Victor Dirksen

Victor Alexander Dirksen , also Viktor Dirksen (* 1887 in Berlin ; † November 5, 1955 ) was a German art historian . He was director of the Wuppertal Municipal Museum for over 33 years .

Life

Dirksen studied art history at the University of Berlin . In 1914 he received his doctorate with a dissertation on the paintings by Marten de Vos under Adolph Goldschmidt .

In 1919 director Gustav Pauli appointed him - as successor to Carl Georg Heise - as assistant and research assistant at the Kunsthalle Hamburg . In Hamburg he edited the series of publications entitled “Little Guide”, which in numerous editions introduced in-depth information about the life of artists and their works in the museum. Individual titles were reissued in the Second World War for the soldiers at the front as "A small field library" at Gebr. Mann.

Even before the new administrative unit of Wuppertal was formed , the city of Elberfeld elected Dirksen as director of the Municipal Museum for Art and Applied Arts in Elberfeld in 1929 (later the Von der Heydt Museum), where he initially continued the work of his predecessor Friedrich Fries . In 1931 Dirksen also became - as the successor to Richart Reiche - chairman of the Barmer Kunstverein. As a result, he directed both the Elberfelder Museum and the Barmer Ruhmeshalle , which continued to hold exhibitions of contemporary art. Among other things, he showed a first retrospective by the sculptor and painter Georg Kolbe in 1932 . In 1942 he presented the work of the Wuppertal artist Carl Grossberg , who had died two years earlier, in an exhibition . Between 1940 and 1942 Dirksen bought numerous works by French artists in occupied France through dealers. The work of Delacroix and Renoir , among others , was returned by the French troops in 1945.

After 1946 Dirksen tried to buy works by Emil Nolde , Ernst Ludwig Kirchner , Erich Heckel and Karl Schmidt-Rottluff through Ferdinand Möller , who had been commissioned by the National Socialists with the utilization of confiscated works of art, including a self-portrait by Kirchner, which he had previously done in the possession of the Städelsche Kunstinstitut in Frankfurt am Main. On April 21, 1946, the Elberfelder Museumsverein and the Barmer Kunstverein merged to form the Art and Museum Association (KMV) . Although Eduard von der Heydt advocated the extension of his contract as museum director, Dirksen was retired at the end of 1952. Most recently he designed an exhibition of the works of Hans von Marées for Wuppertal . In 1949 he was a co-founder of the "Working Group of West German Museums and Art Associations".

After his retirement, he ran the Cologne Art Association . Dirksen was the author of numerous publications on modern and contemporary art. Some artist portraits in the General Lexicon of Fine Artists from Antiquity to the Present come from him .

Fonts (selection)

• Caspar David Friedrich. Kunsthalle zu Hamburg, 1920 (10th Little Guide).
• The 17th century Dutch still life. Hamburg Art Gallery, 1921.
• Catalog of the modern masters of the Hamburger Kunsthalle. Kunsthalle zu Hamburg, 1922 (2nd edition by Lütcke & Wulff, Hamburg 1927).
• Hardorff, Hamburg artist family . In: Hans Vollmer (Hrsg.): General lexicon of fine artists from antiquity to the present . Founded by Ulrich Thieme and Felix Becker . tape 16 : Hansen – Heubach . EA Seemann, Leipzig 1923, p. 29-30 .
• Patrons and artists in Wuppertal. In: The time . March 1, 1952 ( zeit.de ).

literature

• Viktor Dirksen died. In: Weltkunst. 25, 1955, No. 23, p. 12.

Web links

• Literature by and about Victor Dirksen in the catalog of the German National Library

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Victor Dirksen: The life of the artist, The paintings of Martin De Voss. Freise, Parchim, 1914. Contents: The pictures of the first to third period; Graphic activity; Incorrectly assigned images; The pupils.
2. ↑ Stefan Koldehoff : The pictures are among us: The business with Nazi looted art and the Gurlitt case. Kiepenheuer & Witsch, 2014 ISBN 978-3-462-30812-9 , pp.?.
3. ^ Daniela Wilmes: Competition for the modern. On the history of the art trade in Cologne after 1945 (= writings on modern art historiography . Volume 2). de Gruyter, Berlin 2012, ISBN 978-3-05-005197-0 , p. 175 ff.

predecessor	Office	successor
Friedrich Fries	Director of the Wuppertal Municipal Museum (today: Von der Heydt Museum) 1929–1952	Harald Seiler