Werner Hofmann (art scholar)

Werner Hofmann (2010)

Werner Hofmann (born August 8, 1928 in Vienna ; † March 13, 2013 in Hamburg ) was an Austrian art historian , cultural journalist, writer and museum director.

Live and act

Hofmann studied art history in Vienna and Paris from 1947 to 1949 . From 1950 to 1955 he was an assistant at the Albertina in Vienna and guest lecturer at Barnard College , Columbia University in New York . In 1964 he received a visiting professorship at the University of California at Berkeley . In 1962, Hofmann was appointed by Minister of Education Heinrich Drimmel (ÖVP) as the founding director of the state “Museum of the 20th Century” (the building is now used by Belvedere 21 ). Today the museum operates in a different location as the Museum of Modern Art Foundation Ludwig Vienna (mumok). Hofmann headed the M20 until 1969.

From 1969 to 1990 he was director of the Hamburger Kunsthalle . From 1981 to 1982 Hofmann was visiting professor at Harvard University in Cambridge , Massachusetts . Hofmann had been a member of the Austrian Academy of Sciences since 1989 . Hofmann's exhibitions in the Hamburger Kunsthalle, which showed works by artists such as Caspar David Friedrich , Philipp Otto Runge , Francisco de Goya and contemporary artists such as Franz Erhard Walther , Joseph Beuys and Georg Baselitz , “are considered milestones in the exhibition history of the Hamburger Kunsthalle and for the German art museums ”. At the invitation of Ursula Pasterk , then director of the Wiener Festwochen , Hofmann designed the 1987 exhibition Magic of Medusa in the Künstlerhaus Vienna in Vienna .

Werner Hofmann died on March 13, 2013 in Hamburg.

Awards

• 1970: Extraordinary member of the Academy of the Arts, Berlin (West), Fine Arts Section
• 1974: Member of the Free Academy of the Arts in Hamburg
• 1979: Member of the Academy of Arts, Berlin (West), Fine Arts Section
• 1982: Member of the German Academy for Language and Poetry
• 1990: Commandeur de l ' Ordre des Arts et des Lettres
• 1991: Sigmund Freud Prize for scientific prose
• 1992: Prize of the City of Vienna for the humanities
• 1993: Member of the Academy of Arts, Berlin, Fine Arts Section
• 2008: Aby M. Warburg Prize

Fonts

As an author

Essays

• Productive conflicts (autobiographical sketch). In: Martina Sitt (ed.): Art historian on his own behalf . Reimer, Berlin 1990, pp. 103-130, ISBN 3-496-00467-3 .
• Nietzsche and the art of the 20th century . In: Günther Baum and Dieter Birnbacher (eds.): Schopenhauer and the arts . Wallstein Verlag, Göttingen 2005, pp. 308–323, ISBN 3-89244-947-3 .
• The sublime from below . In: Claude Keisch (Ed.): "Daumier is monstrous!" . Nicolai, Berlin 2013, pp. 10–19 (also catalog of the exhibition of the same name).

Monographs

• The caricature from Leonardo to Picasso . Philo Fine Arts, Hamburg 2007, ISBN 978-3-86572-642-1 (EA Hamburg 1956)
• Sign and shape. The painting of the 20th century (Fischer-Bücherei; Vol. 161). Fischer, Frankfurt / M. 1957.
• The sculpture of the 20th century (Fischer-Bücherei; Vol. 239). Fischer, Frankfurt / M. 1958.
• The earthly paradise. 19th century art . Prestel, Munich 1960.
• Georges Braque . The graphic work . Hatje, Stuttgart 1961.
• Foundations of modern art. An introduction to their symbolic forms (= Kröner's pocket edition . Volume 355). 4th, supplemented edition. Kröner, Stuttgart 2003, ISBN 3-520-35504-3 (EA Stuttgart 1966).
• From imitation to reality. The creative liberation of art 1890–1917 . DuMont Schauberg, Cologne 1974, ISBN 3-7701-0487-0
  • English: Turning Points in 20th Century Art . Allen Lane Publ., London 1969.
• Art and politics. About the social consequences of creative activity . Verlag Galerie der Spiegel, Cologne 1969 (based on publications in the Merkur magazine , April 1968).
• Gustav Klimt and the turn of the century in Vienna (Fundus; Vol. 167). Philo Fine Arts, Hamburg 2008, ISBN 978-3-86572-653-7 (EA Salzburg 1970).
• Nana . Myth and Reality . DuMont, Cologne 1987, ISBN 3-7701-0686-5 (EA Cologne 1973)
• Marsyas and Apollo . Callwey, Munich 1973, ISBN 3-7667-0237-8 (published on behalf of the Bavarian Academy )
• The earthly paradise. 19th century motifs and ideas . Prestel, Munich 1974, ISBN 3-7913-0084-9 .
• Votes against. Essays on 20th Century Art . Suhrkamp, ​​Frankfurt / M. 1979, ISBN 3-518-37054-5 .
• The divided century. 1750–1830 ( Universum der Kunst ; Vol. 40). Beck, Munich 1995, ISBN 3-406-39624-0 .
• Caspar David Friedrich . Natural reality and art truth . Beck, Munich 2000, ISBN 3-406-46475-0 .
• Goya . From heaven through the world to hell . 2nd edition CH Beck, Munich 2004, ISBN 3-406-48619-3 (EA Munich 2003).
• Daumier and Germany . Deutscher Kunstverlag, Berlin 2004, ISBN 3-422-06450-8 .
• The divided modernity. Essays on Art . Beck, Munich 2004, ISBN 3-406-52185-1 .
• Degas and his century . Beck, Munich 2007, ISBN 978-3-406-56497-0 .
• Fantasy pieces. About the fantastic in art . Hirmer, Munich 2010, ISBN 978-3-7774-2941-0 .
• The beauty is a line. 13 variations on a theme . Beck, Munich 2014, ISBN 978-3-406-64490-0 .
• The Stone Bible . The riddles of Schöngrabern. A fragment (texts: WH and Ralph Andraschek-Holzer. Photos: Wilhelm Cerveny). Verlag Bibliothek der Provinz, Weitra 2017, ISBN 978-3-902416-76-6 .

As editor

• Henry Moore . Writings and sculptures (Fischer-Bücherei; Vol. 250). Fischer, Frankfurt / M. 1959.
• Caspar David Friedrich . Art around 1800 . Prestel Verlag, Munich 1974, ISBN 3-7913-0095-4 (also catalog of the exhibition of the same name, Hamburger Kunsthalle , September 14 to November 3, 1974).
• William Turner and the Landscape of His Time. Prestel Verlag, Munich 1976, catalog of the exhibition of the same name, Hamburger Kunsthalle

literature

• Christian Beutler (Ed.): Art around 1800 and the consequences. In honor of Werner Hofmann . Prestel, Munich 1988, ISBN 3-7913-0903-X .
• Robert Kudielka , Michael Schoenholtz, Inge Zimmermann (Vorw.): From. drawn. to draw. An exhibition by the visual arts section . Akademie der Künste , April 25 to June 14, 2009, ISBN 978-3-88331-127-2 .

Web links

• Literature by and about Werner Hofmann in the catalog of the German National Library
• Obituary in art - the art magazine

Individual evidence

1. ^ ^{A b} Hedwig Kainberger : It is difficult for someone who thinks differently in Austria. In: Salzburger Nachrichten newspaper , October 1, 2018, p. 8
2. ↑ Quoted from art - Das Kunstmagazin