The Thannhauser Galleries were established by the Thannhauser family in early 20th century Europe. Their cutting-edge exhibitions helped forge the reputations of many of the most important Modernist artists.

History

Heinrich Thannhauser Heinrich Thannhauser (born February 16, 1859 in Hürben, today a district of Krumbach (Swabia); died 1934 on the German-Swiss border) was a German gallery owner and art collector. As an art dealer, he was one of the most important promoters of ear ...

(1859–1935) opened the first of the Thannhauser Galleries in Munich in the fall of 1909, after deciding to leave the gallery that he had previously opened with his friend Franz Josef Brakl. He called his new business the ''Modern Gallery'' (''Moderne Galerie'') and established it in the glass-domed Arcopalais at

Theatinerstraße The Theatinerstraße is a street in Munich's old town. It connects the Odeonsplatz with the southern lying Marienhof and houses a number of classical buildings and several shops. The street received its name due to the adjoining Theatinerkirche ...

7, in the heart of Munich's shopping district. The gallery was, by most accounts, one of the largest and most beautiful art galleries in the city. Designed by local architect Paul Wenz, it occupied over 2,600 square feet of the glass-domed Arcopalais. The gallery was divided between two floors, with nine exhibition rooms on the ground floor and an open, skylit gallery on the floor above. Several of the rooms were set up as domestic environments, as was fashionable at the time. In its early years, the Moderne Galerie (more commonly known as the Moderne Galerie Heinrich Thannhauser) exhibited the work of some of the most notable French Impressionists,

Post-Impressionists 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 aga ...

, and

Italian Futurists Futurism ( it, Futurismo, link=no) was an Art movement, artistic and social movement that originated in Italy, and to a lesser extent in other countries, in the early 20th century. It emphasized dynamism, speed, technology, youth, violence, an ...

. It also presented the earliest exhibitions of contemporary German movements and artists who would later come to define the avant-garde: Neue Künstlervereinigung München (New Artists' Association of Munich) in 1909, and

Der Blaue Reiter ''Der Blaue Reiter'' (The Blue Rider) is a designation by Wassily Kandinsky and Franz Marc for their exhibition and publication activities, in which both artists acted as sole editors in the almanac of the same name, first published in mid-May ...

(The Blue Rider) in 1911. Exhibitions: Thannhauser Collection, The Solomon R. Guggenheim Foundation Both exhibitions featured the work of

Vasily Kandinsky Wassily Wassilyevich Kandinsky (; rus, Василий Васильевич Кандинский, Vasiliy Vasilyevich Kandinskiy, vɐˈsʲilʲɪj vɐˈsʲilʲjɪvʲɪtɕ kɐnʲˈdʲinskʲɪj; – 13 December 1944) was a Russian painter a ...

, considered by many to be the pioneer of

abstraction Abstraction in its main sense is a conceptual process wherein general rules and concepts are derived from the usage and classification of specific examples, literal ("real" or "concrete") signifiers, first principles, or other methods. "An abstr ...

in art. The gallery also participated in the

Armory Show The 1913 Armory Show, also known as the International Exhibition of Modern Art, was a show organized by the Association of American Painters and Sculptors in 1913. It was the first large exhibition of modern art in America, as well as one of ...

of 1913, the watershed exhibition that introduced European Modernism to the United States, and mounted the first major

Pablo Picasso Pablo Ruiz Picasso (25 October 1881 – 8 April 1973) was a Spanish painter, sculptor, printmaker, ceramicist and Scenic design, theatre designer who spent most of his adult life in France. One of the most influential artists of the 20th ce ...

retrospective during the same year. In 1919, Heinrich Thannhauser's son, Justin K. Thannhauser (1892–1976), established a branch of the gallery in

Lucerne Lucerne ( , ; High Alemannic German, High Alemannic: ''Lozärn'') or Luzern ()Other languages: gsw, Lozärn, label=Lucerne German; it, Lucerna ; rm, Lucerna . is a city in central Switzerland, in the Languages of Switzerland, German-speaking po ...

(Luzern), Switzerland. He ran the branch until 1921, when he was called back 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 ...

to assist his father, who had developed a serious condition in his larynx. The Lucerne gallery continued to be under Justin's direction until 1928, when his cousin Siegfried Rosengart assumed control and changed its name to Galerie Rosengart. Over the years, Heinrich and Justin Thannhauser purchased, traded or had on consignment 107 works by Van Gogh or attributed to him. In 2017, the Van Gogh Museum in Amsterdam published the catalogue ''The Thannhauser Gallery: Marketing Van Gogh''. Justin established a third branch in Berlin in 1927. During the 1930s, however, the business operations of all of the Thannhauser Galleries were sanctioned and delayed by the

Nazi Nazism ( ; german: Nazismus), the common name in English for National Socialism (german: Nationalsozialismus, ), is the far-right totalitarian political ideology and practices associated with Adolf Hitler and the Nazi Party (NSDAP) in ...

government. The Nazis were vehemently opposed to the art of the avant-garde, which they branded 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, ...

." After the death of Heinrich in 1935 and the formal closing of the Galleries in 1937, Thannhauser and his family left for Paris. In 1940, they moved to New York, where Justin, together with his second wife, Hilde (1919–91), established himself as an art dealer. The Thannhausers’ support of artistic progress, and their advancement of the early careers of artists like Kandinsky, Franz Marc, and

Paul Klee Paul Klee (; 18 December 1879 – 29 June 1940) was a Swiss-born German artist. His highly individual style was influenced by movements in art that included expressionism, cubism, and surrealism. Klee was a natural draftsman who experimented wi ...

, paralleled the vision of the

Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum The Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, often referred to as The Guggenheim, is an art museum at 1071 Fifth Avenue on the corner of East 89th Street on the Upper East Side of Manhattan in New York City. It is the permanent home of a continuously exp ...

’s founder,

Solomon R. Guggenheim Solomon Robert Guggenheim (February 2, 1861 – November 3, 1949) was an American businessman and art collector. He is best known for establishing the Solomon R. Guggenheim Foundation and the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum in New York City. Guggen ...

(1861–1949). In recognition of that connection, and in honor of his first wife and two sons (who died at tragically young ages), Justin Thannhauser bequeathed the most essential and iconic works of his collection, including over 30 works by Picasso, to the Guggenheim Foundation in 1963. Beginning in 1965, the works were on loan to the museum and on view in the Thannhauser Wing. The collection formally entered the Guggenheim's permanent holdings in 1978, two years after Thannhauser's death, and the museum received a bequest of 10 additional works after the death of Hilde Thannhauser in 1991. The gift, containing over 70 works in total, provides an important antecedent to the Guggenheim Museum's contemporary collection and thus has allowed the institution to represent the full range of modern art.

Artists

Notable exhibited artists include: *

Max Beckmann Max Carl Friedrich Beckmann (February 12, 1884 – December 27, 1950) was a German painter, draftsman, printmaker, sculptor, and writer. Although he is classified as an Expressionist artist, he rejected both the term and the movement. In the 1920 ...

Georges Braque Georges Braque ( , ; 13 May 1882 – 31 August 1963) was a major 20th-century List of French artists, French painter, Collage, collagist, Drawing, draughtsman, printmaker and sculpture, sculptor. His most notable contributions were in his all ...

Mary Cassatt Mary Stevenson Cassatt (; May 22, 1844June 14, 1926) was an American painter and printmaker. She was born in Allegheny, Pennsylvania (now part of Pittsburgh's North Side), but lived much of her adult life in France, where she befriended Edgar De ...

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 ...

Edgar Degas Edgar Degas (, ; born Hilaire-Germain-Edgar De Gas, ; 19 July 183427 September 1917) was a French Impressionist artist famous for his pastel drawings and oil paintings. Degas also produced bronze sculptures, prints and drawings. Degas is es ...

André Derain André Derain (, ; 10 June 1880 – 8 September 1954) was a French artist, painter, sculptor and co-founder of Fauvism with Henri Matisse. Biography Early years Derain was born in 1880 in Chatou, Yvelines, Île-de-France (region), Île-de-Franc ...

Otto Dix Wilhelm Heinrich Otto Dix (; 2 December 1891 – 25 July 1969) was a German painter and printmaker, noted for his ruthless and harshly realistic depictions of German society during the Weimar Republic and the brutality of war. Along with Geor ...

Paul 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 ...

Vincent van Gogh Vincent Willem van Gogh (; 30 March 185329 July 1890) was a Dutch Post-Impressionism, Post-Impressionist painter who posthumously became one of the most famous and influential figures in Western art history. In a decade, he created about 2 ...

George Grosz George Grosz (; born Georg Ehrenfried Groß; July 26, 1893 – July 6, 1959) was a German artist known especially for his caricatural drawings and paintings of Berlin life in the 1920s. He was a prominent member of the Berlin Dada and New Objec ...

* Max Klinger *

Max Liebermann Max Liebermann (20 July 1847 – 8 February 1935) was a German painter and printmaker, and one of the leading proponents of Impressionism in Germany and continental Europe. In addition to his activity as an artist, he also assembled an important ...

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. Born ...

Henri Matisse Henri Émile Benoît Matisse (; 31 December 1869 – 3 November 1954) was a French visual artist, known for both his use of colour and his fluid and original draughtsmanship. He was a draughtsman, printmaker, and sculptor, but is known prima ...

Claude Monet Oscar-Claude Monet (, , ; 14 November 1840 – 5 December 1926) was a French painter and founder of impressionist painting who is seen as a key precursor to modernism, especially in his attempts to paint nature as he perceived it. During ...

Edvard Munch Edvard Munch ( , ; 12 December 1863 – 23 January 1944) was a Norwegian painter. His best known work, ''The Scream'' (1893), has become one of Western art's most iconic images. His childhood was overshadowed by illness, bereavement and the dr ...

Camille Pissarro Jacob Abraham Camille Pissarro ( , ; 10 July 1830 – 13 November 1903) was a Danish-French Impressionist and Neo-Impressionist painter born on the island of Saint Thomas, U.S. Virgin Islands, St Thomas (now in the US Virgin Islands, but t ...

Pierre-Auguste Renoir Pierre-Auguste Renoir (; 25 February 1841 – 3 December 1919) was a French artist who was a leading painter in the development of the Impressionist style. As a celebrator of beauty and especially feminine sensuality, it has been said that "R ...

Alfred Sisley Alfred Sisley (; ; 30 October 1839 – 29 January 1899) was an Impressionist landscape painter who was born and spent most of his life in France, but retained British citizenship. He was the most consistent of the Impressionists in his dedicatio ...

Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec Comte Henri Marie Raymond de Toulouse-Lautrec-Monfa (24 November 1864 – 9 September 1901) was a French painter, printmaker, draughtsman, caricaturist and illustrator whose immersion in the colourful and theatrical life of Paris in the ...

Maurice de Vlaminck Maurice de Vlaminck (4 April 1876 – 11 October 1958) was a French painter. Along with André Derain and Henri Matisse, he is considered one of the principal figures in the Fauve movement, a group of modern artists who from 1904 to 1908 we ...

Catalogues

Up to 1914, all catalogues were based on exhibitions.

Moderne Kunsthandlung Brakl & Thannhauser

*1908: ''

'' – Prices indicated ("''Die Preise verstehen sich in holländ. Gulden.''")

Moderne Galerie Heinrich Thannhauser, München

*1909: ''Impressionisten'' *January 1910: ''

Cuno Amiet Cuno Amiet (28 March 1868 – 6 July 1961) was a Swiss painter, illustrator, graphic artist and sculptor. As the first Swiss painter to give precedence to colour in composition, he was a pioneer of modern art in Switzerland. Biography Amiet was ...

Giovanni Giacometti Giovanni Ulrico Giacometti (7 March 1868 – 25 June 1933) was a Swiss painter. He was the father of artists Alberto and Diego Giacometti and architect Bruno Giacometti. Biography He was the fourth in a family of eight children. His father, ...

'' *Spring 1910: ''

Félix Vallotton Félix Édouard Vallotton (; December 28, 1865December 29, 1925) was a Swiss and French painter and printmaker associated with the group of artists known as . He was an important figure in the development of the modern woodcut. He painted portra ...

'' *April 1910: ''

(aus der Sammlung Pellerin)'' *Summer 1910: ''(Heymel Collection)'' *August 1910: ''

'' *mid-July – August 15, 1911: '' Carl Schuch'' *Oct. 1911: ''( Theodor Alt)'' *February 13 – March 10, 1912: ''Kollektiv-Ausstellung

War time selections from the stock of the gallery

*''Moderne Galerie Heinrich Thannhauser'' (folder, without date) (pre-1916) *''Katalog der Modernen Galerie Heinrich Thannhauser'', introduction by

Wilhelm Hausenstein Wilhelm Hausenstein (17 June 1882 – 3 June 1957) was a German politician, writer, journalist, art critic, historian and diplomat. He was the first German ambassador to France following World War II. Life and career Early life Hausenstein was ...

and 174 reproductions, Munich 1916 *''Nachtragswerk I mit 76 Abbildungen zur grossen Katalogausgabe 1916'', Moderne Galerie Heinrich Thannhauser, Munich, September 1916 *''Nachtragswerk II mit 105 Abbildungen zur grossen Katalogausgabe 1916'', Moderne Galerie Heinrich Thannhauser, Munich, Juli 1917 *''Nachtragswerk III mit 115 ganzseitigen Abbildungen zur grossen Katalogausgabe 1916'', Moderne Galerie Heinrich Thannhauser, Munich, 1918

Post WWI-exhibitions

Galerien Thannhauser, Berlin – Luzern – München

*''Eröffnungs-Ausstellung unseres neuen Berliner Hauses, Bellevuestr. 13'', illustrated catalogue, dated June 1927

References

Notes

{{reflist

Sources

* von Lüttichau, Mario Andreas: "Die Moderne Galerie Heinrich Thannhauser in München," in: Junge, Henrike (Ed.), ''Avantgarde und Publikum: Zur Rezeption avantgardistischer Kunst in Deutschland 1905–1933'', Böhlau, Köln, Weimar & Wien 1992, pp. 299–306 * Drutt, Matthew: "A Showcase for Modern Art: The Thannhauser Collection," in: Drutt, Matthew (Ed.), ''Thannhauser: The Thannhauser Collection of the Guggenheim Museum'', The Solomon R. Guggenheim Foundation 2001, pp. 1–25 1909 establishments in Germany German art dealers Art galleries established in 1909