Leo Lewin

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Villa Leo Lewin
Villa Leo Lewin

Leo Lewin (* 1881 in Breslau ; † 1965 ) was a German businessman, art collector and horse breeder.

family

Portrait Carl Lewin (Max Liebermann)

He was born as the eldest of six children of the Breslau textile manufacturer Carl Lewin (1855–1926). His textile company Carl Lewin initially produced men's clothing, later the range was expanded to include workers' and protective clothing as well as horse rugs and plaids. The company's business was located at 7 Gartenstrasse (today's Piłsudskiego Street). During the First World War , the company delivered to the German army and equipped soldiers and horses, making the company prosperous. In 1917 Lewin married Helene Kosewski. The couple moved into a villa at Akazienallee 12 in Breslau ; this was extensively rebuilt by Oskar Kaufmann with the participation of numerous artists such as César Klein . In the 1930s the family emigrated to England

  • Helen Lewin

  • Portrait Helen Lewin (Max Slevogt)

  • Portrait Helen Lewin (Max Slevogt)

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Horse breeding

After the First World War, Leo Lewin leased the Römerhof stud established by Georg von Bleichröder in Erftstadt and had the war damage repaired. Under Lewin the mare population comprised up to 80 animals, at that time the largest population in Germany. From 1925 Lewin successfully organized yearling auctions. After the National Socialists came to power in Germany, the estate was leased to Rudolf von Skrbensky .

In 1921 Lewin also leased Otto von Goßler's run-down stud in the old fishing village of Bindow near Königs Wusterhausen. Here he planned to set up a stud specializing in trotters . Success soon set in, Homer , Zora and Lebenskünstler achieved the Blue Ribbon from 1924 to 1926 . In 1927 Lewin relocated breeding to the Stauffenburg domain . Lewin also produced some of the winning horses that racing stable owner Emil Perk from Berlin started on all German racetracks.

Art collection

Leo Lewin put on an important art collection. A large part of the collection was auctioned in Berlin in 1927, and further works followed three years later.

The collection consisted of a. from many paintings and drawings by Max Slevogt and Max Liebermann , who created portraits of the family members of the collector. The sculptor August Gaul created the Kleiner Tierpark for Lewin , consisting of fifteen tiny bronze and silver figures, and also a fountain with goose statues, which stood in the villa garden in the acacia avenue. In the villa there were paintings by Hans von Marées , Wilhelm Trübner , Lovis Corinth , Hans Thoma and Carl Spitzweg , as well as sculptures by Georg Kolbe and Ernst Barlach . Lewin also owned some drawings by the painter Adolph von Menzel , such as the procession in Hofgastein , which is now in the Neue Pinakothek in Munich.

In 1921 he acquired two landscape paintings at Edvard Munch's exhibition in the Cassirer gallery in Berlin. He also acquired still lifes by Pablo Picasso , which are now in the Tate Gallery in London, as well as works by French realists such as Camille Corot (for example poetry , now in the Wallraf-Richartz Museum in Cologne), Honoré Daumier and Gustave Courbet ( Grand Pont at Yale University Art Gallery ). He also owned a work by Édouard Manet , which shows a young bull in a meadow and was created in Versailles in 1881, as well as portraits by Renoir , a landscape painting by Camille Pissarro , a painting by Paul Cézanne and a painting by Claude Monet, the snow-covered vineyards at Moulin d'Orgemont shows. One of Vincent van Gogh's three paintings in Lewin's possession turned out to be a forgery , despite the expertise of Julius Meier-Graefe .

As early as April 1927, in view of the economic crisis, Lewin was forced to auction a larger part of the collection at Paul Cassirer . After the seizure of power , he also had his print collection by Max Perls auctioned to service the penalty taxes. Lewin was able to take the remaining works of art, especially the holdings of the extensive library, with him when he emigrated to London, where they appeared in second-hand bookshops in the following years, recognizable by a conspicuous bookplate by Max Slevogt .

  • Lovis Corinth, Walchensee in autumn (Leo Lewin and Ismar Littmann collection).

  • Edouard Manet, young bull in the meadow .

  • Max Liebermann, Ironing Lady (Leo Lewin Collection).

  • Hans von Marees, Portrait of Konrad Fiedler (Leo Lewin Collection).

  • Auguste Renoir, Laughing Little Girl , portrait of the actress Jeanne Samary (Leo Lewin and Max Silberberg collection).

  • Adolph von Menzel, procession in Hofgastein .

Others

In 1910, Lewin took over the club resolution of the football club SC 1904 Breslau , later renamed United Breslauer Sportfreunde , which he also supported financially.

literature

  • Paul Cassirer , Hugo Helbing : Collection Leo Lewin Breslau. German and French Masters of the XIX. Century. Paintings, sculptures, drawings. Berlin 1927 (auction catalog).
  • Marius Winzeler : Jewish collectors and patrons in Wroclaw - from donation to "exploitation" of their art possessions. In: Andrea Baresel-Brand, Peter Müller (Ed.): Collect. Pens. Promote. Jewish patrons in German society. Magdeburg 2006, pp. 131-150.
  • Ramona Bräu : "Aryanization" in Breslau - The "de-Judaization" of a German city and its discovery in the Polish memory discourse. VDM Verlag Dr. Müller, Saarbrücken 2008, ISBN 978-3-8364-5958-7 , p. 81 (3.4.2 The large Jewish art collections in Silesia - art theft.)

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Berliner Börsenzeitung July 19, 1917, p. 6
  2. ↑ a b Magdalena Palica: Od Delacroix do van Gogha. Żydowskie kolekcje sztuki w dawnym Wrocławiu. Wrocław 2009
  3. ↑ Hardy Green , Hansjürgen Jablonski, Dietrich Schulze-Marmeling , Matthias Thoma, Frank Willig: Football clubs and their donors . In: Zeitspiel . No. 08 , 2017, ISSN  2365-3175 , p. 31 .
personal data
SURNAME Lewin, Leo
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German merchant, art collector and horse breeder
DATE OF BIRTH 1881
PLACE OF BIRTH Wroclaw
DATE OF DEATH 1965