Willy Gretor

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Willy Gretor, around 1905

Willy Gretor (born July 16, 1868 at Wundlacken Castle near Königsberg , † July 31, 1923 in Copenhagen ), also Grétor, born Vilhelm Rudolf Julius Petersen , was a German-Danish painter and art dealer.

Life

Willy Gretor, around 1895

Vilhelm Rudolf Julius Petersen was the son of the Flensburg merchant H. Chr. Petersen. He was trained as a painter in Copenhagen. He was initially a student of Niels Pedersen Mols and Bertha Wegmann . From 1887 to 1889 he was a student at the Royal Danish Academy of Art in Copenhagen. From 1890/1891 he sent their exhibitions from Paris with portrait studies. He came to Lübeck in 1889 , where he made the acquaintance of a liberal group of bourgeois daughters , the Ibsen club , where young people met to exchange ideas about modern literature and which "had an aura of mystery and scandalousness." In addition to a brief affair with the later archaeologist Margarethe Gütschow , which can be seen from his correspondence, there is also a brief engagement with one of her cousins ​​from the Fehling family . From this network of relationships he fled to Paris in 1890 with the young Lübeck painter Maria Slavona ; the future actress Lilly Ackermann was the child of this relationship. He gave Maria Slavona to Vincent van Gogh's country house in Provence (1888). From 1890/91 Gretor was also represented at exhibitions in Paris. Following Maria Slavona, Rosa Pfäffinger became Willy Gretor's lover, in 1891 his wife and mother of their son and later journalist Georg Gretor (1892–1943). Father Gretor later worked as an art dealer in France and Spain. As a dazzling figure in the art trade, among other things, he brokered the origins of the very controversial wax bust of Flora in 1909 through the London art dealer Murray Marks (1840–1918) to the Berlin museums .

Literary reception

Frank Wedekind was Gretor's secretary for a while. In November 1898 Wedekind began work on the play The Marquis of Keith , with Gretor now serving him - as a prototype for the Marquis. Wedekind's drama Erdgeist , "Lulu's first part", is also dedicated to him. Gretor was also a sponsor of the publisher Albert Langen .

literature

Web links

Commons : Willy Gretor  - collection of pictures, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Alken Bruns: cult figure and citizen fright. Ibsen reception in Lübeck around 1890. In: Wolfgang Butt, Bernhard Glienke (Ed.): The near north: Otto Oberholzer on his 65th birthday; a commemorative publication. Lang, Frankfurt am Main; Bern; New York; Nancy 1985, ISBN 978-3-8204-5349-2 , pp. 125-138, here p. 125.
  2. ↑ Vincent van Gogh - Boerderij in de Provence .
  3. ↑ Ulrike Wolff-Thomsen: Willy Gretor (1868–1923): his role in the international art business and art trade around 1900 (= Bau + Kunst. 11; Schleswig-Holsteinische Schriften zur Kunstgeschichte. 11). Ludwig, Kiel, 2006, ISBN 3-937719-33-4 .
  4. ↑ Short biography on the website of the V&A Museum
  5. ^ Fritz Strich (ed.): Frank Wedekind. Collected letters. 1st volume. Georg Müller, Munich 1924, p. 354 f.
  6. ↑ Part of a series of owls under the title Wedekinds models: The archetypes of his stage designs. In addition to Lilly Ackermann, Tilly Wedekind , Erich Mühsam and Artur Kutscher also provided biographical sketches.
personal data
SURNAME Gretor, Willy
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Petersen, Vilhelm Rudolf Julius (maiden name); Grétor, Willy
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German-Danish painter and art dealer
DATE OF BIRTH July 16, 1868
PLACE OF BIRTH near Koenigsberg
DATE OF DEATH July 31, 1923
Place of death Copenhagen