Paul Cassirer

Founded by the influential Jewish art dealer Paul Cassirer (1871–1926), Kunstsalon Paul Cassirer played a leading role in promoting French and German Impressionism at the turn of the 20th century until the 1930s. Paul [FIG. 1, FIG. 2] and his cousin Bruno Cassirer (1872–1941) [FIG. 3] founded their art salon and publishing house, Kunstsalon Bruno & Paul Cassirer, on 20 September, 1898, a joint enterprise which would last till 1901. Their first gallery was located in the upper-class residential area of Berlin’s Tiergartenviertel at Victoriastrasse 35 [FIGS. 4-5, 7-8] . The premises — discrete from the outside, with no shop windows —was partly furnished by the Belgian Art Nouveau artist Henry van de Velde [FIG. 6] . This understated approach drew their first clients from their wealthy circle of family and friends. After Bruno and Paul went their separate ways, Bruno established himself as an independent publisher at Derfflinger Strasse 15. A year later he founded the art magazine Kunst und Künstler , one of Germany’s most prestigious art magazines at the time. In 1938, Bruno and his wife Else (1874-1943) emigrated to England. Paul was a dynamic tastemaker with close ties to the Paris art market, especially the Galerie Durand-Ruel. He was secretary of the Berlin Secession, an association established in 1898 in reaction to the academic and governmental restrictions imposed by Kaiser Wilhelm II. He also introduced modernism to Germany, with groundbreaking exhibitions bringing many artists, especially the French Impressionists, to the attention of German collectors for the first time. Exhibition catalogue. Bruno und Paul Cassirer, Winter 1900/1901, including works by Paul Cézanne '(...) It was a business milieu without a business veneer. A colorful jumble of aesthetic, literary and art-critical opinions, which often feuded with each other. (...). In the Cassirer Art Salon (...) one spoke of the beauty of the exhibited pictures - one could always admire the most exquisite works of art by Daumier, Cézanne, Manet, Monet, Renoir, van Gogh and Rodin in the rooms furnished with unusual taste - than of their monetary value. Although this, of course, was not forgotten.' (Source: Wilhelm Herzog, Menschen denen ich begegnet bin, Bern, Munich, 1959, p. 204.) He organised lecture series on art and literature, readings and music evenings, frequently reported on in the Berlin press. The publications of his publishing house and the auctions he held from 1916 onward with the Munich gallery owner Hugo Helbing (1863–1938) were similarly ambitious. In 1910, Paul married Tilla Durieux (1880–1971), the star of the Berlin stage. The couple lived together at Margaretenstrasse 1 [FIG. 5] until 1926 when Paul shot himself during their divorce proceedings. Following his suicide, the Berlin gallery continued under partners Dr. Walter Feilchenfeldt (1894–1953) and Dr. Grete Ring (1882–1952) [FIG. 17] . Its last Berlin exhibition Living German Art was in 1932–33, organised with the Alfred Flechtheim gallery . The gallery doors finally closed in 1937 as a result of the prohibitive Nazi regime. By 1914 the Kunstsalon Paul Cassirer sold Max Liebermann’s painting Corso auf dem Monte Pincio , 1911, to the prominent businessman and collector Henry Percy Newman (1868-1917) in Hamburg. The painting remained in his family until the 1980s) when it appeared on the art market. In 2019 it was sold at Christie’s. REFERENCE: RAHEL E. FEILCHENFELDT. „PAUL CASSIRER – EIN MOSAIK“, IN: PAUL CASSIRER. EIN FEST DER KÜNSTE. DER KUNSTHÄNDLER ALS VERLEGER. MÜNCHEN, 2006, P 13-42. REFERENCE: BERLIN SW - VICTORIASTRASSE 35. ERNST BARLACH UND DIE KLASSISCHE MODERNE IM KUNSTSALON UND VERLAG PAUL CASSIRER. EDITED BY ERNST BARLACH STIFTUNG, GÜSTROW, 2003. The rich text element allows you to create and format headings, paragraphs, blockquotes, images, and video all in one place instead of having to add and format them individually. Just double-click and easily create content. A