius Stern had himself portrayed several times by the painter Max Liebermann (painting in the Art Museum Gelsenkirchen , painting study in private ownership, pastel painting in the Museum Ostwall in Dortmund). The Sterns' circle of friends included the art historian Julius Meier-Graefe , the painters of the Berlin Secession Leo von König and Eugene Spiro, and Spiro's wife, the actress Tilla Durieux .

Julius Stern was a member of the Association for German Folklore . As a patron, he supported young artists, promoted the art critic Karl Scheffler and was a sponsor of the Berlin National Gallery , to which he gave the portrait of a little girl by Dora Hitz in 1897 . In 1912, together with other art friends, he acquired the drawing estate of the architect and designer Joseph Maria Olbrich , which was donated to the Berlin Museum of Applied Arts and the art library of the Staatliche Museen zu Berlin . The Kupferstichkabinett Berlin received five etchings and twelve lithographs from Max Liebermann from Stern in 1911. In 1912, etchings by Rudolf Großmann , Hans Meid and Waldemar Rösler followed as a further gift .

Art collection

Julius Stern's art collection comprised more than 200 works and was one of the most important collections of modern art in Germany before the First World War . In addition to newer German art, especially works by artists from the Berlin Secession , Stern collected pictures from French Impressionism , Late Impressionism and the Nabis . The model for this collector activity was Hugo von Tschudi , who from 1896 acquired impressionistic works as director of the Berlin National Gallery. The Stern Collection is in the context of the private collections of Max Liebermann, Eduard Arnhold , Robert and Franz von Mendelssohn .

In addition to the portraits that Max Liebermann painted of Julius Stern, the collection also included the pictures of this artist in the garden of the Altmännerhaus in Amsterdam , Kaiser-Friedrich-Gedächtnisfeier at Kösen , Dutch sewing school , grooms on the beach , beer garden and parade on Monte Pincio . In addition, there were other pictures of German Impressionism such as Woman with Flowers by Lovis Corinth and Trotting (today National Gallery Berlin) by Max Slevogt . Works such as Red Tulips in a Green Glass and Apples and Grapes on a Plate by Curt Herrmann , Merano Landscape and Pine Forest by Walter Leistikow or In the Café by Lesser Ury come from the area around the Berlin Secession . This group also includes Max Beckmann's early work Landschaft bei Gewitter (view of Lankwitz and Marienfelde) (today Wallraf-Richartz-Museum & Fondation Corboud , Cologne). Other works by German artists were village houses by Leopold von Kalckreuth , Guard Officer in the Forest by Wilhelm Trübner or the works Reigen , Allegorie and Sommerfreunde by Ludwig von Hofmann, which are close to Art Nouveau .

Among the works of French artists in the Stern collection are pictures of realism such as street vendors with a dog and a bouquet of flowers in a glass by Jean-François Raffaëlli . Impressionist works were particularly well represented in the collection. These included the picture Fraukopf by Édouard Manet , by Claude Monet the works Hafen in Trouville (today Szépművészeti Múzeum , Budapest), garden in Vetheuil , poppy field near Vetheuil (today Foundation EG Bührle Collection, Zurich), beach near Fécamps and by Berthe Morisot das Motif park pond with geese (now the National Gallery of Art , Washington DC). Other Impressionist works in the Stern Collection were Sunset by Camille Pissarro , Bathers by Pierre-Auguste Renoir , the Seine River by Alfred Sisley , Child with a Cat by the American Mary Cassatt , who lives in Paris, and the depiction of Three Russian Dancers by Edgar Degas drawn in chalk (now the Swedish National Museum , Stockholm).

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  Max Liebermann:
  Julius Stern , 1907, Museum Ostwall, Dortmund

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  Édouard Manet:
  Head of a Woman , 1870, private collection

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  Claude Monet:
  Field of poppies near Vétheuil , around 1879, EG Bührle Collection Foundation, Zurich

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  Pierre-Auguste Renoir:
  Nadende , 1882, private collection

Late Impressionist paintings in the Stern Collection included red tulips in a green pot (now Norton Simon Museum , Pasadena) by Paul Cézanne , garden in Arles (destroyed in World War II) and olive harvest near Arles (now National Gallery of Art, Washington DC) by Vincent van Gogh and Te arii vahine (now the Pushkin Museum , Moscow) by Paul Gauguin . Examples of pointillism are Parkland by Henri Edmond Cross , The Port of Rotterdam by Paul Signac and Hilly Landscape by Théo van Rysselberghe . Other paintings in the collection were the symbolist representation of Girlfriends by Eugène Carrière and the landscape painting The Seine in Bonnières by Georgette Agutte . From the group of artists of the Nabis , there was a series of images in the collection star. These included Pierre Bonnard 's racetrack motif , Maurice Denis ' Bathers , Easter Sunday , Beach with Bathers , Idyll , Churchyard in Italy and Nuns at Mass, and Edouard Vuillard 's paintings At the Dining Table and Room Picture . In addition, Julius Stern was one of the first collectors in Germany to own a painting by Pablo Picasso . The painting Lady in Hoop Skirt from 1901, which belongs to the early work , is now in the Ny Carlsberg Glyptotek in Copenhagen.

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  Edgar Degas:
  Three Russian Dancers , around 1895, Swedish National Museum, Stockholm

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  Paul Cézanne:
  Red Tulips in a Green Pot , 1890–92, Norton Simon Museum, Pasadena

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  Vincent van Gogh:
  Olive Pickers , 1889, National Gallery of Art, Washington DC

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  Paul Gauguin:
  Te arii vahine , 1896, Pushkin Museum, Moscow

In addition to the paintings, there were also some sculptures in the Stern Collection. This included a Japanese woman by Georg Kolbe , a bather by the Belgian George Minne and the work Female head , girl act and Seated Female Nude by Aristide Maillol . Then there were the sculptures The Kiss and The Wave by Auguste Rodin .

After the death of Julius Stern and his wife Malgonia, the estate was auctioned off at the Cassirer auction house in 1916 . In addition to the art collection, this also included European and Asian handicrafts.

literature

• Cella-Margaretha Girardet: Jewish patrons for the Prussian museums in Berlin, a study on patronage in the German Empire and in the Weimar Republic . Hänsel-Hohenhausen, Egelsbach 1997, ISBN 3-8267-1133-5 .
• Erich Hancke: The Stern Collection . In Kunst und Künstler , 1910, issue 11, pp. 536–548.
• Johann Georg Prinz von Hohenzollern , Peter-Klaus Schuster (ed.): Manet to van Gogh, Hugo von Tschudi and the struggle for modernity. Nationalgalerie Berlin and Neue Pinakothek Munich 1996, ISBN 3-7913-1748-2 .
• Kunstsalon Paul Cassirer, Hugo Helbing (Ed.): Julius Stern Collection, Berlin . Auction catalog, Cassirer, Berlin 1916.
• Andrea Pophanken, Felix Billeter: Modernism and its collectors, French art in private German ownership from the Empire to the Weimar Republic. Akademie Verlag, Berlin 2001, ISBN 3-05-003546-3 .

Web links

Commons : Julius Stern  - collection of images, videos and audio files

• [1] Information on Villa Stern in Geltow on the website of the Brandenburg State Office for Monument Preservation

Individual evidence

1. ^ Monuments in Brandenburg, Potsdam-Mittelmark. Part 1: Marie-Luise Buchinger, Marcus Cante: Nördliche Zauche. Wernersche Verlagsgesellschaft, Worms am Rhein, 2009, ISBN 978-3-88462-285-8 , pages 179-181.
2. ↑ Johann Georg Prinz von Hohenzollern, Peter-Klaus Schuster (ed.): Manet to van Gogh, Hugo von Tschudi and the struggle for modernity. , P. 388.
3. ↑ Otto Julius Bierbaum: To Mrs. Malgonia Stern . In the maze of love . Insel-Verlag, Leipzig 1901, p. 414.
4. ↑ Andrea Pophanken, Felix Billeter: Die Moderne und their collectors, French art in private German possession from the Empire to the Weimar Republic , p. 188.
5. ↑ Cella-Margaretha Girardet: Jewish patrons for the Prussian museums in Berlin, a study on patronage in the German Empire and in the Weimar Republic , p. 224.
6. ^ Kunstsalon Paul Cassirer, Hugo Helbing (ed.): Julius Stern Collection, Berlin .