Rudiger Klessmann

Rüdiger Klessmann (Photo: 2015)

Rüdiger Klessmann (born March 15, 1927 in Lemgo ; † March 30, 2020 in Augsburg ) was a German art historian and director of the Herzog Anton Ulrich Museum in Braunschweig from 1970 to 1990 .

Life

Rüdiger Klessmann was a son of the surgeon Gustav Kleßmann (1893–1974) and Käthe Westheermann (1894–1962). He was married to the art historian and artist Dora M. Klessmann (1928–2014), a daughter of Lieutenant General Heinrich Wintzer (1892–1947). His younger brother is the writer Eckart Kleßmann .

Klessmann studied art history at the Universities of Göttingen and Kiel . He received his doctorate under Heinz Rudolf Rosemann (1900-1977) with a dissertation on the building history of the collegiate church in Möllenbeck on the Weser and the development of the western three-tower group in 1952. After volunteering at the Städel Art Institute in Frankfurt am Main , he worked from 1954 to 1957 as a research assistant at the Chair of Art History at the University of Stuttgart . From 1957 to 1970 he was curator at the Gemäldegalerie of the State Museums of Prussian Cultural Heritage , at that time in Berlin-Dahlem . His research was focused on Dutch and German baroque painting .

From 1970 to 1990 Klessmann was director of the Herzog Anton Ulrich Museum in Braunschweig. The extensive renovation of the museum building and the associated Dankwarderode Castle , in which the medieval collection is exhibited, goes back to him . The knight's hall created in the 19th century was also reconstructed. A neighboring building in Adolfstrasse was acquired for the work of the newly established museum education.

Among the important exhibitions in the Herzog Anton Ulrich Museum during Klessmann's tenure are:

• "German Baroque Art", 1975
• “The language of images. Reality and Significance in 17th Century Dutch Painting ”, 1978
• " Jan Lievens - a painter in the shadow of Rembrandt ", 1979
• "First-hand painting - oil sketches from Tintoretto to Goya ", 1983 (together with the Boijmans Van Beuningen Museum , Rotterdam )
• “Dutch painting in a new light. Hendrick ter Brugghen and his contemporaries ", 1987 (together with the Centraal Museum Utrecht )

Grave of Rüdiger Klessmann

With the exhibition “German Baroque Art” in 1974 in the National Museum in Warsaw , Klessmann first opened a cultural exchange with the state art museums of the People's Republic of Poland , which was successfully expanded in the following years.

Klessmann was buried in March 2020 in the Catholic Cemetery on Hermanstrasse .

Honors

• The Bavarian State Minister for Science and Art, Hans Zehetmair, presented Klessmann with the Federal Cross of Merit 1st Class on January 17, 1991 .
• In the Polish Embassy , then in Cologne , Klessmann was awarded the medal “ Mérite en faveur de la culture polonaise ” on November 27, 1991 .
• Klessmann was made an honorary member of the Polish Society of Art Historians (Polish: Stowarzyszenie Historyków Sztuki) on January 19, 1995.

Fonts (selection)

• Gemäldegalerie Berlin. Magnus, Essen 1971 (English original edition: The Berlin Gallery , Thames and Hudson, London, New York 1971).
• Duke Anton Ulrich Museum. Bruckmann, Munich 1978, ISBN 3-7654-1738-6 .
• The language of images. Reality and Significance in 17th Century Dutch Painting. With Wolfgang J. Müller and Konrad Renger , exhibition catalog Braunschweig 1978.
• as editor: Self-portraits and artist portraits from Lucas van Leyden to Anton Raphael Mengs . Herzog Anton Ulrich Museum, Braunschweig 1980
• The Dutch paintings. Critical Directory. Herzog Anton Ulrich-Museum, Braunschweig 1983, ISBN 3-922279-01-5 .
• Duke Anton Ulrich - living and governing with art. Exhibition catalog 1983, ISBN 3-922279-02-3 .
• as editor: Hendrick ter Brugghen and his successors Caravaggios in Holland. Herzog Anton Ulrich-Museum, Braunschweig 1987, ISBN 3-922279-10-4 .
• Rembrandt's “ Noli me tangere ” - seen through the eyes of a poet. Low German contributions to art history 27, 1988, pp. 89–100.
• An unknown Venetian Venus by Hans Rottenhammer . Low German contributions to art history 28, 1989, pp. 131–142.
• Jacob Jordaens . On the iconography and direction of his history paintings. In: From Bruegel to Rubens . The golden century of Flemish painting. edited by Ekkehard Mai and Hans Vlieghe , exhibition catalog Cologne, Antwerp, Vienna 1992, pp. 151–160, ISBN 3-9801801-1-5 .
• Comments on Rubens' painting “Diana and Callisto” in Madrid. Wallraf-Richartz-Jahrbuch 55, 1994, pp. 85-94.
• A Lost Painting by Rubens and its Meaning. In: Shop Talk. Studies in Honor of Seymour Slive , Cambridge, Mass. 1995, pp. 137-142, ISBN 0-916724-85-9 .
• Johann Liss - A monograph with a critical oeuvre catalog. Davaco Publishers, 1999, ISBN 90-70288-07-9 .
• The Flemish paintings of the 17th and 18th centuries. Hirmer, Munich 2003, ISBN 3-7774-9930-7 .
• Adam Elsheimer 1578-1610. Discover the world in detail. Exhibition catalog of the Städel Museum. Edition Minerva, Frankfurt am Main 2006, ISBN 3-938832-06-1 (English edition: Adam Elsheimer 1578–1610. Paul Holberton publishing, London 2006)
• New finds and reflections on the work of Johann Liss. Münchner Jahrbuch der bildenden Kunst 60, 2009, pp. 59–90.
• A newly discovered painting by Adam Elsheimer. Münchner Jahrbuch der bildenden Kunst 61, 2010, pp. 191–200.

literature

• Eckart Kleßmann : Wings spread over you - A childhood 1933–1945 . Aisthesis, Bielefeld 2007, ISBN 978-3-89528-633-9 , passim .

Web links

• Literature by and about Rüdiger Klessmann in the catalog of the German National Library