Rudolf Staechelin

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Rudolf Staechelin (born May 8, 1881 in Basel ; † January 3, 1946 there ) was a Swiss entrepreneur and art collector .

Life

Rudolf Staechelin-Finkbeiner (1881–1946), entrepreneur, art collector, family grave in the Hörnli cemetery, Riehen, Basel-Stadt
Family grave in the Hörnli cemetery , Riehen, Basel-Stadt
Rudolf Staechelin-Finkbeiner (1881–1946), entrepreneur, art collector, grave in the Hörnli cemetery, Riehen, Basel-Stadt
Grave in the Hörnli cemetery , Riehen, Basel-Stadt

Rudolf Staechelin was born as the son of master bricklayer and building contractor Gregor Staechelin and his wife Emma, ​​née Allgeier, in Basel. The father's family originally came from Istein in Germany. At the age of 19, he already took on managerial roles in the two family businesses Staechelin & Co. Property Management and G. Staechelin Sons & Co. , a finance company. His tasks included the expansion of the Pissevache power station near Vernayaz . After the power station was sold to Lonza AGhe took over there in 1914 the position of Vice President of the Board of Directors. Staechelin was married to Emma Mina Finkbeiner since 1922. From this marriage comes the son Peter G. Staechelin (1922–1977).

Staechelin is one of the most important Swiss art collectors of the first half of the 20th century. In addition to works by Swiss artists, his collection mainly included works of French Impressionism and Post-Impressionism . One of his advisors in building the collection was the Munich gallery owner Heinrich Thannhauser . From 1924 he also collected East Asian art. In 1931 he transferred the art collection to the Rudolf Staechelin'sche Family Foundation . This foundation was not a non-profit foundation, but was intended to secure the “family's material value ... [the] collection as an emergency reserve”. Staechelin showed the pictures repeatedly in exhibitions and otherwise kept them at his residence in Schloss Ebenrain in Sissach and in his Basel apartment on Mühlenberg . For several decades, the Foundation made parts of the painting collection available on loan to the Kunstmuseum Basel and the Musée d'art et d'histoire (Geneva) .

Art collection

The first documented acquisitions of works of art by Rudolf Staechelin date back to 1914. At that time he bought a group of paintings by French-speaking Swiss artists from the Geneva gallery Maison Moos , including works by Emile Bressler , Gustave François and Édouard Vallet . This was followed by fifteen watercolors and nine drawings by Maurice Barraud in 1915 , which Staechelin also acquired from the Geneva gallery. Between May and October 1917 he also bought important works of French Impressionism and Post-Impressionism from the same gallery. These included Le Sentier du Village by Camille Pissarro , Les Harenfs saurs by Vincent van Gogh , Nafea faa ipoipo by Paul Gauguin , Paysage avec deux figures by Pierre-Auguste Renoir and Le village des Sablons by Alfred Sisley . Six more pictures by Renoir followed in 1918, including two with the motif of Gabrielle . In addition, he acquired three pictures by Kees van Dongen in 1917 . In addition, Staechelin bought eight paintings by Ferdinand Hodler in the Maison Moos gallery in 1918 , including Le Grammont après la pluie , La malade , La morte , Le Mont-Blanc , Le Mont-Blanc aux nuages ​​roses . A few years later, Hodler's painting Passage de Montana was added. Staechelin acquired a self-portrait by Paul Cézanne and a version of La Berceuse by Vincent van Gogh through Gustav Tanner's Zurich art dealer in 1917 . Shortly thereafter, a version of van Gogh's Jardin de Daubigny was purchased through the mediation of Paul Vallotton . In Paris, between October 1917 and May 1918, he bought three paintings by Paul Cézanne in the Bernheim-Jeune art dealer . In addition to Pommes et verre and Maison du docteur Gachet , the portrait of Victor Chocquet also entered the collection. He also bought the painting Blonde au chapeau de paille by Pierre-Auguste Renoir and the pastels Femme à sa toilette and La lettre by Edgar Degas from Bernheim-Jeune .

Staechelin bought the painting River Landscape with Steamboat by Maurice de Vlaminck in June 1917 through the Frankfurt art dealer Ludwig Schames . In February 1918, the same art dealer sold Temps calme, Pourville by Claude Monet , two motifs Paysage du midi by André Derain and a picture Bathers by Max Pechstein to the collector . Another nine works by Pechstein came into the collection in 1919 through the Frankfurt art dealer Goldschmidt & Co. Other artists from the environment of the Munich New Secession represented in the collection were Gustav Jagerspacher , Helene Jagerspacher-Haefliger , Franz Heckendorf , Rudolf Sieck , Adolf Schinnerer , Rudolf Großmann and Edwin Scharff . The paintings Portrait du peintre Jules Lunteschütz by Gustave Courbet and Le jugement de Pâris by Henri Fantin-Latour also entered the collection via Galerie Goldschmidt & Co. The painting Les deux frères from the Pink Period by Pablo Picasso was added in 1917 via the Caspari Gallery in Munich . The relationship with the art dealer Heinrich Thannhauser was particularly intense, from whose Munich gallery from 1917 and from the branch of the gallery in Lucerne from 1921 Staechelin acquired most of his paintings. These included Olevano, La Serpentara by Jean-Baptiste Camille Corot , Chien mort by Eugène Delacroix , La sente du Chou, Pontoise , Un rue à l'Hermitage , La carrière, Pontoise and Le monument Henri IV by Camille Pissarro, Tête de femme by Édouard Manet , Portrait d'un veillard à haute-forme by Claude Monet, Nature-morte - poisson by Alfred Sisley, Tête de femme by Vincent van Gogh, Entre les lys by Paul Gauguin. Other important purchases were Paysage au toit rouge from Paul Gauguin from an unknown previous possession, Arlequin au loup from Pablo Picasso, which Staechelin acquired in 1918 at the Bollag art salon in Zurich, Arlequin assis from Picasso, which entered the collection in 1923 via the Parisian art dealer Paul Rosenberg came and Madame Matisse au châle de Manille by Henri Matisse , which he bought in 1943 through the Rosengart gallery in Lucerne. Staechelin's most recent acquisitions included several works by Swiss artist René Auberjonois .

  • Edouard Manet:
    Tete de femme

  • Claude Monet:
    Temps calme, Pourville

  • Camille Pissarro:
    Le Sentier du Village

  • Paul Gauguin:
    Nafea faa ipoipo

  • Paul Cézanne:
    Portrait of Victor Chocquet

  • Vincent van Gogh:
    La Berceuse

Important items in the collection have been sold by the foundation since the 1960s. The foundation sold works by Vincent van Gogh , Claude Monet , Alfred Sisley and Paul Cézanne in 1967 after Peter G. Staechelin, the main shareholder of Globe Air, got into financial difficulties. The planned sale of the two Picasso paintings Les deux frères and Arlequin assis , which ultimately went to the Kunstmuseum Basel for CHF 8.4 million after a referendum approved this purchase, caused a stir . Pablo Picasso was so impressed by the referendum that he donated more of his works to the Kunstmuseum Basel (the paintings Homme, femme et enfant , Vénus et l'Amour and Le couple as well as the drawing Study for Les Demoiselles d'Avignon ). Since the death of Peter G. Staechelin in 1977, his son Ruedi Staechelin has been running the family foundation. In 1988 he had some works in the collection sold, including Chien mort by Delacroix and Gabrielle au collier by Renoir. In 1989 the sale of Entre les lys of Paul Gauguin for 11 million dollars. In 2015, Ruedi Staechelin stated that the foundation had sold the painting Nafea by Paul Gauguin. Although he did not provide any information about the buyer and the purchase price, media speculated about an alleged purchase price of 300 million US dollars and a buyer in Qatar . He also announced that in future the Foundation's remaining works of art will no longer be exhibited on loan at the Kunstmuseum Basel. In 2018 it became known that in future they would be on loan "periodically" to the Fondation Beyeler in Riehen .

literature

  • Rudolf Staechelin'sche Familienstiftung Basel (Ed.): Nafea, the Rudolf Staechelin Collection, Basel . Wiese, Basel 1990, ISBN 3-909158-52-8 .

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Rudolf Staechelin'sche Familienstiftung Basel: Nafea , p. 9.
  2. ^ Rudolf Staechelin'sche Familienstiftung Basel: Nafea , p. 25.
  3. ^ Rudolf Staechelin'sche Familienstiftung Basel: Nafea , p. 11.
  4. ↑ a b c d Rudolf Staechelin'sche Familienstiftung Basel: Nafea , p. 16.
  5. ^ Rudolf Staechelin'sche Familienstiftung Basel: Nafea , p. 155.
  6. ↑ Rudolf Staechelin'sche Familienstiftung Basel: Nafea , pp. 144–145.
  7. ↑ Rudolf Staechelin'sche Familienstiftung Basel: Nafea , p. 153.
  8. ^ Rudolf Staechelin'sche Familienstiftung Basel: Nafea , p. 159.
  9. ↑ a b Rudolf Staechelin'sche Family Foundation Basel: Nafea , p. 160.
  10. ↑ a b c Rudolf Staechelin'sche Familienstiftung Basel: Nafea , p. 18.
  11. ^ Rudolf Staechelin'sche Familienstiftung Basel: Nafea , p. 159.
  12. ^ Rudolf Staechelin'sche Familienstiftung Basel: Nafea , p. 162.
  13. ↑ a b Rudolf Staechelin'sche Familienstiftung Basel: Nafea , p. 20.
  14. ^ Rudolf Staechelin'sche Familienstiftung Basel: Nafea , p. 156.
  15. ↑ Rudolf Staechelin'sche Familienstiftung Basel: Nafea , p. 157.
  16. ^ Rudolf Staechelin'sche Family Foundation Basel: Nafea , p. 169.
  17. ^ Rudolf Staechelin'sche Familienstiftung Basel: Nafea , p. 167.
  18. ^ Rudolf Staechelin'sche Familienstiftung Basel: Nafea , pp. 182-183.
  19. ^ Rudolf Staechelin'sche Family Foundation Basel: Nafea , p. 51.
  20. ^ Rudolf Staechelin'sche Familienstiftung Basel: Nafea , p. 52.
  21. ↑ Hans-Joachim Müller: Is this Gauguin the most expensive picture of all time? , welt.de, February 6, 2015, accessed on February 7, 2015
  22. ↑ Michael Baas: Growth for the Fondation. Badische Zeitung, November 13, 2018, accessed on November 13, 2018 .
personal data
SURNAME Staechelin, Rudolf
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Swiss entrepreneur and art collector
DATE OF BIRTH May 8, 1881
PLACE OF BIRTH Basel
DATE OF DEATH January 3, 1946
Place of death Basel