The Gap. The Place as a Witness – The Heinemann Gallery

Lenbachplatz 5 – business headquarters of a family of Munich gallery owners and patrons

description

Stefan Römer had a large-format poster (ink-jet print on mesh vinyl) attached to the facade of the building at Lenbachplatz 5 in Munich. The print motif was an exact imitation of the historic house facade, created on the basis of an illustration from the book "Munich and its Buildings after 1912" (Bruckmann 1984) from 1910, on which the lettering of the "Gemäldegalerie Heinemann" can also be seen (Munich City Archive). The façade poster left half of the façade exposed, the cut edge was designed as an irregular crack.

background

David Heinemann was born in 1819 and studied painting at the Munich Academy of Fine Arts from 1838 to 1841. It was not until 1852 that he received official permission to "settle down"; in 1883 he opened an art gallery in the Hotel Max Emanuel on Promenadeplatz, which enjoyed an excellent reputation. After his death in 1902, his sons Hermann and Theobald Heinemann successfully continued the gallery – from 1913 in new premises at Lenbachplatz 5 – and distinguished themselves as important patrons of the Munich art scene. When Theobald Heinemann died in 1929, his wife Franziska and son Fritz took over the gallery. After the "Reichskristallnacht" in 1938, the business was closed and Franziska Heinemann was temporarily sent to Stadelheim prison for alleged foreign currency violations. Like her son, she was later able to emigrate to Lucerne, where the family built a new existence. Friedrich Heinrich Zinckgraf, a non-Jew and the previous manager of the gallery, took over the business and continued to run it as the "Galerie am Lenbachplatz" until his death in 1954.

essay coming soon!