Karl Ernst Osthaus

Karl Ernst Osthaus ( born April 15, 1874 in Hagen, † March 25, 1921 in Meran ) was one of Germany's most important patrons of the arts and art collector of the early 20th century.

Life and work

Origin and Youth

The son of the banker Ernst Osthaus and the Industrial daughter Selma Funcke decided a commercial apprenticeship to study philosophy, art history and natural sciences in Kiel, Berlin, Strasbourg, Vienna, Bonn and Munich.

Already in 1894 he outlined in a letter his blueprint for the future: "That me the opportunity and talent was given to bring about a shift in the artistic life and work, it makes me sacred duty, with complete disregard of my own to serve the fatherland. "

After completing his studies he lived from 1898 back in his hometown of Hagen and married in 1899 Gertrude Colsman ( 1880-1975 ), the daughter of a textile manufacturer from Langenberg. After he had taken the great legacy of his grandfather Wilhelm Funcke, he tried with Hagen as " city of the West" the centralization of cultural values ​​in the capital of Berlin oppose a counterweight.

The Folkwang idea

Osthaus developed the " Folkwang - thought ," the idea that art and life are reconcilable. The cultural center was the Folkwang Museum (today Osthaus Museum Hagen), the Osthaus, originally planned as a natural history museum, was built from 1898 to 1902 by the Berlin architect Carl Gérard in the formal language of Neo-Renaissance, whose interior but then by the Belgian artist Henry van de Velde was performed in the Art Nouveau style. On 9 July 1902, the Folkwang Museum was opened as an art museum. The basement of the museum was the natural science collections reserved.

In 1901 was founded the Folkwang school of painting. Artists such as Christian Rohlfs, Emil Rudolf Weiß, Jan Thorn Prikker and Milly Steger were invited by Osthaus to Hagen and here had the opportunity to free himself from economic hardship to unfold. Emil Nolde called the museum a " heavenly signs in Western Germany ".

In addition to works by Paul Cézanne, Anselm Feuerbach, Paul Gauguin, Vincent van Gogh, Ferdinand Hodler, Henri Matisse, George Minne, Pierre- Auguste Renoir, Auguste Rodin, Georges Seurat and Paul Signac, it is primarily the collections European design, and non-European art, made up the reputation of the museum in the early years.

Osthaus but tried also, more broadly, to make the social life through art. So he proposed to establish an artists' colony, workshops and a teaching institution. In this context emerged, headed by JL Matthieu Lauweriks " Hagen silversmith " and the " Hagen dexterity Seminar".

The German Werkbund

Osthaus was a member of the Deutscher Werkbund and suggested in 1909, finally, the establishment of another museum at, the German Museum of Art in trade and commerce, was the concept and working closely linked to the objectives of the Deutscher Werkbund. Also in 1909, the special covenant in Dusseldorf was founded as an association of artists such as Walter Ophey, Max Clarenbachstift, August Deusser, collectors and museum people under his chairmanship. The goal was to operate the promotion of artistic activities and the collaboration between artists and audience.

Architecture and Art

Through exemplary buildings Osthaus tried to encourage his fellow citizens to good and modern building and to break through the desolation of Applied Arts of the industrial age. Thus arose construction projects such as the garden city Hohenhagen with the Hohenhof (built 1906-1908, designed by Henry van de Velde ), the workers' settlement forest village street by Professor Richard Riemerschmid from Munich and single-family homes in the Garden City Emst. Osthaus original plan was spacious and included the entire plant Hohenhagen with their center axes Hohenhof and to various other places and buildings on the high plateau of the Garden City Emst. Gardens, a museum, a school and an artists' colony here should give rise to a structural and intellectual complex, inter alia, for the Bruno Taut a glass tower, a museum building, the ' Folkwang School ', a building for the Folkwang -Verlag and various court systems designed. Besides Taut and van de Velde, Peter Behrens, JLM Lauweriks, Adolf Loos, August Endell, and Walter Gropius were involved.

Published in 1919 Osthaus his book "Principles of style development " at the Folkwang -Verlag. Due to this work, the Humanities Faculty of the University of Würzburg awarded him an honorary doctorate. He received from the Rheinisch- Westfälische Technische Hochschule Aachen a second honorary doctorate.

Tragic end

1916 Osthaus was drafted as ungedienter Landsturmmann for military service and retired while a severe suffering, the consequences of which he finally died in 1921 in Merano. Just one year after his death, the heirs sold Osthaus most of its art collections to the city of Essen, the - supported by resident Rhine- Westphalian Coal Syndicate - made ​​an attractive financial offer and the Museum Folkwang in Essen newly built. The collections of the Deutsches Museum of Fine Arts in trade and commerce came to the Kaiser Wilhelm Museum in Krefeld.

Hagen Impulse

The " Hagen Impulse " is now worldwide a household name in art history, but the relatively short period of the influence of Osthaus for the city of Hagen no more than one pulse remained. Today, the Osthaus Museum Hagen continues the tradition. In the gardens of the Hohenhof is now the John Ilmari Auerbach 1922 created tomb of Osthaus, which was converted in 1971 from Merano to Hagen.

Others

According to Karl Ernst Osthaus an elementary school was named in his birthplace Hagen.