Paul Wember

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Paul Wember (born July 25, 1913 in Recklinghausen , † January 9, 1987 in Krefeld ) was a German art historian , museum director, curator and author .

Life

Paul Wember studied Catholic theology, philosophy, history and art history in Bonn, Paderborn, Freiburg i. Br. With Martin Heidegger and Berlin with Nicolai Hartmann . His doctorate took place in 1939 under Wilhelm Pinder with a thesis on the Westphalian stone and wood sculpture of the 13th century .

In 1940 Paul Wember married the artist Tomma Wember . From 1943 to 1944 he was an assistant at the Art History Institute of the Friedrich-Wilhelms-Universität , Berlin, from 1944 to 1947 at the St.-Annen-Museum in Lübeck . In 1947 Paul Wember became director of the Kaiser Wilhelm Museum in Krefeld, which he directed until 1975. In 1952, Wember exhibited the 1952 fountain by Joseph Beuys in the museum's inner courtyard, which was created for the Rhein-Maas industrial exhibition and has become the property of the city of Krefeld .

Long house, garden side

In 1955 Ulrich Lange made his childhood home, built by Ludwig Mies van der Rohe from 1928 to 1930, available to the city of Krefeld for ten years as an exhibition space for contemporary art. Under the direction of Wember, the Lange House became one of the leading exhibition venues for avant-garde art. In 1968 Ulrich Lange donated the house to the city of Krefeld on the condition that it would exhibit 100 years of contemporary art in it.

In 1964 the Kaiser Wilhelm Museum took part in the Venice Biennale with the exhibition Today's art in museums . With a minimal purchase budget, the Krefeld Museum was not able to invest in classic modernism like the big houses. Wember therefore bought unknown contemporary art, including works by Yves Klein , Tàpies and Beuys, in 1959, for example, a first picture by Yves Klein for 500 DM or two pictures by Piero Manzoni for 200 DM. Wember used various contacts for exhibitions and purchases Gallery owners such as Michael Hertz, Alfred Schmela , Rolf Ricke , Rudolf Zwirner and Conny Fischer.

At the same time, it was Wember's concern to repeatedly promote regional artists from the Lower Rhine through museum exhibitions. Due to the considerable increase in value that Wember's museum purchases have experienced over the decades, the long-standing city councilor and member of the NRW state parliament, Eugen Gerritz , summed up in 2013: "Paul Wember has increased the fortune of this city (Krefeld) like no one before and after him."

Wember's art policy was controversial between 1950 and 1970. He was exposed to hostility both in committees of the city and among the population, but was able to rely on the loyalty of the city's head of culture at the time, Kurt Honnen. The atmosphere only changed with the increasing national and international recognition: Hans Strelow finally named Wember 1968 at that time the leading museum man for the avant-garde. At the beginning of the 1970s - the city had become a metropolis of contemporary art - Paul Wember's achievement was also more recognized in Krefeld. In recognition of his work, the Kaiser Wilhelm Museum was also referred to as the Kaiser Wember Museum.

From 1968 Wember became an advisor to the collectors Helga and Walter Lauffs and built up an extensive collection of contemporary art with them. With a total of 500 works by around 100 important artists of the 20th century, some of which are kept in the museum depot, and an estimated value of 400 million euros, the collection is one of the largest German private collections of contemporary art. It contained, among other things, works of early pop art, conceptual and minimal art. The acquired works of art remained in the museum's collection for around four decades, but were withdrawn 20 years after Wember's death in 2008 due to differences between the collector and the museum, and a large part were auctioned off at Sotheby's in New York.

Much of Wembers director's activity only became clear in retrospect. In 2013 it was proven that Wember was the first to exhibit Miro, Klein, Christo and Tinguely in a museum in Germany. Despite a personal friendship with Joseph Beuys, a Beuys exhibition - to Wember's regret - was not part of this series of first museum exhibitions. Due to renovation work at both the Kaiser Wilhelm Museum and the Haus Lange Museum, this was not possible, and so it was Johannes Cladders , Wembers' assistant in Krefeld from 1957 to 1967, who organized the first Beuys exhibition in a museum in Mönchengladbach in 1967 . Heinz Mack: "Wember was (...) the first and only (...) museum director in all of Germany and far and wide in Europe who exhibited Yves Klein, Tinguely and how they are all there, and you have to keep this in mind: The only exhibition that Klein had during his lifetime was that of Paul Wember in Krefeld. "

On September 30, 1975, Paul Wember retired for health reasons (he suffered from the consequences of a serious war injury). After Willem Sandberg ( Stedelijk Museum , Amsterdam), Alfred Barr ( Museum of Modern Art , New York) and Arnold Bode (co-founder of documenta , Kassel), Paul Wember received the German Art Trade Prize in Düsseldorf in 1976.

In 2013, Gisela Fiedler-Bender and his son Bernward Wember made Tomma Wember's considerable stake in Paul Wember's directorship public for the first time.

Exhibitions

Fonts

  • The Westphalian stone and wood sculpture of the 13th century. Dissertation. Dresden 1941.
  • Heinrich Nauen. Düsseldorf 1948.
  • Joan Miró, Colored Lithographs. Wiesbaden 1959.
  • The youth of the posters 1887–1917. Krefeld undated (around 1960)
  • Heinrich Campendonk. Krefeld 1961.
  • Moving areas of art. Krefeld 1963.
  • Johan Thorn Prikker. Glass windows, murals, ornaments 1891–1932. Krefeld 1966.
  • Yves Klein. Monograph on contemporary art. (Catalog of works, biography, bibliography, exhibition directory by Gisela Fiedler.) DuMont Schauberg, Cologne 1969.
  • Foliage arts. International prints since 1945 (with the collaboration of Gisela Fiedler). Krefeld 1973.
  • Art in Krefeld: Public and private art collections. DuMont Schauberg, Cologne 1973, ISBN 3-7701-0679-2 .

Awards

literature

  • Sylvia Martin, Sabine Röder (eds.): Paul Wember and the hyperactive museum. Modern art publisher. Nuremberg 2013, ISBN 978-3-86984-421-3 .
  • Art and Krefeld e. V. (Ed.): Paul Wember. 100th birthday memories. Krefeld 2013, ISBN 978-3-9811973-3-4 .
  • Magdalena Broska: Paris-Krefeld (1947–1964) . A research project of the Adolf Luther Foundation, Krefeld, Volume I. Pagina, Goch 2013, ISBN 978-3-944146-03-4 .
  • Conversation with Paul Wember . In: Der Spiegel . No. 21 , 1969 ( online ).

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Götz Adriani, Winfried Konnertz , Karin Thomas: Joseph Beuys . DuMont, Cologne 1994, p. 28.
  2. ↑ Gisela Fiedler-Bender: Paul Wember on his 100th birthday. In: Kunst und Krefeld e. V. (Ed.): Paul Wember. 100th birthday memories. Krefeld 2013, p. 25.
  3. ↑ Heinz Mack in conversation with Magdalena Broska. December 2008. In: Kunst und Krefeld e. V. (Ed.): Paul Wember on his 100th birthday. Krefeld 2013, p. 55f.
  4. ^ Eugen Gerritz: tutoring lessons. In: Kunst und Krefeld e. V. (Ed.): Paul Wember memories for the 100th birthday. Krefeld 2013, p. 32.
  5. ↑ Gisela Fiedler-Bender: Paul Wember on his 100th birthday. In: Kunst und Krefeld e. V. (Ed.): Paul Wember. 100th birthday memories. Krefeld 2013.
  6. ^ Biography Paul Wember on the homepage of the city of Krefeld
  7. ↑ Ewald Rathke: The "Kaiser Wember Museum" for the expansion and reopening of the Krefeld "Kaiser Wilhelm Museum" . In: Artis . 1989, 21, 1969, 8, p. 16-18
  8. ^ The Helga and Walther Lauffs Collection. 2 vols. Verlag Steidl, 2011, ISBN 978-3-86930-088-7 . (German English)
  9. ↑ Conservationally inadequate: Krefeld loses the Lauffs collection
  10. ^ Sylvia Martin, Sabine Röder (Ed.): Paul Wember and the hyperactive museum. Modern art publisher. Nuremberg 2013.
  11. ↑ Christoph Elles: How Wember Krefeld made great. In: Westdeutsche Zeitung . February 22, 2013.
  12. ↑ Gisela Fiedler-Bender: Paul Wember on his 100th birthday. In: Kunst und Krefeld e. V. (Ed.): Paul Wember. 100th birthday memories. Krefeld 2013, p. 30.
  13. ↑ Heinz Mack in conversation with Magdalena Broska. December 2008. In: Kunst und Krefeld e. V. (Ed.): Paul Wember on his 100th birthday. Krefeld 2013, p. 56.
  14. ↑ Gisela Fiedler-Bender: Paul Wember on his 100th birthday. In: Kunst und Krefeld e. V. (Ed.): Paul Wember. 100th birthday memories. Krefeld 2013.
  15. ^ Bernward Wember: Paul and Tomma Wember. The museum directors couple. In: Sylvia Martin, Sabine Röder (eds.): Paul Wember and the hyperactive museum. Modern art publisher. Nuremberg 2013.
personal data
SURNAME Wember, Paul
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German museum director
DATE OF BIRTH July 25, 1913
PLACE OF BIRTH Recklinghausen
DATE OF DEATH January 9, 1987
Place of death Krefeld