Otto Fischer (art historian)

Eduard Jakob Otto Fischer (born May 22, 1886 in Reutlingen , † April 9, 1948 in Basel ) was a German art historian and museum director . He was considered an expert in Chinese art .

Live and act

Fischer was born the son of Kommerzienrat Ernst Fischer (1854–1922) and his wife Anna Fischer (née Linder). Like his siblings, he attended the Latin school in Reutlingen. Later, his parents sent him to a boarding school in Bad Kreuznach , where he passed the school leaving examination in 1904. In the summer semester of 1904, Fischer began studying law at the University of Tübingen and became a member of the Igel University of Tübingen . However, he changed the subject after one semester and then studied art history and archeology in Tübingen from autumn 1904 to autumn 1905 . After that he went to Munich and studied until the autumn of 1906 at the city's university . Until Easter 1907 he was a student of Julius von Schlosser at the University of Vienna . In December 1907 he was at Heinrich Wolfflin with a theme "For German painting in Salzburg" the doctor doctorate . Trips to France and Italy followed.

Fischer, a very early East Asian expert

Since 1909 Fischer has been engaged in Chinese painting. Fischer wrote his first essay on East Asian art a year after the legendary Munich East Asia Exhibition of 1909 as a review. We learn from him that the exhibition "opened the eyes of wide circles to an art of which they were otherwise only little known and accessible, it [...] caused some joy and provided some inspiration." As for the quality of the As far as exhibits are concerned, however, he restricts: “After all, the Munich exhibition offered samples of almost every important type for Japan: mostly mediocre, but also some excellent pieces.” He wrote a second essay in 1911 on Chinese art theory. In 1912 he completed his habilitation at the philological-historical department of the Philosophical Faculty of the University of Göttingen with a thesis on Chinese painting. After the First World War , he rewrote his habilitation thesis and published it in 1923. The book achieved numerous new editions.

Member of the New Artists' Association Munich (NKVM)

In 1911 at the latest, Fischer joined the group of artists who frequented Marianne von Werefkin's “pink salon” . He had made a name for himself back then through a series of publications, especially in specialist journals and periodicals , which helped to establish his professional career. In the same year he also became a member of the Neue Künstlervereinigung München (NKVM). In 1912 Fischer wrote the first publication about the NKVM under the title Das neue Bild. It lists and describes all those artists of the NKVM who were then members of the association , including Alexander Mogilewskij .

In the service of science and art

After the First World War , Fischer opened an antiquarian bookshop in Munich. Around 1920 he was appointed director of the Württemberg Museum of Fine Arts in Stuttgart. Financed by the Fund of German Science and the Foreign Office , Fischer embarked on a research trip in 1925 that took him via Siberia to Korea , Japan , and China , where he was appointed an "honorary advisor" by the government in Beijing . In 1926 he discovered the painter Qi Baishi (1861–1957) in Beijing , who exhibited at the Berlin Secession in 1930 and then became known as “the greatest contemporary Chinese ink artist in the world and then also in China”. On the return trip he visited Java and Bali .

In 1927, Fischer's reputation into the post of the head of the Kunstmuseum Basel as successor of Friedrich Rintelen (1881-1926), coupled with an extraordinary professor of art history at the local university . For the new building of the art museum, he hired the Stuttgart professor Paul Bonatz and the Basel-based Rudolf Christ as architects , under whose construction management “this then the most modern museum in Europe was completed in 1936.” The pictures were hung according to his specifications. The museum was opened in 1936.

After almost ten years of activity, Fischer had to retire from museum work for health reasons. Georg Schmidt was his successor in Basel . In 1938 he moved with his family to Ascona in the canton of Ticino , where he continued to work scientifically and wrote several books. In 1945 Otto Fischer became seriously ill with the heart and returned to Basel, where he died in 1948.

Art collection

Otto Fischer's art collection must have been extensive in the past. For example, he owned the Japanese oil painting Bagatelles by Alexej Jawlensky from around 1904. He owned the now lost tempera painting Reclining Red Bull by Franz Marc .

Fonts

• The new picture. Publication of the Neue Künstlervereinigung München. Delphin, Munich 1912.
• Chinese landscape painting. Kurt Wolff, Munich 1923.
• The art of India, China and Japan (= Propylaen art history. Vol. 4). Propylaea, Berlin 1928.
• Hiking trips of an art lover in China and Japan. German publishing company, Stuttgart / Berlin 1939.
• Art walks in Java and Bali. German publishing company, Stuttgart / Berlin 1941.

Individual evidence

1. ↑ “Piechorowski: A Scholar's Life for Museum and Science . 1986, p. 21. "
2. ^ "Flory-Fischer: Otto Fischer . 1986, p. 16. "
3. ^ Otto Fischer, East Asian Art, North and South. Organ of the new art association of the Lessing Society Berlin, 35th year, 1910, vol. 135, p. 132
4. ^ Otto Fischer, East Asian Art, North and South. Organ of the new art association of the Lessing Society Berlin, 35th year, 1910, vol. 135, p. 137
5. ^ Chinese landscape painting , Kurt Wolff, Munich, 1923, reprint: Nabu Press, 2010 ISBN 978-1-145-65922-3
6. ^ Annegret Hoberg: New Artists' Association Munich and "Blauer Reiter". In: The Blue Rider and the New Image - From the "New Munich Artists' Association" to the "Blue Rider". (Exhibition catalog) Städtische Galerie im Lenbachhaus, Munich 1999, p. 16.
7. ↑ Valentine Macardé: Le renouveau de l'art russe picturale 1863-1914. Lausanne 1971, p. 135 f.
8. ^ Gustav Pfeiffer: Bibliography in: Otto Fischer. A twentieth century art historian. Reutlingen 1886-Basel 1948. Reutlingen 1986, p. 55 ff.
9. ^ Annegret Hoberg, Neue Künstlervereinigung München and "Blauer Reiter". In: The Blue Rider and the New Image - From the "New Munich Artists' Association" to the "Blue Rider". (Exhibition catalog) Städtische Galerie im Lenbachhaus, Munich 1999, p. 15.
10. ↑ Hans Wille: "The New Image" by Otto Fischer . In: The Blue Rider and the New Image - From the "New Munich Artists' Association" to the "Blue Rider" . (Exhibition catalog) Städtische Galerie im Lenbachhaus, Munich 1999, p. 321
11. ↑ Flory Fischer: Otto Fischer . 1986, p. 25.
12. ↑ “Piechorowski: A Scholar's Life for Museum and Science . 1986, p. 22. "
13. ↑ A German marched with Mao . In: Der Spiegel from October 16, 1971
14. ↑ Piechorowski: A scholar's life for Museum and Science . 1986, p. 26.
15. ↑ Maria Jawlensky, Lucia Pieroni-Jawlensky and Angelica Jawlensky (eds.): Alexej von Jawlensky, Catalog Raisonné of the oil-paintings. Vol. 1, Munich 1991, No. 78, p. 81.
16. ^ Annegret Hoberg and Isabelle Jansen: Franz Marc, catalog raisonné. Volume II, watercolors, gouaches, drawings, postcards, reverse glass painting, applied arts, plastic. Munich 2004, No. 201, p. 176.

literature

• Hilde Flory-Fischer: Otto Fischer: An art historian of the twentieth century, Reutlingen 1886 – Basel 1948 , published by the city of Reutlingen. Reutlingen History Association, Reutlingen 1986.
• Heinrich Geissler , Martin Kaulbach: Otto Fischer. Art scholar and museum man 1886–1948 , exhibition at the Staatsgalerie Stuttgart (Alte Staatsgalerie), 20.3. - 11.5.1986, Stuttgart: Staatsgalerie, Graphic Collection 1986.
• Annegret Hoberg: "New Artists' Association Munich" and "Blauer Reiter" . In: Exhibition catalog: Annegret Hoberg, Helmut Friedel (eds.): The Blue Rider and the New Image: From the “New Munich Artists' Association” to the “Blue Rider” , Prestel, Munich 1999.
• Nikolaus Meier: Ars una: The art historian Otto Fischer . In: “Reutlinger Geschichtsblätter”, New Series, Vol. 50 (2011), pp. 147–208.
• Arno Piechorowski: A Scholar's Life for Museum and Science . In: Otto Fischer: An art historian of the twentieth century, Reutlingen 1886 – Basel 1948 , Reutlingen 1986.

Web links

• Literature by and about Otto Fischer in the catalog of the German National Library