Stephen Floersheimer

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Stephen Helmuth Floersheimer

Stephen Helmuth Floersheimer (born March 21, 1925 in Berlin ; † April 6, 2011 in Zurich ) was a philanthropist , banker and art collector .

He was the son of the German-Americans Walter and Charlotte Floersheimer. As a child of Jewish parents, he fled to Belgium in 1932 and then to the United States . After studying at Oxford , he worked on his farm during the war and then began his career in banking. In 1970 he moved to Switzerland with his wife Eliane Floersheimer-Goldmuntz and their three children , where he became his father's partner at Bank Cantrade, Zurich. In 1990 he founded his own trust company and acquired Swiss citizenship.

philanthropist

In 1991, Floersheimer founded an institute for political science at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem . Since its inception, it has published over two hundred studies on topics related to planning and government in Arab countries and the relationship between religion and society. 

In 2007 the institute was replaced by Floersheimer Studies , the Institute of Urban and Regional Studies , which aims to analyze processes that take place in the multicultural Israeli society and to propose strategies for this.

His interest in justice led him to found The Floersheimer Center for Constitutional Democracy at the Cardozo School of Law at Yeshiva University in New York. This was seen as a major step towards understanding and functioning of democracy in general. With his donation of 5 million dollars, the center was able to start its work in 2000. Issues such as the status of Guantánamo were deliberately integrated.

Art collector

Stephen Floersheimer inherited his father Walter's art collection in 1989. Some of the most famous pictures were bequeathed to the Israel Museum and are now in the Walter and Charlotte Floersheimer Pavilion. These include paintings by Raul Dufy , Camille Corot and Edgar Degas .

The art collection in Switzerland gained in importance through new acquisitions by Floersheimer and became one of the most important private collections in Switzerland. Paintings by Claude Monet : Gran canale , Venice 1909, Pablo Picasso , Camille Pissarro , Paul Gauguin , Paul Cézanne , Alfred Sisley , Tizian , Henri de Toulouse Lautrec , Lyonel Feininger and Alexander Archipenko gave the collection its formative character. In 1990 he loaned his two Harlequins by Juan Gris to the Museo Reina Sofia , Madrid for the Juan Gris exhibition. Contemporary painters such as Maurice Estève , Daniel Garbade , Gaston Chaissac and Charles Lapicque are also part of the collection, which until the 1980s were exhibited in the winter months at UBS's headquarters on Zurich's Bahnhofstrasse.

In 1990 the collection got its permanent headquarters in his country estate Casa Carlotta, Orselina , in the Swiss canton of Ticino . The building, built in the 1920s, is surrounded by one of Switzerland's largest private gardens, with modern and classic sculptures such as a bronze statue by Aristide Maillol .

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Walter D. Floersheim, bankers, 89 . In: The New York Times . April 6, 1989, ISSN  0362-4331 ( nytimes.com [accessed August 14, 2017]).
  2. ↑ Paid Notice: Deaths Flörsheimer, STEPHEN H . In: The New York Times . April 8, 2011, ISSN  0362-4331 ( legacy.com [accessed August 14, 2017]).
  3. ↑ Floersheimer Studies. Retrieved August 14, 2017 .
  4. ↑ The Floersheimer Center for Constitutional Democracy. Yeshiva University, accessed August 14, 2017 .
  5. ^ Israel Things to do - The Israel Museam. (No longer available online.) Archived from the original on August 14, 2017 ; accessed on August 14, 2017 . Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / www.world66.com
  6. ↑ artport.co daniel bosshart b medien.net: exhibitions 2013_2. Retrieved August 14, 2017 .
  7. ↑ Juan Gris en las colecciones del Museo Nacional Centro de Arte Reina Sofía | Museo Nacional Centro de Arte Reina Sofía. Retrieved August 14, 2017 (Spanish).
  8. ↑ Ulrike Wendland: Biographical Handbook of German-Language Art Historians in Exile: Life and Work of Scientists Persecuted and Expelled under National Socialism. Part 1: A – K. Part 2: L-Z . Walter de Gruyter, 1998, ISBN 978-3-11-096573-5 ( google.es [accessed August 14, 2017]).
personal data
SURNAME Floersheimer, Stephen
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Floersheimer, Stephen Helmuth (full name)
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Swiss philanthropist, banker and art collector
DATE OF BIRTH March 21, 1925
PLACE OF BIRTH Berlin
DATE OF DEATH April 6, 2011
Place of death Zurich