Max Leon Flemming
Max Leon Flemming (born September 7, 1881 in Neuss , † April 16, 1956 in Berlin ) was a German merchant , consul of the Netherlands , art collector and patron .
Life
After graduating from high school in the humanistic grammar school in Brühl, Max Leon Flemming studied chemistry in Stuttgart , Munich and Berlin . In 1901 he joined the Corps Saxonia in Berlin. In addition, he repeatedly attended lectures in literature and art history. In 1905 he had to break off his studies in order to continue the soap and stearin factory Theodor Flemming Söhne founded by his great-grandfather in Neuss in 1833 after the death of his father. A few years later, he moved the company headquarters to Hamburg on the Jungfernsteg.
From 1908 to 1929 Flemming was one of the most important German collectors of contemporary art. The Flemmings collection included the painting “Vase” that Pablo Picasso painted in 1908, which today is one of the highlights of the Museum of Modern Art (MoMA) in New York. His collection included pictures by Pablo Picasso, August Macke , Marc Chagall , Ferdinand Hodler , Wassily Kandinsky , Emil Nolde , Max Pechstein and Henri Rousseau . In 1922 the " Cicerone ", a magazine comparable to today's " Weltkunst ", wrote: "In the beautiful rooms of the Flemming Collection there is such an abundance of works of art that it would be impossible for us to do justice to the material in a short article. Flemming, for example, calls five pictures by Picasso his own.They show the path that this Faustian artist has taken - from the cruel this-worldliness of the 'absinthe drinker' to the sensual, beautiful interior with the girls washing themselves to the unforgettable, completely non-representational violin player '. How can you describe all of this when you can only experience it? "
Hamburg merchants and patrons made their city a stronghold of modernity for a while in the twenties. Max Leon Flemming's private collection was perhaps the most important. Flemming and some other private collectors such as Paul Rauert , whose private collections were far more important than those of the Kunsthalle, first discovered the artist group "Die Brücke" in Dresden and other modern developments in art around 1908 and acquired their works on a large scale. Flemming thus became one of the pioneers of modern art.
In 1920 he donated two paintings to the Hamburger Kunsthalle , Pechstein's "Morgen im Haff" and Schmidt-Rottluff's "Oldenburger Marschlandschaft", which earned him an eternal place on the donation board in the rotunda of the Hamburger Kunsthalle. However, these two pictures were classified as "degenerate" by the National Socialists in 1937 and confiscated. Her whereabouts are unknown.
Wassily Kandinsky, Erich Heckel , Karl Schmidt-Rottluff, Marie Laurencin , Heinrich Stegemann, Kurt Schwitters and the Parisian painter-poet Hans Reichel frequented his house on Badestrasse . His guests also included poets such as Walter Hasenclever , Theodor Däubler and the French poet Paul Éluard , the dancers Mary Wigman and Gret Palucca , the cabaret artist Claire Waldoff and Joachim Ringelnatz .
He had to sell many of his paintings during the Great Depression in 1929 in order to avert the bankruptcy of his company.
After 1929 he moved to Berlin at Margarethenstrasse 4, between Tiergarten and Potsdamer Platz. His apartment was a refuge for many artists during the National Socialist dictatorship and a meeting point for the artistic avant-garde of post-war Berlin. Among his guests were Heinz Trökes , Hans Thiemann , Alexander Camaro , Mac Zimmermann , Werner Heldt , Hans Uhlmann , Karl Hartung and Bernhard Heiliger . Through regular gatherings of his Berlin Corps brothers in his apartment during the Nazi period of prohibition and the first post-war years, he made a contribution to the internal cohesion of the Corps Saxonia-Berlin.
In 1945 he was together with Gerd roses and Heinz Trökes co-founder of Germany's first postwar Gallery of Modern , the gallery Gerd Rosen in Berlin.
Flemming was married four times. His son was the former Hamburg art pope Hanns Theodor Flemming (1915–2005). The mourning and memorial speeches after his death were given in Berlin by Friedrich Ahlers-Hestermann and in Neuss by Georg Alexander Mathéy .
literature
- Hanns Theodor Flemming: Consul Max Leon Flemming and his collection of modern art . In: Private Treasures. About collecting art in Hamburg until 1933 . Editors: Ulrich Luckhardt, Uwe M. Schneede, 2001, pp. 81–85, ISBN 3-7672-1383-4
- Carl Weigandt: History of the Corps Saxonia-Berlin to Aachen 1867-1967 . Aachen 1968.
- Doris Blum: The man who loved women and pictures , in the daily newspaper Die Welt on March 22, 2001
- The Hamburger Kunsthalle is dedicated to private collections from the early 20th century, a passion for collecting in Hamburg in Kunstmarkt.com from March 23, 2001
Individual evidence
- ↑ The man who loved women and pictures. In: The world. March 22, 2001 . Retrieved January 15, 2011.
- ^ Mourning for WELT art critic Hanns Theodor Flemming
| personal data | |
|---|---|
| SURNAME | Flemming, Max Leon |
| BRIEF DESCRIPTION | German merchant, consul of the Netherlands, art collector and patron |
| DATE OF BIRTH | September 7, 1881 |
| PLACE OF BIRTH | Neuss |
| DATE OF DEATH | April 16, 1956 |
| Place of death | Berlin |