Rudolf Bornschein

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Rudolf Bornschein (born March 24, 1912 in Saarbrücken ; † July 31, 1988 there ) was a German art historian and director of the Saarland Museum .

Life

Bornschein studied art history , archeology , history and literature in Berlin , Vienna and Munich . He then returned to Saarbrücken and worked for some time as a journalist before moving to what was then Saarbrücken's local history museum as an assistant in 1939. Bornschein was called up for military service and was taken prisoner by the Soviets . After the end of the war, he returned to his old job; in the meantime the museum had been renamed Saarlandmuseum .

Franz Marc: Little Blue Horse (1912)

Bornschein was director of the Saarland Museum from 1955 to 1978. Together with the St. Wendel architect Hanns Schönecker, he designed and built the modern gallery for the museum, which consists of three flat pavilions. Bornschein was the first German museum director who, after the Second World War, made purchases for his house from great artists who had been branded as "degenerate" by the Nazis. In this way, among other things, the "Blue Horse", one of the most famous paintings by the Blauer Reiter artist Franz Marc , came to Saarbrücken. Through targeted further acquisitions, Bornschein was able to develop the museum's holdings into a representative cross-section of classical modernism. So within a few years, with modest means, a collection of modern art was created, which enabled a comprehensive overview of the artistic development of the last 100 years.

Friendship with Archipenko

Bornschein was particularly close friends with the Russian artist Alexander Archipenko . Archipenko used the Saarland Museum to inherit his plaster models. The rich inventory of original plaster of paris from the pioneer of sculpture in the 20th century is one of the most valuable and, at the same time, demanding treasures of the Saarland Museum. Since his first solo exhibition in the Folkwang Museum ( Hagen ) in 1912, Archipenko had maintained contacts with German museums and exhibition houses throughout his life. In 1960 Rudolf Bornschein organized an important retrospective for the internationally recognized sculptor. The friendship that developed between Archipenko and Bornschein motivated the artist to choose the Saarland Museum to inherit 107 of his plaster models. With the bronze casts of other works by Archipenko that were subsequently acquired, the Saarbrücken collection provides an almost complete overview of the sculptor's artistic development from 1908 to 1963.

Honors - awards

Individual evidence

  1. ^ WP article Alexander Archipenko / estate
  2. ^ Announcement of awards of the Saarland Order of Merit . In: Head of the State Chancellery (Ed.): Official Gazette of the Saarland . No. 18 . Saarbrücker Zeitung Verlag und Druckerei GmbH, Saarbrücken May 9, 1977, p. 391–392 ( uni-saarland.de [PDF; 244 kB ; accessed on May 27, 2017]).

literature

  • Modern gallery Saarbrücken . With an introduction by Rudolf Bornschein. Saarbrücken: Saarland Museum, 1968.
  • Marlen Dittmann: Passionate art collector: memory of Rudolf Bornschein . In: OPUS Jg. 2012, H. 30. Saarbrücken: Verl. Saarkultur, 2012
personal data
SURNAME Bornschein, Rudolf
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German art historian and director of the Saarland Museum
DATE OF BIRTH March 24, 1912
PLACE OF BIRTH Saarbrücken
DATE OF DEATH July 31, 1988
Place of death Saarbrücken