Magdalene Rudolph, also known as Magdalene Kunze (1901–1992) was a German
art historian
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 ...
and from 1937 until 1945 served as provisional Director of the
Angermuseum
The Angermuseum is an art museum in Erfurt opened on 27 June 1886.
Building
It is housed in a building that used to house Erfurt's public weighing scales, where travelling merchants would bring their wares to be weighed for payment of the city' ...
in the German city of
Erfurt
Erfurt () is the capital and largest city in the Central German state of Thuringia. It is located in the wide valley of the Gera river (progression: ), in the southern part of the Thuringian Basin, north of the Thuringian Forest. It sits i ...
.
Career
Rudolph was born in 1901. She studied art history in Munich, where she completed her doctorate in 1930 with a
dissertation on Erfurt's 15th century stone sculpture (''Die Erfurter Steinplastik des 15. Jahrhunderts)''.
From 1934 onwards she was working for the Angermuseum (then known as the Städtische Museum or Municipal Museum)
and during
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 ...
became its provisional director, following Herbert Kunze, who had been removed from office by the local Nazi authorities.
Preservation of the Heckelraum
Magdalene Rudolph is most notable for preserving the so-called "Heckelraum" of Angermuseum.
The space that was designed and decorated by artist
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 ...
between 1922 until 1924 with the expressionist monumental mural paintings "Lebensstufen" (Stages of Life).
When Erfurt citizens who supported the
National Socialists' view of Heckel's works as
degenerate art
Degenerate art (german: Entartete Kunst was a term adopted in the 1920s by the Nazi Party in Germany to describe modern art. During the dictatorship of Adolf Hitler, German modernist art, including many works of internationally renowned artists, ...
, they threatened to storm and destroy the so called "Schreckenskammer" (Chamber of Horrors). Rudolph had the room closed off with a hastily erected wall. She placed a sculpture of
St. Gabriel in front of the only door.
The Heckelraum subsequently fell into oblivion and was only rediscovered after the war - the only preserved monumental mural paintings of
German Expressionism
German Expressionism () consisted of several related creative movements in Germany before the First World War that reached a peak in Berlin during the 1920s. These developments were part of a larger Expressionist movement in north and central ...
.
After World War II
Herbert Kunze and Rudolph later married. It is said, that she sometimes let him visit his former place of work during the night.
[Beate Klostermann: Die Sonderausstellungen des Angermuseums von 1945 bis 1962. Eine rezeptionsästhetische Analyse. Universität Erfurt, 2007, p. 22 (accessible online via http://d-nb.info/993265669/34).] After the war, Herbert Kunze was reinstalled as director of the museum. The couple continued their work for the museum together, successfully curating numerous exhibitions, until in 1963, Herbert Kunze was again made to resign from his post for political reasons.
[Beate Klostermann: Die Sonderausstellungen des Angermuseums von 1945 bis 1962. Eine rezeptionsästhetische Analyse. Universität Erfurt, 2007, pp. 52, 64, 81 (accessible online via http://d-nb.info/993265669/34).]
Magdalene Rudolph continued to work for the museum until her retirement in 1971.
She died in 1992.
Literature
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References
External links
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{{DEFAULTSORT:Rudolph, Magdalene
1901 births
1992 deaths
German art historians
German women art historians