Olga Frobe-Kapteyn

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Olga Fröbe-Kapteyn (born October 18, 1881 in London , † 1962 in Ascona ) was a Dutch artist , theosophist and founder of the Eranos Society , who spent most of her life in Switzerland .

biography

Olga Fröbe-Kapteyn was born to Dutch parents in London and grew up there in a wealthy family. Her father Albertus Kapteyn (1848–1917) was an engineer and inventor, her mother Truus Muysken (1855–1920) a woman and life reformer. At the end of the 19th century, the Kapteyns moved to Zurich , where Olga attended the arts and crafts school. In 1909 she married the Austrian conductor and musician Iwan Fröbe (1880-1915), who was of Slovene descent. From 1908 he worked as a flautist with the Tonhalle Orchestra in Zurich , but his conducting career later led the couple to Braunschweig , Munich and in 1910 to Berlin . With the outbreak of World War I , the family moved back to Zurich, where Olga Fröbe ran a literary salon . She had twin daughters with her husband. Iwan Frobe died in an airplane accident six years after the wedding. She was an idiosyncratic woman interested in sporting challenges; she is said to have been one of the first women to climb Mont Blanc .

In 1919, after a spa stay on Monte Verità , she acquired the property in Moscia (now part of Ascona ) with Casa Gabriella from the property of ophthalmologist Hoffmann ; this with the help of the paternal inheritance. She is considered to be the founder of the Eranos conferences. whose idea was "a meeting of West and East through high-level encounters". Olga Fröbe-Kapteyn had the idea for these conferences, which still take place today, in 1927. But the first conference was not due to take place until 1933. Olga Fröbe-Kapteyn also worked as the longstanding editor of the Eranos yearbooks.

She was friends with the German writer Ludwig Derleth , as evidenced by a long correspondence. The correspondence began in 1920 and lasted until Derleth's death, i.e. for over 25 years. She was close to Annie Besant's circle .

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. C. Beretta reports how Olga Fröbe's work made the greatest impression on her, so u. a. a “wonderful crib made of wax” and the stitching of a cover “for a book by the poet Andre Germain”. S .: Caterina Beretta: My Ascona, memories and experiences of Caterina Beretta. Cosmos publishing house, Muri b. Bern 1983, p. 37.
  2. his brother was Jacobus C. Kapteyn
  3. Kaj Noschis: Monte Verità: Ascona et le génie du lieu. Lausanne 2011, p. 120.
  4. Olga Fröbe-Kapteyn, founder of the Eranos conferences in Ascona. Retrieved November 29, 2017 .
  5. Mara Folini: The Monte Verità of Ascona. Swiss art guide, published by the Society for Swiss Art History (GSK), Bern 2013, p. 44.
  6. eranos-ascona.ch. Retrieved November 30, 2017 .
  7. Caterina Beretta: My Ascona, memories and experiences of Caterina Beretta. Cosmos publishing house, Muri b. Bern 1983, p. 36.
  8. Kaj Noschis notes the following: A un jet de pierre de la colline appelée Monte Verità, ce livre va aussi nous conduire au lieu d'une autre aventure intellectuelle, qui a pris le nom des Rencontres d'Eranos (Eranos conferences). Nous sommes ici encore au bord du lac Majeur, sur une proprieté al'ouest d'Ascona, ou une femme fortunée, Olga Fröbe-Kapteyn, accueille des 1933, une a deux semaines par an, des auteurs et des savants de toute provenance pour debattre de themes qui rapprochent l'Est et l'Ouest, la pensée orientale et le monde occidentale. Source: Kaj Noschis: Monte Veritá: Ascona et le génie du lieu. Lausanne 2011, pp. 17/18. Summary in German: «The intellectual adventure that later became known as the 'Eranos Meetings' began a stone's throw from the hill that is now called Monte Veritá. These so-called Eranos conferences took place on a property in the east of Ascona, which bordered on Lake Maggiore. From 1933 onwards, a wealthy lady, Olga Fröbe-Kapteyn, received authors and intellectuals from all possible fields there for one or two weeks a year to discuss topics that focused on the points of contact between Eastern and Western thinking. "
  9. The correspondence is unpublished; s. Georg Dörr: Archetype and history: or Munich - Ascona: Typological and human closeness (with some letters from Olga Fröbe to Ludwig Derleth). In: E. Barone, M. Riedl, A. Tischel (eds.): Pioneers, Poets, Professors - Eranos and Monte Verità in the history of civilization in the 20th century. Königshausen and Neumann, Würzburg 2004, pp. 155–170-
  10. Mara Folini: The Monte Verità of Ascona. Swiss art guide, published by the Society for Swiss Art History (GSK), Bern 2013, p. 44.