Konrad O. Bernheimer

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Konrad O. Bernheimer (born August 30, 1950 in Rubio , Venezuela ) is a German art dealer and collector.

Life

Konrad Otto Bernheimer was born in 1950 as the son of the Munich antiques dealer Kurt Bernheimer (1911–1954) and his wife Mercedes. Uzcátegui (* 1923) born in Rubio.

After being mistreated by the Nazi regime and expropriated, his father Kurt Bernheimer, together with his grandfather Otto Bernheimer (1877–1960) and most of the family, emigrated via England to Venezuela in the spring of 1940 , where the family had acquired a coffee plantation. When Konrad was four years old, his mother and his siblings returned to Germany at the request of their grandfather Otto Bernheimer, who had already returned to Munich in 1945. The whole family was originally planned to return, but father Kurt had committed suicide shortly before the return trip. The cause is considered to be the long-term consequences of the mistreatment, which he under the Nazi regime and a. had suffered in the Dachau concentration camp .

After primary school in Munich, Konrad Bernheimer was a boarding school student in the Marquartstein Landschulheim in Chiemgau. After graduating from high school, he studied business administration at the University of Munich until 1976 . This was followed by a first professional position at Christie's in London.

Bernheimer was introduced to the business of the Bernheimer family by his grandfather as a child, in the expectation that he would continue the family tradition. On January 1, 1977, he took over the family business in the Bernheimer-Haus on Lenbachplatz in Munich as managing partner and general partner . Five years later he was able to pay off the other shareholders of the company with the help of a bank loan and became majority owner alongside his two sisters.

Dissatisfied with the sale of antiques and period furniture, he wanted to shift the focus of the business to the art trade and there the old masters . In addition, he sold the headquarters in the family's oversized office building on Lenbachplatz and replaced his sisters with his share. As the sole owner, he converted the company into Bernheimer Fine Old Masters . In addition, a smaller shop opened in Munich, initially on Promenadeplatz and from 1998 on Brienner Strasse. In 2002, Bernheimer also took over the long-established London art dealer Colnaghi .

Over the years, Bernheimer has developed from an antique dealer to an art dealer. He is considered one of the most important art dealers in Europe and beyond.

Bernheimer has been born with Barbara Bernheimer since 1975. Schaeffer (* 1950) married. The marriage resulted in four daughters. He lived in Munich and at Marquartstein Castle (Upper Bavaria), which he acquired and renovated in 1987. In 2013 he was awarded the Federal Cross of Merit on ribbon.

In the course of 2015 he left Germany. He sold Marquartstein Castle and gave up the Munich location. He actually wanted to concentrate on the art trade at Colnaghi in London, but at the same time his business partner Katrin Bellinger left the art trade. Therefore, he merged Colnaghi with the Spanish art dealer Coll & Cortés and withdrew from day-to-day business at the age of 65.

For the Piper-Verlag he wrote in the series “Instructions for Use” 2019 a “Instructions for use for the museum”, which, according to Charlotte Knobloch, is not a poorly translated technical specification, but rather “the fine art of viewing art”. He is working on his first novel, which is supposed to be an art thriller.

Two of his daughters continue the tradition and deal with photography and as gallery owners in Zurich and Berlin.

Publications

Individual evidence

  1. ^ An entrepreneurial dynasty in FAZ of September 16, 2013, page 18
  2. ↑ Ulrike von Goetz: Unmistakable Instinct , in: Welt Online, February 29, 2004, accessed on January 6, 2014
  3. ↑ Announcement of awards of the Order of Merit of the Federal Republic of Germany. In: Federal Gazette . Vol. 64, January 1, 2014.
  4. ^ Antiques Trade Gazette: Colnaghi: a new gallery and succession plan , November 5, 2015
  5. ↑ Jüdische Allgemeine: Learning to Read Pictures , November 21, 2019
  6. ↑ Konrad O. Bernheimer on museum visits: On the art of looking at a picture , Konrad O. Bernheimer in conversation with Frank Meyer, contribution to the series Lesart on Deutschlandfunk Kultur on October 15, 2019

Web links

personal data
SURNAME Bernheimer, Konrad O.
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Otto Conrado Bernheimer (Spanish)
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German art dealer and art collector
DATE OF BIRTH August 30, 1950
PLACE OF BIRTH Rubio , Venezuela