Paul Westheim

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Paul Westheim (born August 7, 1886 in Eschwege ; † December 21, 1963 in Berlin ) was a German art critic , art collector , journalist , writer and editor . Paul Westheim was married to the translator and poet Mariana Frenk-Westheim .

Studies and cultural-historical work

Paul Westheim was born into a Jewish Orthodox family. He broke off a commercial apprenticeship that his father had begun and studied art history at the TH Darmstadt and the University of Berlin . During his studies he was a student of Heinrich Wölfflin and Wilhelm Worringer . From 1917 to 1933 he published the art magazine Das Kunstblatt , in which he published articles on the expressionists Wilhelm Lehmbruck , Oskar Kokoschka , Otto Dix and Pablo Picasso . He also published the portfolios for graphic arts Die Schaffenden , the Almanach Europa and the book series Orbis pictus . Paul Westheim wrote numerous fundamental monographs on modern art of the 20th century and collected important works by George Grosz , Oskar Kokoschka, Ernst Ludwig Kirchner , Erich Heckel and others. v. a. In 1920 his monograph on Oskar Kokoschka and in 1931 heroes and adventurers appeared . Paul Westheim made use of modern communication channels at an early stage and became one of the leading art critics in Germany through his art-critical broadcasts. He promoted young artists through exhibitions in his Berlin gallery, such as u. a. Karl Leyhausen .

Flight and Exile

Due to the political changes after 1933, Westheim first emigrated to France . After he came to power, his books were banned. He had to leave his art collection behind, which he hid with his friend, Charlotte Weidler. He worked for German-language newspapers and published the newsletter of the Free German Association of Artists Free Art and Literature . In 1935 Westheim was stripped of its German citizenship. With the beginning of the Second World War , however, he was immediately imprisoned because of his German origins. He was held in five different French internment camps. He himself ironically called his captivity "his Tour de France". By a happy coincidence, he managed to escape from an internment camp in 1941, and the Emergency Rescue Committee helped him escape France. In 1941 Paul Westheim, who was now almost blind, received an entry visa for Mexico in Marseille . He fled to Mexico via Spain and Portugal .

In 1942 Paul Westheim met the widowed Hispanic Mariana Frenk at the Heinrich Heine Club in Mexico City . In 1959 they married. After the Second World War, both German states prevented Paul Westheim, who was classified as left-wing liberal, from returning to Germany. Charlotte Weidler broke off contact with him in 1945 and sold his collection. In 1954, the then stateless Paul Westheim received Mexican citizenship . Paul Westheim died during a visit to Berlin in 1963, the city where, according to his own statements, he would have preferred to live.

Art historical work

Westheim particularly advocated the recognition of German Expressionism . Among the best-known works by Paul Westheim are the monographs on the German expressionist sculptor Wilhelm Lehmbruck and the Austrian expressionist painter Oskar Kokoschka. He has also published works on Indian architecture and ancient Mexican art. Paul Westheim's life's work is particularly recognized in Mexico. His book "Die Kunst Alt-Mexikos", first published in Mexico in 1950, impressed and influenced the Nobel Prize winner Octavio Paz , among others .

writer

His only novel Heil Kadlatz was published for the first time in sequels in the German-language Pariser Zeitung while in exile in Paris. The reversed picaresque novel , based on Heinrich Mann, describes the unstoppable rise of the social democratic porter Gustav Kadlatz, who developed from a Wilhelmine war supporter to a Spartacist and later a Nazi fellow traveler . It shows the Roaring Twenties of a clever petty bourgeois. Kadlatz's career leads through pimping , white-collar crime , and imprisonment in the Nazi squads until his Jewish ancestry is revealed and he is shot. The cover of the paperback edition from 1979 was created by Klaus Staeck .

Quotes

"The wonderful thing about politics, people pay for what they tell themselves."

- From: Paul Westheim: Heil Kadlatz . Rowohlt Taschenbuch Verlag GmbH, Reinbek, 1979 p. 66

"My God, you don't know so much, and yet you live."

- From: Paul Westheim: Heil Kadlatz . Rowohlt Taschenbuch Verlag GmbH, Reinbek, 1979 p. 122

Works (selection)

  • The world as an idea: a way to see art . Kiepenheuer, Potsdam 1919
  • The woodcut book . Kiepenheuer, Potsdam 1921, reprint Rogner and Bernhard 1977 a. Mann Verlag, Berlin 2000, ISBN 3-7861-2324-1 .
  • For and against: Critical comments on art d. Present . Kiepenheuer, Potsdam 1923
  • Heroes and adventurers: the world and life of artists . Reckendorf publishing house, Berlin 1930/1931.
  • Rassenschande: Novella . Ed. du Phénix, Paris 1935.
  • "Internal Affairs". Essay in Why is the world silent? Ed. Berthold Jacob , with contribution from Carl von Ossietzky ; Georg Bernhard ; W. Franck; Jack Iwo; Alfred Kantorowicz ; Rudolf Leonhard ; Paul Westheim, Editions du Phénix, Paris 1936.
  • Arte Antiguo de México . Fondo de Cultura Económica, Mexico 1950.
  • Arte antiguo de México . Translation Mariana Frenk, Fondo de Cultura, Mexico, Buenos Aires 1950, new edition Económica Alianza Ed., Madrid 1988, ISBN 84-206-7067-7 .
  • La calavera . Translation by Mariana Frenk, Antigua Librería Robredo, Mexico 1953.
  • Otto Mueller. 1874–1934, watercolors, chalks, lithographs . Galerie Schwarzer, Hamburg 2004 (repr. Of the 1954 edition).
  • La cerámica del México Antiguo - Fenómeno artístico . Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México, 1962.
    • in English: Doubleday & Company, Inc., New York City USA 1965.
    • Extended German edition: The Art of Ancient Mexico . M. DuMont Schauberg, Cologne 1966.
  • Cardboard box with pillars. Antifascist art criticism . Kiepenheuer, Leipzig 1985, 1st edition.
  • Art criticism from exile . Müller & Kiepenheuer, Hanau / M. 1985, ISBN 3-7833-6507-4 .
  • Heil Kadlatz. The life path of an old fighter; Novel . Rogner and Bernhard, Munich 1977, ISBN 3-8077-0083-8 .
  • Death in Mexico . = la Calavera Müller & Kiepenheuer, Hanau / M. 1987, ISBN 3-7833-6400-0 .

literature

  • Ulla Bötcher: Paul Westheim , in: Anna Maria Zimmer: Jews in Eschwege. Development and destruction of the Jewish community . Self-published by Maria Zimmer, Eschwege 1993, DNB 940692570 .
  • Peter Chametzky: 'Paul Westheim in Mexico: A Cosmopolitan `Man Contemplating the Heavens`', Oxford Art Journal 24.1 (2001): 23-44.
  • Tanja Frank: Paul Westheim: Art criticism from exile . Müller & Kiepenheuer, Hanau 1985, ISBN 3-7833-6507-4 .
  • Walther Killy , Rudolf Vierhaus (ed.): German Biographical Encyclopedia . Saur, Munich 1998, ISBN 3-598-23160-1 , p. 459.
  • Melissa Müller , Monika Tatzkow: Lost pictures, lost lives - Jewish collectors and what became of their works of art . Sandmann, Munich, 2008, ISBN 978-3-938045-30-5 (on the whereabouts of his collection deposited with Charlotte Weidler ).
  • Rolf Tauscher: Literary satire of exile against National Socialism and Hitler Germany. From FG Alexan to Paul Westheim . Kovač, Hamburg 1992, ISBN 3-86064-062-3 (also habilitation thesis , University of Halle 1991). Pp. 86–89 (on Rassenschande ), pp. 132–136 (on Heil Kadlatz! ).
  • Lutz Windhöfel : Paul Westheim and Das Kunstblatt: A magazine and its publisher in the Weimar Republic . Dissertations on art history, 35. Cologne: Böhlau Verlag 1995, ISBN 978-3-412-04095-6 .
  • Karl Kollmann , York-Egbert König : Names and fates of the Jewish victims of National Socialism from Eschwege - A memorial book . Frankfurt am Main: Nicholas Petrol Foundation 2012, 1st edition (here pp. 245–246, under Westheim, Paul).
  • Bernd Fechner, York-Egbert König: Paul Westheim, art critic - publicist - collector. Centrum Judaicum , Hentrich & Hentrich , Berlin 2015, ISBN 978-3-95565-095-7 (= Jewish miniatures. Volume 172).

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ http://sz-magazin.sueddeutsche.de/texte/verbindungen/28096/
  2. ↑ Uta Baier: "I keep everything that belongs to you carefully". In: welt.de . January 31, 2009, accessed October 7, 2018 .
  3. ↑ see article on the Mexican consul in Marseille Gilberto Bosques
personal data
SURNAME Westheim, Paul
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Art writer and critic
DATE OF BIRTH August 7, 1886
PLACE OF BIRTH Eschwege
DATE OF DEATH December 21, 1963
Place of death Berlin