Emil Georg Bührle (31 August 1890 in

Pforzheim Pforzheim () is a city of over 125,000 inhabitants in the federal state of Baden-Württemberg, in the southwest of Germany. It is known for its jewelry and watch-making industry, and as such has gained the nickname "Goldstadt" ("Golden City") ...

– November 26, 1956 in

Zürich Zürich () is the list of cities in Switzerland, largest city in Switzerland and the capital of the canton of Zürich. It is located in north-central Switzerland, at the northwestern tip of Lake Zürich. As of January 2020, the municipality has 43 ...

) was a controversial German arms manufacturer, art collector and patron who emigrated to Switzerland. His art collection is now housed in the

Foundation E.G. Bührle Foundation may refer to: * Foundation (nonprofit), a type of charitable organization ** Foundation (United States law), a type of charitable organization in the U.S. ** Private foundation, a charitable organization that, while serving a good cause ...

Early life

Born in Pforzheim, Germany, Bührle studied

philosophy Philosophy (from , ) is the systematized study of general and fundamental questions, such as those about existence, reason, knowledge, values, mind, and language. Such questions are often posed as problems to be studied or resolved. Some ...

literature Literature is any collection of written work, but it is also used more narrowly for writings specifically considered to be an art form, especially prose fiction, drama, and poetry. In recent centuries, the definition has expanded to include ...

history History (derived ) is the systematic study and the documentation of the human activity. The time period of event before the History of writing#Inventions of writing, invention of writing systems is considered prehistory. "History" is an umbr ...

and

art history Art history is the study of aesthetic objects and visual expression in historical and stylistic context. Traditionally, the discipline of art history emphasized painting, drawing, sculpture, architecture, ceramics and decorative arts; yet today ...

in Freiburg before moving to

Munich Munich ( ; german: München ; bar, Minga ) is the capital and most populous city of the States of Germany, German state of Bavaria. With a population of 1,558,395 inhabitants as of 31 July 2020, it is the List of cities in Germany by popu ...

. From 1914 to 1919 he was a German

cavalry Historically, cavalry (from the French word ''cavalerie'', itself derived from "cheval" meaning "horse") are soldiers or warriors who fight mounted on horseback. Cavalry were the most mobile of the combat arms, operating as light cavalry ...

officer in the imperial army. In 1919 he joined the Magdeburg Machine and Tool Factory (''Magdeburg Werkzeugmaschinenfabrik)'' and rose up to become a legal representative. The ''Magdeburger Werkzeugmaschinenfabrik'' bought the Swiss Machine Tool Factory Oerlikon (''Werkzeugmaschinenfabrik Oerlikon)'' in 1923, and Bührle became the CEO the following year. In 1924 he moved to Zurich. In 1929, Bührle became the majority shareholder of the ''Werkzeugmaschinenfabrik Oerlikon'' and in 1936 he became the sole owner of the company (later the ''Oerlikon-Bührle Holding AG''). In 1937, Bührle obtained Swiss citizenship. During the

Second World War World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposin ...

Bührle became Switzerland's richest man by supplying weapons to Nazi Germany. From his 1920 marriage with Charlotte Schalk came two children. The following foundations are attributed to Emil Bührle: ''Emil Bührle Foundation for the Swiss literature'' (1943), ''Goethe Foundation for Art and Science'' (1944) and the ''Foundation of the cultivation of the Kunsthaus Zürich'' (1954).

Industrialist

Bührle's role as an industrialist has been controversial in recent decades because of his ties to Nazis. Although he converted the almost bankrupt ''Werkzeugmaschinenfabrik Oerlikon'' into a thriving company, his main business became arms production and export. Before the second world war the Oerlikon-Bührle company supplied the Republicans in Spain (i.e. Franco opponents), the independent Abyssinia (in the colonial war against fascist Italy), and several Baltic countries, Czechoslovakia, Greece, China, Turkey, France, Holland and Britain. In the period from 1940 to 1944, with Switzerland then completely surrounded by fascist countries (Italy, Germany) and fascist-occupied countries (Austria, France), and at the request of the Swiss government, the company supplied weapons to Germany and Italy. In the post-war years, Emil Bührle and the Oerlikon-Bührle company were involved in illegal weapons deals on a large-scale, smuggling arms to

Hyderabad Hyderabad ( ; , ) is the capital and largest city of the Indian state of Telangana and the ''de jure'' capital of Andhra Pradesh. It occupies on the Deccan Plateau along the banks of the Musi River (India), Musi River, in the northern part ...

, Pakistan and other countries.

Art collector

Bührle's first acquisitions were two 1920 watercolours by

Erich Heckel Erich Heckel (31 July 1883 – 27 January 1970) was a German painter and printmaker, and a founding member of the group ''Die Brücke'' ("The Bridge") which existed 1905–1913. His work was part of the art competitions at the 1928 Summer Oly ...

, followed in 1924 by a picture of Maurice de Vlaminck. The present day make up of the Bührle collection started in 1936, when financial conditions were very favourable.

Nazi-era acquisitions

The American

Office of Strategic Services The Office of Strategic Services (OSS) was the intelligence agency of the United States during World War II. The OSS was formed as an agency of the Joint Chiefs of Staff (JCS) to coordinate espionage activities behind enemy lines for all branc ...

Art Looting Investigation Unit Reports 1945-46, state that during the Nazi era, Bührle was an "important recipient of looted works of art by purchase from

Fischer Fischer is a German occupational surname, meaning fisherman. The name Fischer is the fourth most common German surname. The English version is Fisher. People with the surname A * Abraham Fischer (1850–1913) South African public official * Ad ...

and

Wendland The Wendland is a region in Germany on the borders of the present states of Brandenburg, Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania, Lower Saxony and Saxony-Anhalt. Its heart is the Hanoverian Wendland in the county of Lüchow-Dannenberg in Lower Saxony. In 2 ...

Art Looting Investigation Unit Final Report BUEHRLE Fold3 Page 134

Between 1940 and 1944 Emil Georg Bührle's arms dealing increased his fortune from 140,000 to 127,000,000 Swiss Francs (roughly $6 billion in 2015 U.S. dollars), which he used for art-buying sprees in Nazi-occupied Paris, forming the core of his collection. Bührle bought many artworks through the dealers Siegfried Rosengart, Fritz Nathan and

Toni Aktuaryus Toni Aktuaryus (born 1893 in Paris; died March 1946 in Zürich) was a French art dealer. Early life Aktuaryus was a son of the art dealer and gallery owner J. F. Aktuaryus ( Kunstsalon Aktuaryus), who was active in Wiesbaden at least since 190 ...

as well as other dealers.

Post-War

After World War II, Bührle continued to be advised by Fritz Nathan, a gallery owner, and a small circle of international dealers in

Paris Paris () is the capital and most populous city of France, with an estimated population of 2,165,423 residents in 2019 in an area of more than 105 km² (41 sq mi), making it the 30th most densely populated city in the world in 2020. S ...

London London is the capital and largest city of England and the United Kingdom, with a population of just under 9 million. It stands on the River Thames in south-east England at the head of a estuary down to the North Sea, and has been a majo ...

and

New York City New York, often called New York City or NYC, is the List of United States cities by population, most populous city in the United States. With a 2020 population of 8,804,190 distributed over , New York City is also the L ...

, in addition to which included

Georges Wildenstein Georges Wildenstein (16 March 1892 – 11 June 1963) was a French gallery owner, art dealer, art collector, editor and art historian. Life Georges' father was Nathan Wildenstein, who came from a family of Jewish cattle-dealers but had in 1870 l ...

, Paul Rosenberg, , and Frank Lloyd of the

Marlborough Gallery Marlborough Fine Art was founded in London in 1946 by Frank Lloyd and Harry Fischer. In 1963, a gallery was opened as Marlborough-Gerson in Manhattan, New York, at the Fuller Building on Madison Avenue and 57th Street, which later relocated in ...

. The collection includes medieval sculptures and old masters, mainly French

Impressionism Impressionism was a 19th-century art movement characterized by relatively small, thin, yet visible brush strokes, open Composition (visual arts), composition, emphasis on accurate depiction of light in its changing qualities (often accentuating ...

and classical

modernism Modernism is both a philosophy, philosophical and arts movement that arose from broad transformations in Western world, Western society during the late 19th and early 20th centuries. The movement reflected a desire for the creation of new fo ...

, including masterpieces by

Paul Cézanne Paul Cézanne ( , , ; ; 19 January 1839 – 22 October 1906) was a French artist and Post-Impressionism, Post-Impressionist painter whose work laid the foundations of the transition from the 19th-century conception of artistic endeavour to a ...

(''The Boy in the Red Vest''), Pierre-Auguste Renoir (''Portrait of Irène Cahen d'Anvers, La petite Irène'') and Vincent van Gogh (''Copies by Vincent van Gogh#Copies after Jean-François Millet, The Sower (after Millet)''). Bührle continued the tradition of collectors in Germany, Scandinavia, Britain and the US, who—before the First World War and in the inter-war years—centred their interest on French modernism. An example of this trend in Switzerland is the "Am Römerholz" collection by Oskar Reinhart in nearby Winterthur. Two-thirds of the collection now displayed were acquired in 1960 by the heirs to the E.G. Bührle Foundation, and later put on display. The other family-owned works of art were often shown in exhibitions. An exhibition featuring several works of the collection in 1990 in Washington D.C. led to protests and discussions in the media due to Bührle's role as a weapons exporter in the

and the sometimes unclear origin of the pictures, some of which were formerly Jewish-owned. Following the findings of an "Independent Commission of Swiss Second World War Experts", Bührle had to return 13 paintings of French-Jewish origin to their former owners or their second-generation descendants. In 2021 an extension to the Kunsthaus Zürich, Kunsthaus in Zürich, Switzerland's largest art museum, opened, with almost an entire floor dedicated to paintings and sculptures on 20-year loan from the Bührle Foundation. This drew criticism due to Bührle's Nazi-era weapons dealings, and his use of forced labour and child labour in his factories at the time. Up to 90 of the works loaned to the Kunsthaus are thought possibly to have been acquired illegitimately from Jews; historian Erich Keller said "We need independent research into the art's provenances, and then consider which of these paintings really belong in the Kunsthaus and which need to be given back." The Bührle Foundation's director responded that "The approximately 90 works are works for which no complete provenance is known, but for which there is also no reason to assume a problematic provenance".

References

External links

* Official Foundation E.G. Bührle Website i
German
an
in English
{{DEFAULTSORT:Buhrle, Emil Georg 1890 births 1956 deaths 20th-century Swiss businesspeople Swiss philanthropists Swiss art collectors German emigrants to Switzerland