Royal Palace. The “Guggenheim” exhibition presented in preview. The Thannhauser collection, from van Gogh to Picasso" scheduled from 17 October to 9 February 2020
Royal Palace. The “Guggenheim” exhibition presented in preview. The Thannhauser collection, from van Gogh to Picasso" scheduled from 17 October to 9 February 2020
Milan, July 9 2019 - From 17 October to 9 February 2020 Palazzo Reale hosts the extraordinary Thannhauser collection of the Guggenheim museum in New York: a selection of fifty masterpieces by the great impressionist, post-impressionist and avant-garde masters of the early twentieth century, including Paul Cézanne, Pierre- Auguste Renoir, Edgar Degas, Paul Gauguin, Edouard Manet, Claude Monet, Vincent van Gogh and an important group of works by Pablo Picasso.
The exhibition, curated by Megan Fontanella, curator of modern art at the Guggenheim, will tell the story of the collection that Heinrich Thannhauser built over the years with his son Justin and his second wife Hilde and then donated it, in 1965, to the Solomon R. Guggenheim Foundation , which has since exhibited it permanently in a section of the great museum in New York.
“This exhibition intertwines a great history of collecting that spanned the entire twentieth century, the desire of an important museum in New York that offers Milan the opportunity to admire its masterpieces without crossing the ocean and the commitment of Palazzo Reale in proposing an exhibition every year capable of recounting the collections of the most prestigious museums around the world – states the Councilor for Culture Filippo Del Corno –. A perfect combination that enriches the cultural offer of the Milanese autumn."
It is the first time that these masterpieces arrive in Europe: after the first stage at the Guggenheim in Bilbao and the second at the Hotel de Caumont in Aix-en-Provence, Palazzo Reale in Milan represents the final stage of the exhibition, after which the works they will return to New York. Promoted and produced by the Municipality of Milano Cultura, Palazzo Reale and Mondomostre Skira, the exhibition is therefore a unique and unrepeatable opportunity to admire works of exceptional quality by great masters of European painting never before exhibited outside the United States.
Together with the magnificent works of the Thannhauser Collection, the Guggenheim Museum has chosen, to further enrich the exhibition and demonstrate the profound convergence between the two collections, to exhibit some other prestigious works by the same famous artists or other great masters.
The history of the Thannhauser collection
In 1905 Heinrich Thannhauser, Justin's Jewish art dealer, opened the first gallery in Munich and in 1908 presented the first major retrospective dedicated to Van Gogh in Germany.
From 1909 he was supported by his young son Justin, who would gradually become the protagonist of the whole activity for the organization of exhibitions in the various galleries opened in Europe and the purchase of works of art. In 1911 the first exhibition of the group “Blaue reiter (The Blue Knight)” was presented, and in 1913 one of the first major exhibitions dedicated to Picasso; Thus began a long friendship between Justin and the Spanish master which would last until the artist's death in 1973.
During the First World War Justin entered the army, was wounded and decorated with the Iron Cross, married Kate, with whom he had children Heinz and Michel. In 1920 Justin opened a gallery in Lucerne and in 1926 he presented an important exhibition on Degas in the Munich gallery. In 1927 he opened a new gallery in Berlin, where he concentrated all his activity under his name.
In 1935 his father Heinrich died and in 1937, due to Nazi threats, Justin moved to Paris, opening a new gallery. In recent years there have been major exhibitions dedicated to Gauguin, Matisse and Monet.
In 1940 when German troops invade Paris Justin is in Switzerland and cannot return to France. At the end of that year he embarked in Lisbon for New York. In 1944 his son Heinz was killed in the war, his other son Michel committed suicide in 1952, while his wife Kate died in 1960. Two years later Justin married Hilde Breitwisch. Without heirs and fully sharing Solomon R. Guggenheim's promotion of artistic innovation, he decides to donate seventy-five works from his collection to the American museum, including thirty works by Picasso. In 1965 the works were presented in the dedicated room of the museum.
In twenty years, the Thannhauser New York home has become an exceptional place where great figures from the world of culture, art, music, theatre, cinema and photography such as Leonard Bernstein, Louise Bourgeois, Henri Cartier-Bresson meet. , Marcel Duchamp, Jean Renoir, Arturo Toscanini. Justin Thannhauser died in 1976 in Switzerland at the age of 84. In 1984, his wife Hilde donated another 10 works to the Museum, which entered the Guggenheim collection upon her death in 1991.
The Thannhauser collection of the Guggenheim museum at Palazzo Reale.
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Updated: 09/07/2019