In the 13th collector’s room
Collectors, Donors, Curators
New Objects for the Historisches Museum
Collectors are well-read and educated, curious and communicative, creative and ambitious, manic and sometimes hypochondriacal - but above all, quite often, generous. They donate their collections.
Without collectors and donors, there would be no museums - also not in Frankfurt, also no Historisches Museum. After all, it is “part and parcel of the life of the Frankfurter to collect and order: some capital, bills and cash, others rarities and treasures from the rich areas of antiquity, art and nature” (Kirchner 1818). That is the theme of the permanent exhibition “Frankfurt Collectors and Donors” on the four levels of the Burnitz Building.
Today professional collectors - the curators - work at the Historisches Museum to oversee and expand the various collections. They talk to artists, visit art dealers and study auction catalogues in search of paintings, sculptures, prints, drawings and photographs as well as articles of clothing and objects of everyday life in Frankfurt’s past and present. What is more, they are frequently contacted by friends and patrons in Frankfurt and the world over who would like to donate special collections and individual items to the museum. At the same time, not everything is for free. Many an exquisite and rare treasure has its price. Since 2014, the members of the SaalhofClub have contributed a considerable sum to the museum annually to enable it to purchase such objects for its collections. They are also donors.
We are grateful to them all and to our manygenerous benefactors. Every year, we present the museum as a collector by placing a selection of new acquisitions on display in the 13th Collectors’ Room on the upper storey of the Staufer Chapel.
from 21/6/2017: Thomas Ganter – Man with a plaid blanket and other perspectives on living without a home
What impositions and challenges are connected to living without a home? The presentation starts with a life-sized portrait of Karel Strnad.
To the exhibition page.
“How much d’ya need then?” – The collection of Anna and Karl Kotzenberg (19/05/2016 - 03/10/2016)
Medical history in bottles – the Rosak collection (29/10/2015 - 03/04/2016)
Silk gowns and leather jackets – Erika Segel-Reinhardt’s fashion studio (04/06/2015 - 04/10/2015)
Gisèle Freund. 1 May 1932 (12/01/2015 - 03/05/2015)
Returned! A Frankfurt Renaissance trophy from the Ullmann collection (18/04 - 25/08/2013)
Early plastics – the collection of cultural theorist Eva Stille (18/08/2012 - 31/03/2013)
Bankhaus Metzler (communication),
Ernst Max von Grunelius-Stiftung (accompanying book and Fellner collection),
Cronstetten-Stiftung (Dalberg and Gerning collections),
Dr. Marschner-Stiftung (Prehn and Daems collections),
Evonik-Degussa (Roessler collection),
die 1822-Stiftung (Kratz collection),
Board of trustees of Kulturelles Frankfurt (Waldschmidt collection),
Georg und Franziska Speyersche Hochschulstiftung (Heyman collection),
Stiftung Polytechnische Gesellschaft (Rüppel collection),
Board of trustees of the Historisches Museum (Glock-Barckhaus collection),
Historisch-Archäologische Gesellschaft (Morgenstern collection).
