Alfred Flechtheim
| Alfred Flechtheim | |
|---|---|
Alfred Flechtheim, 1910
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| Born |
April 1, 1878 Münster, Westphalia, German Empire |
| Died | March 9, 1937 (aged 58) London, England |
| Nationality | Germany |
| Occupation | Art dealer |
| Spouse(s) | Betty Goldschmidt (m. 1910) |
Alfred Flechtheim (April 1, 1878 – March 9, 1937) was a German art dealer, art collector, journalist and publisher.
Flechtheim was born into a Jewish merchant family; his father, Emil Flechtheim, was a grain dealer. Alfred became a partner in his father's company after business internships in London and Paris.
Flechtheim appeared in the art world shortly after 1900, with a collection of paintings by Vincent van Gogh, Paul Cézanne; French Avant garde early works of Pablo Picasso, Georges Braque and André Derain; paintings of Wassily Kandinsky, Maurice de Vlaminck, Alexej von Jawlensky, Gabriele Münter, and the Rhein Expressionists Heinrich Campendonk, August Macke, Heinrich Nauen, and Paul Adolf Seehaus. Flechtheim opened his first gallery in Düsseldorf in 1913, followed by galleries in Berlin, Frankfurt, Cologne, and Vienna.
Flechtheim served in the German Army during World War I, but not at the front. His art business collapsed during the war but he re-opened in Düsseldorf in 1919. In 1921 he founded Der Querschnitt (the Cross Section), a cultural magazine. Legendary, glamorous parties in Flechtheim's gallery overflowed with the glitterati of the new Berlin: movie stars, titans of finance, prizefighters and artists of every stripe.
As Hitler rose to power in the late 1920s and early 1930s, Flechtheim became a bête noire because of the art he espoused and championed. In 1933, Sturmabteilung men broke up an auction of Flechtheim's paintings. In March 1933, an art dealer named Alexander Vömel, a member of the SA or Brown Shirts, confiscated Flechtheim’s Düsseldorf gallery. The Nazis aryanized Flechtheim's gallery, as they would many other Jewish businesses. After the war, former party member Vömel said he didn't even remember who Flechtheim was. Flechtheim's former assistant, Curt Valentin, left the Flechtheim Gallery in 1934 and began working in the Berlin gallery of Karl Buchholz, who was not Jewish. The Nazis seized and sold off Flechtheim's private collection, as well as the contents of his gallery.
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