They bid on two autographed, signed letters of Art historian, gallery owner and art critic Paul Ferdinand Schmidt (1878-1955), who made outstanding contributions to the establishment of modern art in Germany.
DatedSiegsdorf (OB) 1947 and 1951.
Addressed to Hans Kloos, Features editor at Wiesbaden courier.
1.) Letter Siegsdorf, 18. November 1947.
Transcription: "Dear Dr. Kloos, With many thanks, hbut I received the fee for 'Münter' [[di Gabriele Münter, Kandinsky's partner]] and 'Hildebrand'. You would still be very fond of me now if you would be kind enough to tell me 2 receipts he appearedI would like to have an essay sent to me, at least from Münterisches 2, as I would like to send it to the artist. It is impossible to obtain the prints any other way. With warmest regards, yours truly, Paul F. Schmidt."
2.) Letter Siegsdorf, 30. January 1951.
Transcription: "Dear Dr. Kloos, I hope that you have not received any other news of Wichert's death in the meantime [[Tuesday 24th. The art historian Fritz Wichert, director of the Städelschule, who died in January 1951]], and that my words may not be unwelcome to you, especially in Wiesbaden, his birthplace. It's just 44 years since our friendship began; it was cared for in a living manner until the end. With best recommendations, your Paul F. Schmidt."
Scope: one A5 page each; without envelope.
Condition: Letters punched on the side, with corner creases, the first letter with entry stamp, the second letter with corner damage. bPlease also note the pictures!
Internal note: Corner22-8
About Paul Ferdinand Schmidt (source: wikipedia):
Paul Ferdinand Schmidt (* 1878 in Goldap, East Prussia; † 1955 in Siegsdorf, Upper Bavaria) was a German art historian, gallery owner and art critic who made outstanding contributions to the establishment of modern art in Germany.
Life: Schmidt began studying jura , but then switched to art history, which he studied in Munich and Paris. He did his doctorate on the Maulbronn monastery church with Georg Dehio in Strasbourg and was a volunteer at the Berlin museums, the art library and the Kaiser Friedrich Museum. He then became head of the municipal art collections in Magdeburg, where he was unable to implement his idea of collecting art and soon resigned from his position. In Magdeburg, the architect Heinrich Tessenow built the Haus zum Wolf as his home.
In 1908 Schmidt had his first contacts with the Brücke artists and became a passive, i.e. supporting, member of the artists' association. In October 1912 he opened an art shop in Munich, where he showed - for the first time in Munich - works by Ernst Ludwig Kirchner and Emil Nolde, among others. Through the intervention of Fritz Wichert in Mannheim, he was hired to teach art at the Offenbach technical colleges. With the beginning of the First World War, teaching stopped and Schmidt had to stay afloat by giving tours until he was called up himself.
In 1919 he became director of modern art at the Dresden City Museum. His progressive purchasing policy led to his dismissal in 1924 at the instigation of reactionary circles. Schmidt moved to Berlin in 1924 and joined the Erich Reiss Verlag, to which he incorporated an art dealer. John Schikowski then hired him for the Vorwärts's current art reporting, as Schikowski wanted to limit himself to literature, theater and dance.
Despite his politically more left-wing stance, which was probably close to the SPD, Schmidt was one of the art scholars and journalists who tried to continue to offer a forum for modern art and especially expressionism after the National Socialists “seized power”. He published - among other things under the pseudonym “F. Paul” – a series of essays in the magazine Kunst der Nation, including about August Macke and Emil Nolde. However, this ended in 1935, certainly because Nazi cultural policy was now clearly aimed at ostracizing this art.
Schmidt fled the chaos of war to southern Germany in the 1940s. Although Schmidt can be considered one of the pioneers of modernism before and after the First World War, he has largely been forgotten today. Since the 1910s he was one of the rediscoverers of German art from the first half of the 19th century. century. He saw the painting of the Nazarenes and the art of the Biedermeier period coming into their own in the contemporary New Objectivity.
The written legacy is in the German Art Archive in the German National Museum in Nuremberg.
portrait
Painting by Otto Dix, 1924, Staatsgalerie Stuttgart
Work as a journalist: Schmidt published exhibition and literature reviews in the feature sections of numerous daily newspapers, such as: Frankfurter Zeitung, Hamburgischer Correspondent, Hannoverscher Kurier, Königsberger Allgemeine Zeitung, Magdeburgische Zeitung, Der Tag, Vorwärts.
As an art historian, he preferred German Romantic and Biedermeier painting, which he defended against the “Romanesque foreign rule” in art. He viewed the late romanticism, which he began as early as 1825–1830, as a period of decline.
In addition to his books, he published regularly in the specialist and popular magazines of his time: Cicerone, Die Horen, Art for All, German Art and Decoration, The New Art in Germany, Kunstgewerbeblatt, Monthly Magazines for Art Studies, Art of the Nation, Art of Time, Art and artists, Das Kunstblatt, Kunstchronik, Der Kunstwanderer, the yearbook of young art published by Georg Biermann, Leipzig, monthly magazines for art studies, The Cross Section, Socialist monthly magazines, Das Tage-Buch, Velhagen and Klasings monthly magazines, Weltbühne, magazine for fine arts NF.
After 1945: sowing. Magazine for art and science, The art trade
He wrote numerous articles for the General Lexicon of Visual Artists by Ulrich Thieme and Felix Becker, especially about artists of the 19th century. Century, including Karl Philipp Fohr and Adam Friedrich Oeser.
Publications
Maulbronn. The architectural development of the monastery in the 12th century and 13. Century and influenced Swabian and Franconian architecture. Strasbourg: Heitz 1903.
Frankfurt am Main. Book decoration by L. Pollitzer. Leipzig: Klinkhardt & Biermann: 1906.
Magdeburg Cathedral. A brief guide to its architecture, sculpture and decorative arts. Magdeburg: Peters 1911.
The life of the painter Karl Fohr. Berlin: Furche-Verlag 1918.
Joseph von Führich's religious art. Ed. And with an introduction by Paul Ferdinand Schmidt, furrow art gifts. Berlin: Furche-Verlag 1920.
Publisher: Otto Dix. Etching works I and II. Dresden 1921.
Publisher: Contemporary artists, book series with four articles. Dresden: R. Kaemmerer Verlag 1921/22.
Biedermeier painting. On the history and spirituality of German painting in the first half of the 19th century. century. Munich: Delphin 1921.
Gessner. The master of idyll. Little Dolphin Art Books, Episode 4.19. Munich: Delphin 1921.
German painting around 1800. Volume 1: Landscape painting from 1750-1830. Munich: Piper 1922.
Johann Caspar Schneider. A Mainz painter. By Elsa Neugarten, published after her death. by Paul Ferdinand Schmidt. Mainz 1922.
The art of the present. The Six Books of Art. Volume 6. Berlin-Babelsberg: Academic publishing company Athenaion without year [1922, new edition 1926]
Otto Dix. Cologne: New Art without a Year [1923]
Philipp Otto Runge. Series: German champions. Leipzig: Island 1923.
The Luke brothers. The Overbeck Circle and its renewal of religious painting. Berlin: Furche Kunstverlag 1924.
Alfred Kubin. With a self-biography of the artist. Leipzig: Klinkhardt & Biermann 1924.
German painting around 1800. Volume 2: Portrait and composition from Rococo to Cornelius. Munich: Piper 1928.
Alfred Kubin. Exhibition catalog Modern Galerie Wertheim, April–May. Berlin: Globe House 1929.
Emil Nolde. Leipzig: Klinkhardt & Biermann 1929.
Otto Müller. The graphic work. Exhibition catalog Berlin 1931.
Unsentimental journeys. Twenty-one travel essays. Wiesentheid, Lower Franconia: Droemer 1949.
CV. Without location (Siegsdorf), without year (1953)
History of modern painting. Stuttgart: Kohlhammer 1952 (several, expanded editions)
Hikes in Germany and a look beyond its borders. Stuttgart: Kohlhammer 1953.