Wilhelm Niemeyer (art historian)

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Wilhelm Niemeyer (born June 11, 1874 in Barchfeld near Eisenach , † August 27, 1960 in Hamburg ) was a German art historian, lecturer and writer.

Live and act

Wilhelm Niemeyer was the son of a pastor. He passed his Abitur in Gießen in 1892 and then studied history and philosophy and, from 1899, also art history in Heidelberg . Beginning in 1901, he continued his studies in Leipzig , where he at 1903. August Schmarsow with a thesis on the change of style from late Gothic to Renaissance doctorate . After a brief activity in 1904 in the administration of the library of the Kunstgewerbemuseum in Berlin, Niemeyer became a lecturer at the Kunstgewerbeschule Düsseldorf from 1905 . In 1909 he was one of the founders of the Sonderbund in Düsseldorf. In 1910 he became a lecturer in art history and library manager at the State School of Applied Arts in Hamburg .

After Niemeyer had presented his first poems in 1908 with the stanzas des Zwiemuts , he became a literary member of the Hamburg Secession in 1919 and founded the Kunstbund Hamburg the following year , which dealt with contemporary art in Hamburg. Which together with Rosa Schapire issued promulgation (1921-22) is the most important expressionist seen magazine of Hamburg. He had been close friends with the painter Karl Schmidt-Rottluff since his time as a passive member of the artist group Brücke and was a collector of his works before he turned to Franz Radziwill as a mentor in 1922 , whose decisive stay in Dresden in 1927/28 he largely spent financed by own means. The correspondence between Wilhelm Niemeyer and Franz Radziwill was only published in 1990 by the art historian Gerhard Wietek under the title “Franz Radziwill - Wilhelm Niemeyer, Documents of a Friendship” .

As a representative of the Kampfbund for German Culture, Niemeyer was one of Hamburg's Nazi protagonists. In 1930 Niemeyer lost his lectureship in Hamburg due to differences with the director of the Max Sauerlandt School of Applied Arts , but was reinstated in 1933 after his leave of absence. In 1938 he was released into early retirement. He was denigrated as a critic in 1937 on the occasion of the Munich exhibition “ Degenerate Art ”.

Wilhelm Niemeyer was married to the singer and pianist Marie Niemeyer, née Schulz (1868–1947), since 1904. They had an adopted daughter. Niemeyer died in Hamburg on August 27, 1960.

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. Gerd Presler : Die Brücke , Rowohlt, Reinbek 2007, ISBN 978-3-499-50642-0 , p. 108
  2. ^ Friends of the Kunsthalle
  3. ^ Andreas HünekeSauerlandt, Friedrich August Max. In: New German Biography (NDB). Volume 22, Duncker & Humblot, Berlin 2005, ISBN 3-428-11203-2 , p. 462 f. ( Digitized version ).
  4. ^ Niemeyer, Wilhelm , in: The Historical Archive of the Germanisches Nationalmuseum , accessed on September 4, 2016
  5. ^ Niemeyer, Wilhelm , in: Deutsche Biographie , accessed on September 4, 2016