Hilmar Kopper Collection

Hilmar Kopper was not a man who talked, at least not about himself and his inclinations.

Why he liked art, since when and for what reason or thanks to what inspiration, alone the question would not have been admissible. Against his nature. Not that he wanted to refuse. Self-reflection was simply alien to him. After all, he liked to tell how, as a young man in his early twenties, he learned the American banking business during the day and saw the greatest operas at the Met in the evening. Unfortunately, he never told how he came under the spell of the world of images. Perhaps it was the tradition of a bank that had money and gained prestige by buying and promoting art. When Hilmar Kopper succeeded Hermann Josef Abs in the administration of the Städel in 1994, he had long since tasted blood and discovered that his own preference could only be pursued in his own collecting activities. What he wanted to look at at home was certain, once and for all. Hilmar Kopper's unconditional preference was for the Russian Constructivists, whether known by name or not, and the German Bauhaus artists. The clear lines and reduction to the essentials may have suited his own nature, no flourishes, no detours, no evasions. He was also technophile and almost obsessed with everything "new," as exemplified by El Lissitzky. The latter's "Project for the Affirmation of the New," abbreviated Proun, served to expand into three-dimensionality. Two paintings from the series hung prominently. One bears the dedication on the back, "for W. Dexel, 1922 Hanover." Walter Dexel, of whom Hilmar Kopper has collected more paintings than of any other contemporary, brought about a Constructivism exhibition in Jena in 1923. What an occasion to declare that the "new artists" would infuse the art of construction and the form of all things vital with a new spirit. If the young Kopper could have studied like his older brother, the choice would have been architecture. In any case, this new spirit, which included the art of building, must have resonated when, on the occasion of Deutsche Bank's one hundred and twenty-fifth anniversary in 1996, he announced the rebuilding and reconstruction of the Musikgymnasium in Weimar and had that design by the architect Thomas van den Valentyn realized. In the immediate vicinity of the baroque Belvedere Palace, the building still looks like a new Bauhaus. Next to Walter Gropius, Lyonel Feininger stood at its cradle. Among the works that had grown close to the collector's heart were four watercolors and ink drawings depicting places in the nearby Weimar area. One was from the "Gelmeroda" series and was hung particularly prominently. It was understood that Hilmar Kopper was one of the first visitors to the new Bauhaus museums - in Weimar and with particular enthusiasm in Dessau. The concentration on early Russians and spiritually related German artists would have been narrow, even boring, without side trips. The homage to Horst Janssen, the great loner, the proof "of a genius even in our time," as Ernst Jünger once said, was a matter of the heart. An avowal against the compulsion of the zeitgeist, of theorizing, and also of the art business. Finally, the showpiece of the collection, Georg Kolbe's "Javanese Dancer," was of timeless fascination. As he stood before it in awe, it escaped Städel head Philipp Demandt: "There is nothing more beautiful in modern sculpture." Hilmar Kopper was happy to hear it from an appointed mouth. Incidentally, he would not have been the rounded, self-contained, yet go-getting personality he was if he had not also cultivated a hobbyhorse that could never find a place in any auction house. Even as an apprentice, he was fascinated by those papers which, until recent times, encased oranges and gave him pleasure because of their varied symbols and cheerful colors. After entering a kind of retirement, they were ironed, sorted and pasted into 38 thick binders. This collection has now found a place in the OPIUM, the Orange Paper Museum. Later, the testimony to the art of printing will be transferred to the Gutenberg Museum in Mainz. Like art itself, collecting is both a serious and a light-hearted affair.

With exciting works of Classical Modernity, the Hilmar Kopper Collection constituted a special highlight of the Modern sale on 1 June 2022. A special spotlight in the high-calibre collection was on the watercolour Bürgerliches Brautpaar (Middle-class Couple) by Dada artist Hannah Höch, created in 1920, which changed owners for a total of €238,000 after an international bidding war. The impressive bronze Javanische Tänzerin (Javanese Dancer) by Georg Kolbe went to a private collection in Brandenburg for €370,000. Other remarkable results were achieved by the reverse glass painting Dampfschiff (Steamboat) by Walter Dexel (result: €106,000) and the watercolour Gelmeroda by Lyonel Feininger, which was sold for €73,000.