Custody / art collection of the University of Leipzig

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The art collection of the University of Leipzig is the historically grown art collection of this institution in Leipzig .

overview

Since the University of Leipzig was founded in 1409, an extensive inventory of works of art from different eras and genres has been compiled, mostly linked to the furnishings of buildings. This art collection of the University of Leipzig is managed by the custody established in 1971 and includes sculptures and paintings from the Middle Ages , works from the Reformation period , epitaphs from three centuries, important portrait galleries, artist bequests , works by well-known GDR artists and extensive graphic collections. After the losses of the Second World War, the inventory currently amounts to around 10,000 objects, including around 800 paintings, 600 sculptures and 8000 sheets of graphics. In an effort to continue the centuries-old collection tradition, works of art are still being acquired today.

History of origin and inventory campaigns

Against the background of the more than 600-year history of the University of Leipzig, the founding of the custody - as the central administrative body of the university's art collection - was relatively late forty years ago. The reasons for this were systemic, because August Schmarsow's initiative to appoint a “conservator” had failed in 1907 for fear of interfering with the autarchy of the faculties and institutes. The inventory was correspondingly incomplete. Earlier attempts to inventory the works of art that had accumulated over centuries and distributed among the various institutions of the university were limited to sub-areas. Inscriptiones Lipsiensis by the theologian Salomon Stepner, published in 1675 and 1690, provide insights into the university holdings in the 17th century . However, these were dedicated to the Leipzig inscriptions in their entirety and only considered works of art provided with writing. The inventory list allegedly drawn up in 1814 cannot be proven today.

It was not until 1899 that the “Commission for the Supervision of the University's Art Treasures” was brought into being, which, in parallel to the work of the state preservation of monuments, had to rule on the handling of works of art in university property. As part of the inventory campaign she initiated, Felix Becker compiled the first art inventory of the entire university in the form of index cards from 1913 to 1916. In addition to a brief description of the works of art, the location, state of preservation as well as technology, information about the artist, provenance and further literature were entered by hand. Against the background of considerable losses from the bombs of World War II, Annegrete Janda-Bux updated the catalog of portraits in the early 1950s, which was published in list form. The extensive graphic collections were not taken into account.

The destruction of 1968 and the early days of the custody

The third university reform of the GDR in 1968, which dissolved the traditional faculty and institute structure, went hand in hand with the destruction of historical contexts and the dispersion of works of art. The shameful culminating point of this development was the - likewise politically motivated - demolition of the Paulinerkirche (Leipzig), which remained undamaged during World War II, on May 30, 1968 and the classicist main building Augusteum a few weeks later, to which numerous works of art fell victim. After all, parts of the valuable furnishings were tolerated in both buildings immediately before the destruction, but these could only be stored improvised and poorly secured. The need for professional maintenance of the art collection therefore came into focus and shortly afterwards led to the establishment of the custody. In 1971 Rainer Behrends (* 1937) was appointed the first “curator of the art collections”. It was not until 1973, however, that scientific processing, the museum presentation and communication of the collection holdings, as well as their inventory and restoration and conservation conservation were defined as tasks. At first there was neither a budget nor staff. In addition, there were internal university competence disputes, which were only partially on record. These came to light, among other things, in the fact that in 1977, the head of the special collections of the university collections, Dietmar Debes, was appointed "Custodian of Karl Marx University". Incidentally, the presentation of the collection remained decentralized: to this day, essential holdings are shown in various facilities of the university, including the university library, or as loans, for example in the St. Thomas Church in Leipzig .

The custody has been organizing special exhibitions on art and university history as well as contemporary art since 1974. Initially, the foyer of what was then the university skyscraper served as exhibition rooms, from 1978 the “gallery in the lecture hall” and from 1983 the “exhibition center Kroch-Haus”. Since then, the Kroch-Haus has also housed the office and parts of the custody's collection magazine. The opening of the study collection in 1997 on the ground floor of the rectorate building at the corner of Goethestrasse and (Kleine) Ritterstrasse offers both students and the interested public a tour of the university's history with the help of important collection items.

Younger present and prospects

After Rainer Behrends (curator) retired after more than thirty years as curator, Rudolf Hiller von Gaertringen (* 1961) took over the management of the curator in 2002 . The exhibition activities in the gallery in the lecture hall and in the exhibition center Krochhaus continued until they were closed in 2005 and 2007 respectively. One major project was the organization of the anniversary exhibition “Enlightenment of the World. Saxony and the beginning of modern science ”in 2009 on the occasion of the six hundredth anniversary of the University of Leipzig in the City History Museum in the Old Town Hall . The number of special exhibitions since the custody was founded has risen to over a hundred.

At the same time, the architectural redesign of the central university campus on Augustusplatz opened up new perspectives: For the first time, there was the prospect of returning a larger part of the works of art from the Middle Ages to the present to their original location and presenting them appropriately. The heart of this complex are the works of art from the blown up university church, initially in the former Reichsgericht and from 1983 in an Evangelical Lutheran art depot. Regional church stored (until 2004). The circumstances of the salvage, but even more so the improvised storage, resulted in a large number of damage, which required extensive restoration measures. With the support of the restoration course at the University of Fine Arts in Dresden, particularly by Ulrich Schießl (1948–2011), the works were recorded and the course set for relocation and restoration in 2002. At the same time, the art commission appointed by the rectorate worked out concepts for the re-installation. The result was five “memory complexes” which, starting with murals from the Dominican monastery through to the socialist mural “Working Class and Intelligence” by Werner Tübke , will in future illustrate epochs of university history in spatial contexts. The main stages of the restoration have now been completed. After the architecture of the Dutch architect Erick van Egeraat was largely completed on Augustusplatz, the first work complexes returned to the campus area in spring 2012, bringing the university's history to life. The auditorium and prayer room in the Paulinum, the design of which is even more reminiscent of the destroyed church than the facade, were opened to the public in December 2017. Since then, selected works of art from the inventory of the former university church have been presented in the prayer room, along with the late Gothic convertible altar, epitaphs from the period from 1550 to 1770.

The focus of the custody's work also includes engagement in art history teaching, particularly with regard to conveying the artistic original and insights into museum practice, as well as the publication of selected collections on the Internet. In addition, the custody promotes the research of third parties in a variety of ways, such as the joint project of the Federal Ministry of Education and Research (BMBF) " Bildatlas Kunst in der DDR ". After the translation and research of the epitaphs suggested by the custody, the art historical research of the epitaphs should follow. In October 2012, the gallery in the New Augusteum was opened as a place for special exhibitions by the custody.

Collections and exhibits (selection)

Portrait collections

The portraits of scholars from six centuries include the full gallery of the Faculty of Law, the portrait gallery of the 17th and 18th centuries from the university library, the friendship gallery of the Leipzig publisher Philipp Erasmus Reich, originally 31 paintings, mostly by Anton Graff , including portraits of Christian Fürchtegott Gellert , Moses Mendelssohn , Christian Ludwig von Hagedorn , Johann Friedrich Bause , Johann Kaspar Lavater and George Sulzer .

literature

  • Detlef Döring , Rudolf Hiller von Gaertringen, Cecilie Hollberg, Volker Rodekamp (eds.): Enlightenment of the world. Saxony and the beginning of modern science. 600 years University of Leipzig, published on the occasion of the anniversary exhibition of the University of Leipzig. 2 volumes. Dresden 2009.
  • Monika Gibas , Peer Pasternak (ed.): Socialistly housed & artificially. Universities and their buildings in the GDR. Leipzig 1999.
  • Rudolf Hiller von Gaertringen, Cornelia Junge, Simone Schulz: Kustodie. In: Senate Commission for Research into the History of Leipzig University and Science (Ed.): History of the University of Leipzig. 1409-2009. Volume 4/2. Leipzig 2009, pp. 1514–1541.
  • Rainer Kößling , Doreen Zerbe: »Goodbye world, I'm out of it now«. Memorial inscriptions on tombstones and epitaphs of the St. Pauli University Church in Leipzig. Edited by Rudolf Hiller von Gaertringen. Leipzig 2011 (= contributions to the history of Leipzig universities and science. Series A, Volume 7).
  • Rudolf Hiller von Gaertringen (ed.): Restauro 1. Epitaphs from the university church. New projects. Leipzig 2005.
  • Annegrete Janda-Bux: Catalog of the art collection of the University of Leipzig with special consideration of the scholarly portraits. In: Scientific journal of the Karl Marx University Leipzig. Social and Linguistic Series. 4, 1/2, 1954/1955, pp. 169-197.
  • Moritz Lampe: Between end-time expectation and representation. The epitaph of Heinrich Heideck (1570–1603) from the Leipzig University Church of St. Pauli. Leipzig 2009.
  • Salomon Stepner: Inscriptiones Lipsiensis. List of all kinds of memorable headings, grave and memorial meals in Leipzig. Leipzig 1675.
  • Ernst Ullmann (ed.): Art treasures of the Karl Marx University Leipzig. Leipzig 1981.
  • Frank Zöllner (Ed.): Memory of memory. The medieval furnishings of the Leipzig University Church St. Pauli. Leipzig 2005 (= contributions to the history of Leipzig universities and science. Series B, Volume 8).
  • Benjamin Sommer, Middle German grand piano retable by the master regulator, by Linhart Koenbergk and her contemporaries. Origin, role models, messages, Berlin 2018 (= New Research on German Art, Vol. 12)

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Karl Sudhoff Institute