Siegfried Bing
Siegfried Bing (outside Germany more known by his Jewish name Samuel Bing) (* 1838 in Hamburg, † 1905 in Vaucresson, France ) was a German - French art collectors and dealers.
Coming from an international Hamburg merchant family, was Siegfried Bing one of the most important collectors and dealers of Asian art objects. He is considered the founder of Japonism in Europe.
In Paris he worked in the family business since 1854 Bing et Renner, which also operated a ceramic manufactory, and from 1863 Leuiller fils et Bing, 1876, he was naturalized in France. In 1868 he married his cousin second degree Johanna Bair ( 1847-1882 ), whose brother Martin Michael Bair 1870 part owner of the first German trading house in Tokyo. Around this time, Bing enthusiastic and increasingly for Japanese curiosities and ceramics, which he imported by Leullier fils in 1875. But it was his big " shopping trip " the years 1880 and 1881, which led him to India, China and Japan, and the establishment of a branch in Yokohama Shopping under his brother August Bing ( 1852-1918 ) made him the leading importer of East Asian art. By securing the sources he now had the opportunity renowned museums in Europe and the U.S. to supply with Japanese and Chinese arts and crafts products. From 1888 to 1891 he was also the monthly magazine Le Japon artistique: documents d' art et d'industrie out.
1894 Bing was commissioned by the French government, to prepare a report on the state of American Art (La Culture artistique en Amerique, Paris, 1896). 1895, changed the focus of his work. He founded a gallery in Paris with the name of Salon de l'Art Nouveau, in which he showed works by the Belgian artist Henry van de Velde and Georges Lemmen and stained glass from designs by Edouard Vuillard, Paul Ranson, Pierre Bonnard, Henri -Gabriel Ibels, Felix Vallotton and Toulouse- Lautrec, who had been executed by Louis Comfort Tiffany in America. The exhibition was controversial and criticized by the press. In his gallery, he also sold fabric and wallpaper by William Morris, silk from Liberty & Co. in London, and beautiful metal lamps of the English Arts and Crafts designer William Arthur Smith Benson. Also by James McNeill Whistler, he offered paintings. He also provided artistic solutions to aestheticization of living spaces - today we would say interior designer or interior decorator.
Siegfried Bing founded about 1897/99 own workshops for the manufacture of furniture and jewelry. They were the culmination of his quest for a revival of French design with the highest standards of quality. The products designed by its artists designs he also other workshops available, so that they could be produced in greater numbers.
As Bing 1899 jewelry manufactured in his workshop in the Grafton Galleries in London exhibited, but this met with little response from the audience and the press. At the Paris World Fair in 1900, he opened a private gazebo Art Nouveau Bing. Here he was able to show his ideas to a wider public.
A large part of the estate of Siegfried Bing was auctioning his son and sole heir Marcel Bing 1909.
One of the main merits of Bing was that he made known to Europe and America with East Asian art and thus the image of East Asia in these countries significantly helped to shape. He became the namesake for the new movement of Art Nouveau that was to become global recognition for their diverse currents.