Osthaus Museum Hagen

Osthaus Museum Hagen (2005)

The Osthaus Museum Hagen is a municipal art museum for modern art in Hagen named after the art patron Karl Ernst Osthaus .

history

Osthaus commissioned the Berlin architect Carl Gérard to build the museum in 1898 , but in 1900 decided to carry out the interior fittings according to a design by Henry van de Velde . With this he also realized the Hohenhagen artists' colony and the Hohenhof residence between 1906 and 1908 .

In 1902, the Folkwang Museum in Hagen was opened as the world's first museum for contemporary art, which today is considered modern art in terms of art history. Karl Ernst Osthaus organized numerous exhibitions in the Folkwang Museum (for example, works by the “ Brücke ” in the summer of 1907) and maintained close contacts with various artists (including Ernst Ludwig Kirchner , Emil Nolde , Alexander Archipenko ). In 1909 he founded a second museum, the German Museum for Art in Commerce and Industry , which showed exemplary arts and crafts at traveling exhibitions.

After Osthaus died in 1921 at the age of forty-six, the following year the heirs sold the entire holdings of the Folkwang Museum and the naming rights to the City of Essen and the Folkwang Museum Association of Essen, which founded the Folkwang Museum there in 1922 . The collections of the second museum were also sold and came into the possession of the Kaiser Wilhelm Museum in Krefeld . The museum building in Hagen was converted into an office building by the Mark municipal power station , so that a large part of the important interior was also lost.

In 1930, a new art museum was opened in the Villa Post in Hagen: the municipal “ Christian Rohlfs Museum ”.

In connection with the cleansing of the German museums after the exhibition “ Degenerate Art ”, the Hagen Art Museum also lost a large part of its holdings, including around 400 works by Christian Rohlfs . Other stocks were lost in bombing raids during World War II and looting at the end of the war.

When the museum reopened at the end of 1945, the collection had to be rebuilt. In 1955 the old Folkwang building on Hochstrasse could be moved into again, which was later heavily rebuilt. A restoration or partial reconstruction of the Art Nouveau interior by Henry van de Velde was financed by donations and was completed by the opening of the great Henry van de Velde exhibition in 1991. At the same time, the museum was also reoriented.

Since the 1990s, the museum has been publishing its writings again in its own Folkwang publishing house, known as Neuer Folkwang Verlag in the Karl Ernst Osthaus Museum in Hagen .

The Karl Ernst Osthaus Museum was closed from 2006 to the end of August 2009. The reopening under the name Osthaus Museum Hagen took place together with the reopening of the Emil Schumacher Museum . Since then, both museums have formed the Hagen Art Quarter .

Exhibitions

Fountain in the entrance hall of the historic villa (2009)

Architectural details in the basement

Works from the two collection departments of Classical Modernism and Contemporary Art are currently on display , some of them referring to the original Folkwang collection by Karl Ernst Osthaus. Art from 1900 is shown in the historic entrance hall, and the room-filling “The Architecture of Memory” by Sigrid Sigurdsson can also be seen on this level . On the upper floor there is a room with works by Christian Rohlfs. The offer is to be supplemented by changing presentations of non-representational color painting. The Young Museum was set up in the basement for the educational work of the museum .

The museum houses works by

• Karl Albiker (1878–1961), sculptor
• Alexander Archipenko (1887–1964), sculptor
• Otto Dix (1891–1969), painter and graphic artist
• Erich Heckel (1883–1970), painter
• Ernst Ludwig Kirchner (1880–1938), painter
• Ansgar Nierhoff (1941–2010), sculptor
• Christian Rohlfs (1849–1938), painter
• Franziskus Wendels (* 1960), painter

Name changes and museum concepts

The house in Hagen has housed different museums under different names in its history. After the Folkwang Museum was lost (through sale), a museum was re-established in 1930 under the name Christian Rohlfs Museum . The renaming to the Städtisches Museum - Haus der Kunst in 1934 by the National Socialists not only reduced the name, but they also intervened in the fund of works of art, as the majority of the collection was viewed as 'degenerate'.

From 1939 to 1945 the museum operated under the name Karl-Ernst-Osthaus-Museum . The reason for the renaming was the previous designation as Haus der Kunst , which after a decree could only be used by the Haus der Kunst in Munich.

The restart after the Second World War tried again to tie in with the idea of ​​the Folkwang collection by rebuilding a corresponding collection under the name Karl Ernst Osthaus Museum introduced by the National Socialists .

Each of these name changes involved serious changes in the museum's concept.

The most recent renaming of the museum in 2009 came about in the run-up to the reopening. The new spelling Osthaus Museum Hagen is more contemporary and internationally understandable because it is linked to the place name. In addition, it cancels the name “Karl Ernst Osthaus Museum”, which was introduced during the German National Socialist era.

literature

• Folkwang Museum. Modern art - plastic - painting - graphics. Verlag des Folkwang-Museum, Hagen 1912. Reprint of the 1912 edition: Seltmann, Lüdenscheid 2012.
• The Folkwang impulse. The museum from 1902 until today. Catalog for the exhibition in the Osthaus Museum Hagen, October 21, 2012 to January 13, 2013, edited by Tayfun Belgin and Christoph Dorsz. Seltmann, Lüdenscheid 2012, ISBN 978-3-942831-53-6
• German Museum for Art in Trade and Commerce. Modern architecture 1900–1914. The photo collection of the German Museum for Art in Trade and Industry. With contributions by Sabine Röder, Rolf Sachse, Gabriele Schickel, Reinhold Mißelbeck and texts by Karl Ernst Osthaus and Walter Gropius. Kaiser Wilhelm Museum Krefeld, Karl Ernst Osthaus Museum Hagen. Wienand, Cologne 1997, ISBN 3-87909-572-8

Web links

Commons : Karl-Ernst-Osthaus-Museum  - Collection of pictures, videos and audio files

• Literature from and about the Osthaus Museum Hagen in the catalog of the German National Library
• Osthaus Museum Hagen
• Material on the museum prior to the 2009 renaming
• Description of all locations on this themed route as part of the Route of Industrial Culture

Individual evidence

1. ↑ * Viola Hildebrand-Schat: Sigrid Sigurdsson - cartography of a journey. History experience in the open archive. Ed: Viola Hildebrand-Schat, modo Verlag, Freiburg i. B. 2020, ISBN 978-3-86833-270-4 .

Coordinates: 51 ° 21 '21.7 "  N , 7 ° 28' 22.9"  E