Hugo von Tschudi (1851–1911) was an art historian and museum curator. He was director of the Nationalgalerie in

Berlin Berlin ( , ) is the capital and List of cities in Germany by population, largest city of Germany by both area and population. Its 3.7 million inhabitants make it the European Union's List of cities in the European Union by population within ci ...

(1896–1909) where he acquired many important Impressionist works. Tschudi was born in

Austria Austria, , bar, Östareich officially the Republic of Austria, is a country in the southern part of Central Europe, lying in the Eastern Alps. It is a federation of nine states, one of which is the capital, Vienna, the most populous ...

and became a naturalised Swiss citizen.

About

Gauguin - Te Tamari no Atua (Son of God)

Tschudi arrived as director of the Nationalgalerie in 1896. He immediately set about the acquisition of modern French painting, securing '' In the Conservatory (Au jardin d’hiver)'' by

Édouard Manet Édouard Manet (, ; ; 23 January 1832 – 30 April 1883) was a French modernist painter. He was one of the first 19th-century artists to paint modern life, as well as a pivotal figure in the transition from Realism to Impressionism. Bo ...

from 1879, and the first

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

to enter any public collection anywhere followed the next year in July 1897. Other works by Renoir, Monet, Pissarro and Degas joined them. However,

Gauguin Eugène Henri Paul Gauguin (, ; ; 7 June 1848 – 8 May 1903) was a French Post-Impressionist artist. Unappreciated until after his death, Gauguin is now recognized for his experimental use of colour and Synthetist style that were distinct fr ...

's controversial masterpiece ''The Birth of Christ'', from 1896, would prove Tschudi's undoing. The contemporary work, mixing the sacred with the profane and the primitive, was not generally appreciated by most Europeans at the time. In particular, it was intensely disapproved of by Kaiser Wilhelm. In 1909 he at first loaned the painting to the institution but was promptly dismissed from his position by the Kaiser. Tschudi was given a new job as director of the Neue Pinakothek in

Munich Munich ( ; german: München ; bar, Minga ) is the capital and most populous city of the German state of Bavaria. With a population of 1,558,395 inhabitants as of 31 July 2020, it is the third-largest city in Germany, after Berlin and Ha ...

, in the

Kingdom of Bavaria The Kingdom of Bavaria (german: Königreich Bayern; ; spelled ''Baiern'' until 1825) was a German state that succeeded the former Electorate of Bavaria in 1805 and continued to exist until 1918. With the unification of Germany into the German ...

, which he continued to manage until his death in 1911. He took the new Gauguin painting with him to Munich, where it remains in the permanent art collection there. Between 1909 and 1914 the so-called "Tschudi Contributions" brought a remarkable collection of masterpieces of

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

and

Post-Impressionism Post-Impressionism (also spelled Postimpressionism) was a predominantly French art movement that developed roughly between 1886 and 1905, from the last Impressionist exhibition to the birth of Fauvism. Post-Impressionism emerged as a reaction a ...

to the Bavarian State Collections in Munich. Tschudi, serving as the general director of the collections, acquired 44 paintings, nine sculptures and 22 drawings, mostly from emerging French artists. In Bavaria public funds could not be used to buy such works, but Tschudi's associates were able to find the money to complete the purchases with private contributions after his death in 1911.

Books

*Ausstellungskatalog Berlin, München: ''Manet bis van Gogh, Hugo von Tschudi und der Kampf um die Moderne''. Prestel-Verlag 1996 *Barbara Paul: ''Hugo von Tschudi und die moderne französische Kunst im Deutschen Kaiserreich''. Zabern-Verlag 2001

External links

* * Hugo von Tschud
Dictionary of Art Historians
Austrian art historians Swiss art historians 1851 births 1911 deaths {{Europe-art-historian-stub