Walter Holzhausen

Walter Holzhausen (born July 23, 1896 in Bonn ; † October 31, 1968 there ) was a German art historian and museum director.

Live and act

After the First World War, Holzhausen studied art history at the university in his hometown with Paul Clemen and then with Heinrich Wölfflin in Munich, where he was awarded a Dr. phil. received his doctorate. Appointed to Dresden in the 1930s , he was given the position of curator of the famous collections of the Saxon kings in the Green Vault . At the time, Holzhausen published a large number of art historical non-fiction and specialist books and expert reports. After the Second World War, Walter Holzhausen returned from the destroyed and Soviet-occupied Dresden to his hometown and in 1947 became the city's museum director. He headed the Bonn Institute for 15 years, until his retirement in 1962. During this time he completed the collection of Rhenish Expressionists with a focus on the work of the Bonn painter August Macke . He also perfected the graphic collection of Romantic Rhineland landscapes .

Walter Holzhausen belonged with Heinrich Lützeler and Karl Pempelfort to the "culture triumvirate" that met regularly in the artist pub Zur Kerze at the regulars' table in the post-war years .

Municipal art museum

In 1882, Bonn university professor Franz Obernier (1839–1882) transferred his private house on the banks of the Rhine, the Villa Obernier , including his extensive collection of paintings and art objects, to the city of Bonn. The “Villa Obernier” foundation was the only museum of contemporary art for decades and was soon known for its excellent collection of Rhenish expressionists . After the building was destroyed in the Second World War, the " Städtische Kunstsammlungen " opened in a converted office wing at Rathausgasse 7 (behind Bonn Town Hall ) in the late 1940s and Walter Holzhausen was appointed first director.

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Herbert Marcuse: ZEITMOSAIK. In: Die Zeit , 45/1968. November 8, 1968. Retrieved December 8, 2014 .