HERMAN HIRSCH

Translation by Adrian C.S. Kainz
Catalog raisonné HERMAN HIRSCH Index: 5 paintings 76 aquarelles 84 graphics 153 prints 171 drafts for postcards 173 not verified works 175 exhibits 178 photos Preface Herman Hirsch was born on June 4, 1861 as the seventh child of a Jewish family in Rheydt, which is today a part of the town Moenchengladbach. On March 1, 1934 he committed suicide in Goettingen. One can study his development on the time period between his training at the “Koeniglichen Akademie der Kuenste zu Berlin” (Royal Academy of Art to Berlin) beginning in 1881 until his last known painting in 1933. He briskly participated in the artistic development of his eventful lifetime. However his work does not integrate in the usual development. As a portrait and landscape painter he used both styles parallel: from conventionally naturalistic to almost impressionistic in portraits or commissioned work and a little more loose right up to expressionistic traits in his non‐commercial paintings. His death after one year of national socialistic leadership and the lucky emigration of almost all of his Jewish relatives let the painter to be wrongfully buried in almost complete oblivion in Goettingen and Germany. The “Staedtische Museum Goettingen” (City Museum Goettingen) owns the only public collection of works in Germany. A lithography exists in the collection “Museum Schloss Moyland” (Museum Castle Moyland). The vast majority of his works is in possession of emigrated members of the family Hirsch in England, Wales, South Africa and the USA. The paintings from the legacy of Susanne B. Hirt (Hirsch), Herman Hirsch’ niece, who died in 2005, are now a part of the collection of the Virginia Holocaust Museum in Richmond (USA), her last residence. The written legacy is kept together with the legacy of her half sister Rosette at the Leo‐Baeck‐Institute in New York. The whereabouts of the Hirsch collection of Zwi Horowitz in Kiriat Tivon (Israel) stay unclear. Further works are kept in private possession mainly in the area of Goettingen and Bremke in Germany, where Hirsch resided from 1918 until 1933. There he left numerous paintings and drawings with friends and clients. The catalog raisonné was made possible because of the support of the “Niedersaechsischen Ministerium fuer Wissenschaft und Kunst” (Ministry of science and culture for Lower Saxony). Special thanks go to “Museumsreferentin” (head of museum) Mrs. Dagmar von Reitzenstein. Also Prof. Dr. Thomas Noll from the “Kunstgeschichtlichen Seminar der Georg‐August‐Universitaet Goettingen” (Art History Seminar of the Georg‐August‐University in Goettingen) deserves thanks for his professional advice. The catalog raisonné would not have come about without the support of the many owners in Germany and especially the family Hirsch. Further thanks go to the work of Mrs. Ruth Shapario, the executor of Susanne B. Hirt (Hirsch), and Mrs. Dianna Gabay, Director of Collections and Exhibitions at the Virginia Holocaust Museum in Richmond. Particular thanks go to Dr. Rainer Driever, who pioneered as the curator of the exhibit “Herman Hirsch –Ein Juedischer Maler in Goettingen” (Herman Hirsch – A Jewish painter in Goettingen) in the “Staedtischen Museum Goettingen” (City Museum Goettingen) with this catalog raisonné in 2009 and therefore acknowledged this artist and gave him his rightful place in art history. Dagmar Schlapeit‐Beck Stadt Goettingen Kulturdezernentin