Franz Josef Kohl-Weigand

Franz Josef Kohl-Weigand (born December 26, 1900, in Ludwigshafen am Rhein as Franz Josef Kohl; died March 15, 1972, in St. Ingbert) was a German businessman, art collector and philanthropist.

Franz Josef Kohl-Weigand

Biography

Franz Josef Kohl was the first child of Heinrich Kohl, a bank director and supporter of Palatine local history research in Ludwigshafen. He grew up in Ludwigshafen am Rhein. In 1930, he married Auguste Weigand, daughter of the St. Ingbert entrepreneur Ernst Weigand (hardware). Kohl moved to St. Ingbert and took the surname Kohl-Weigand.^[1] A year later, Kohl-Weigand joined the management of the company. After World War II, together with his brother-in-law Fritz Saeftel, he led the reconstruction of the "Otto Weigand & Sohn" company, building new office buildings, workers' housing and warehouses. Kohl-Weigand was also involved in regional history and local history research, chairing the St. Ingbert Heimat- und Verkehrsverein for many years.^{[citation needed]}

Franz Josef Kohl-Weigand was buried at the Old Cemetery in St. Ingbert on March 20, 1972.^{[citation needed]}

The art collector and patron

Kohl-Weigand built up an art collection, which focused on the St. Ingbert artists Albert Weisgerber and Fritz Koelle as well as the Palatine artists Hans Purrmann, Max Slevogt^[2][3] and Carl Johann Becker-Gundahl.^[4][5][6] The collection was described as the "largest collection of German Impressionists in southwestern Germany". In the 1970s, Kohl-Weigand's company had accumulated substantial tax debts. After negotiations with the Saarland tax authorities, in which Franz-Josef Röder, Saarland's prime minister at the time, played a key role, Kohl-Weigand transferred most of his collection to the Saarland, thereby settling his tax debt. The collection was subsequently transferred to the Saarland Cultural Heritage Foundation. A further partial estate of the Kohl-Weigand collection is in the possession of the St. Ingbert city archive.

Provenance research projects have been undertaken to shed light on the origins of the artworks in the Kohl-Weigand collection, and some Nazi-looted artworks have been restituted to Jewish families who were persecuted under the Nazi regime.^{[7][8][9][10][11]}

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  Sammelschwerpunkt: der saarpfälzer Künstler Albert Weisgerber (Selbstporträt, 1911)

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  Max Slevogt (Selbstbildnis, 1915)

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  Fritz Koelle: Der Walzmeister (Bronzeplastik)

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  Porträtplastik (Bronze) von Hans Purrmann

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  Porträtfoto von Carl Johann Becker-Gundahl

Honors – awards

• 1960 Honorary citizen of the municipality of Ballweiler; honorary citizen of the town of St. Ingbert
• 1961 Awarded the Federal Cross of Merit, 1st class
• 1963 Awarded the Hans Thoma Medal in Reutlingen
• 1965 Honorary Senator of the Johannes Gutenberg University in Mainz
• 1966 Grand Cross of Merit of the Federal Republic of Germany
• 1974 Max Slevogt Medal (posthumously)
• 1980 Naming of Kohl-Weigand-Strasse in St.Ingbert-Mitte
• 1960 Ehrenbürger der Gemeinde Ballweiler; Ehrenbürger der Stadt St. Ingbert^[12]

The family business

 

Family coat of arms of the entrepreneurial family Weigand

When Otto Weigand's son Ernst (1874-1949) joined the management of the company in 1902 the company was renamed "Otto Weigand & Sohn".^[13] Ernst Weigand then invited his son-in-law into the business. Franz Josef Kohl-Weigand joined in 1931, and another son-in-law, Fritz Saeftel, joined the management in 1936. In 1941, the company had 61 employees, in 1956 it had 120 employees and in 1966 it reached 200 employees. With Kohl-Weigand's son Ernst Heinrich (1932-1988), the fourth and last generation joined the company in 1953, which experienced its slow downturn at the end of the 1960s. The company "Otto Weigand & Sohn" was dissolved in November 1994.^[14]

Literature

• Ulrich Christoffel: Albert Weisgerber. Hrsg.: Stadtverwaltung St. Ingbert. Auswahl der Bilder von F. J. Kohl-Weigand. St. Ingbert 1950.
• Albert Weisgerber: Worte seiner Freunde. Hrsg.: Franz Josef Kohl-Weigand. Stadt St. Ingbert 1955.
• Hans-Jürgen Imiela, Wilhelm Weber: Die Sammlung Kohl-Weigand. Moos, Heidelberg 1961 (Private Kunstsammlungen. Band 1).
• Fritz Heinsheimer, Franz Josef Kohl-Weigand (Hrsg.): Max Slevogt als Lehrer, Künstler und Mensch. Selbstverlag der Hrsg., St. Ingbert 1968.
• Albert Weisgerber zeichnet für „Die Jugend“. Hrsg.: Pfälzer Künstlergenossenschaft. Mit Beiträgen von Karl Graf und Franz Josef Kohl-Weigand. Karl Graf, Speyer 1971 (Das neue Kunstarchiv. Band 28).
• Kirsten Fitzke: Verlust und Aufbau: Hans Purrmann und seine Sammler Johannes Guthmann und Franz Josef Kohl-Weigand, in: Felix Billeter/Christoph Wagner (Hrsg.): Neue Wege zu Hans Purrmann, Berlin 2016, S. 305–317.
• Literatur von und über Kohl-Weigand in der SULB Saarbrücken.

References

1. Kölbl, Antonia (2018-06-18). "Der Sammler Franz Josef Kohl-Weigand: alles über Max Slevogt, Albert Weisgerber und Hans Purrmann - Kulturstiftung". Kulturstiftung der Länder (in German). Retrieved 2023-01-16.
2. "Stiftung Saarlaendischer Kulturbesitz gibt Werke von Max Slevogt an die Nachfahren von Julius Freund zurück - The Saarland Cultural Heritage Foundation returns Max Slevogt works to the heirs of Julius Freund". www.lootedart.com. Retrieved 2023-01-16.
3. Slevogt, Max. Briefe von 1912 - 1932 Sammlung Franz Josef Kohl-Weigand. Max Slevogt an Johannes Guthmann. OCLC 73694526.
4. "Die Sammlung Kohl-Weigand | WorldCat.org". www.worldcat.org (in French). Retrieved 2023-01-16.
5. Imiela, Hans-Jürgen (1961). Die Sammlung Kohl-Weigand. OCLC 164945115.
6. Kölbl, Antonia (2018-06-18). "Der Sammler Franz Josef Kohl-Weigand: alles über Max Slevogt, Albert Weisgerber und Hans Purrmann - Kulturstiftung". Kulturstiftung der Länder (in German). Retrieved 2023-01-16.
7. "Saarbrücken Stiftung Kulturbesitz forscht nach Raubkunst in der Sammlung - Saarbrücken will look for Nazi looted art in its collections". www.lootedart.com. Retrieved 2023-01-16.
8. "German Lost Art Foundation - News - Saarland Cultural Heritage Foundation returns Nazi-confiscated property to the heirs of publisher Fritz Hermann". www.kulturgutverluste.de. 2020-03-04. Retrieved 2023-01-16. The Saarland Cultural Heritage Foundation has returned the 1902 painting "Ananas" (Pineapple) by Max Slevogt to the heirs of its previous right owners The restitution came about as the result of a research project supported by the German Lost Art Foundation between 2015 and 2019 in which the provenances of paintings in the Saarland Museum Modern Gallery were systematically examined The painting was part of entrepreneur Franz Josef Kohl-Weigand's collection, which was passed on to the Saarland Museum Modern Gallery in 1982. The painting originally belonged to the Jewish couple Fritz and Alice Hermann, who lived in Dahlem, Berlin.
9. "German Lost Art Foundation - News - Saarland Cultural Heritage Foundation gives works by Max Slevogt back to the heirs of Julius Freund". www.kulturgutverluste.de. Retrieved 2023-01-16.
10. "Old man, leafing through drawings | Lost Art Database". www.lostart.de. Retrieved 2023-01-16. Max Liebermann, Martha Liebermann Berlin, loss after 1935; Kohl-Weigand Collection, 1982 Saarland Museum; 2020 amicable settlement with the heirs
11. "Kunst Saarlandmuseum Restitution [Max". www.kunstmarkt.com. Retrieved 2023-01-16.
12. "Franz Josef Kohl-Weigand".
13. "Otto Weigand & Sohn | Proveana". www.proveana.de. Retrieved 2023-01-16.
14. Keuth, Paul (1966). 100 Jahre Otto Weigand & Sohn, St. Ingbert: 3. März 1966 (in German). Funk.

External links

• Homepage des Heimatmuseums St. Ingbert
• Stadtarchiv St. Ingbert