Willi Kemp

Willi Kemp (born April 2, 1927 in Cologne ) is a Düsseldorf tax advisor and art collector .

Kemp and his wife Ingrid (1937–1986) have been collecting contemporary art with a focus on Informel and ZERO since the 1960s , which over the decades has grown to include around 1200 objects to form the Ingrid and Willi Kemp collection . Kemp bequeathed it to the Kunstpalast Museum in Düsseldorf in 2011 .

From 1949 to 1952, Kemp studied business administration and tax law at the University of Cologne . He then worked as a freelance helper in tax matters, from 1967 as a tax advisor. In 1958/59 he studied art for two semesters at the Düsseldorf Art Academy . With his professional expertise as a tax advisor, he has supported many artists in their tax matters. From this activity and his intrinsic interest in art, many friendships with artists emerged. B. with Carl Buchheister , Karl Otto Götz , Winfred Gaul , Bernard Schultze , Gerhard Hoehme and Gotthard Graubner . This also gave rise to the possibility of building up a collection by directly exchanging the services of the tax advisor for works by the artists.

Together with the widow Elisabeth Buchheister, he compiled the two-volume catalog raisonné for Carl Buchheister. He recorded his encounters with artists in numerous photographs, which he also donated to the Museum Kunstpalast, and documented them in letters and memories in an extensive two-volume work.

Kemp's interest in contemporary art prompted him to acquire works often directly from artists at an early stage, when their works were not yet highly priced. His current collection therefore goes far beyond the original circle of artist friends and includes works by a large number of German and international artists, including Joseph Beuys , Bruno Goller , Rupprecht Geiger , the Zero artists Heinz Mack , Otto Piene and Günther Uecker as well from the international scene Lucio Fontana , Arnulf Rainer , Antoni Tàpies , Jean Tinguely , Ellsworth Kelly and Cy Twombly .

A representative selection from the collection was shown in 2001 in the Kunsthalle Düsseldorf . Together with the Essen tax advisor Lothar Pues, he showed works from the Kemp Collection under the motto Art in Living Space in Essen from 1999 to 2005, here the exhibitions with works by Otto Piene, Carl Buchheister, Karl Otto Goetz and Hermann-Josef Kuhna were created . The project was initially continued in Neuss under the motto Kunst auf Selikum and was later continued by Henning Ritter as Salon Kufsteiner Straße in Berlin. Further exhibitions of selected works took place in 2006 in the Museum Ratingen and other domestic and foreign exhibition venues, and since 2011, after its donation, in the Düsseldorf Museum Kunstpalast with changing focuses. Under the title Highlights. The headquarters of the Deutsche Bundesbank in North Rhine-Westphalia presented prints from the Kemp collection at its Düsseldorf location (from April 30 to June 4, 2014) with a selection of high-quality prints (including by Max Ernst , Wassily Kandinsky , Emil Schumacher , Karl Otto Götz, Yves Klein , Sigmar Polke ).

Award

• 2015: Jan-Wellem-Ring of the state capital Düsseldorf

Literature (selection)

• Elisabeth Buchheister, Willi Kemp (arrangement), Gerhard Bott (ed.): Carl Buchheister (1890–1964).
  • Volume 1: Catalog raisonné of the abstract works. Verlag Roether, Darmstadt 1984, ISBN 3-7929-0138-2 .
  • Volume 2: Catalog raisonné of the representational works. Edition Libri Rari Schäfer, Hanover 1986, ISBN 3-88746-161-4 .
• Elisabeth Buchheister, Willi Kemp (arrangement), Willi Kemp (ed.): Carl Buchheister. König, Cologne 1998, ISBN 3-88375-287-8 .
  • Volume 1: Monograph.
  • Volume 2: Catalog raisonné of the abstract works.
• Willi Kemp: My way to art. In: Impulse - Informel and Zero in the Ingrid and Willi Kemp collection. Exhibition catalog. Museum der Stadt Ratingen, 2006, ISBN 3-926538-60-0 , pp. 26-30.
• The Ingrid and Willi Kemp collection . Exhibition catalog. museum kunst palast, Düsseldorf 2001, ISBN 3-00-007371-X .
• The Kemp Collection. Part II. Exhibition catalog. Museum Kunstpalast, Düsseldorf 2011, ISBN 978-3-86206-084-9 .
• Meeting with artists. Photos by Willi Kemp from 1960 to 2009. Exhibition catalog. Kettler, Bönen 2009, ISBN 978-3-941100-94-7 .
• Prints from the Kemp Collection. Exhibition catalog. Museum Kunstpalast, Düsseldorf 2013 (without ISBN).
• Willi Kemp: My collection of prints. In: Prints from the Kemp Collection. Exhibition catalog. Museum Kunstpalast, Düsseldorf 2013, pp. 13–20.
• Willi Kemp (Ed.): David Rabinowitch : Church Drawings. Drawings of Romanesque Churches 1973-1978 from Wookbooks. Exhibition catalog. Düsseldorf 2015 (without ISBN).
• In dialogue with art - conversations with artists. Notes on art. Correspondence . Kettler printing works, Böhnen / Westphalia 2019 (without ISBN).

Movie

I live with my art - film essay about the art collector Willi Kemp by Katharina Mayer

Individual evidence

1. ↑ He donated his life's work to the museum. In: Rheinische Post. January 24, 2013, p. C3.
2. ^ Willi Kemp (ed.): Encounters with artists. Photos by Willi Kemp from 1990 to 2009. Kettler printing company, Bönen / Westphalia 2009.
3. ^ Willi Kemp: In Dialogue with Art - Conversations with Artists. Notes on art. Correspondence . Volumes I and II. Kettler printing works, Böhnen / Westphalia 2019.
4. ^ The Ingrid and Willi Kemp Collection . Exhibition catalog. museum kunst palast, Düsseldorf 2001, ISBN 3-00-007371-X .
      The Kemp Collection. Part II. Exhibition catalog. Museum Kunstpalast, Düsseldorf 2011, ISBN 978-3-86206-084-9 .