Werkverzeichnis Englisch - Werkverzeichnis von Heinrich Reinhold

Catalogue Raisonné of Heinrich Reinhold (1788 Gera – 1825 Rome)

(Life and Works with an Index of the Oil Paintings and Gouaches)

My name is Manfred Keller and I have been an art expert for paintings of the 19th and 20th centuries for 29 years.

In the light of current events and in respect to the advice of several art experts, I have taken up my previous work for the catalogue raisonné of Heinrich Reinhold again and have been working on it for some time (with scientific contributions of art historians).

I can refer to numerous sales of exhibits to museums, public authorities, and renowned institutes in the course of my decades-long activities.

Museum Memmingen, Musuem Wolfenbüttel, Kultur-und Museumsverein Horb, Stadt Bad Aibling, Verein für Förderung der Glaskunst e.V. Langen, Historischer Verein in Neuburg, Museum Korbach, Gemeinde Gmund am Tegernsee, Altonaer Museum in Hamburg, Stadtarchiv Bad-Tölz, Gemeinde Seefeld Tirol, Heimatmuseum Polling, Stadtmuseum Burghausen, Hamburg-Mannheimer Versicherungsgesellschaften Hamburg, Neues Stadtmuseum, Herkomer Museum Landsberg, Stadt Neumarkt, Museum für Natur und Stadtkultur Schwäbisch-Gmünd, Städtisches Museum Miltenberg, Münchner Stadtmuseum, Kreissparkasse Wolfratshausen, Stadt Aichach, Gemeinde Egling, Sparkasse Bad-Reichenhall, Stadtverwaltung Winnenden, Volksbank Memmingen Stiftung, Stadt Fürstenfeldbruck, Sparkasse Fürstenfeldbruck, Landratsamt Rosenheim, Oberhessisches Museum Giessen, Gemeinde Gröbenzell, Stadt Starnberg, Volksbank Memmingen, Heimatmuseum in Baldreit Baden-Baden, Kunkel-Stiftung Aschaffenburg, Kulturhistorisches Museum Magdeburg, Städtische Galerie Würzburg, Stadt- und Kreismuseum Landshut, Museum Darmstadt Mathildenhöhe, Gemeinde Weyarn, Fichtelgebirgsmuseum Wunsiedel, Sparkasse Donauwörth, MSOE Milwaukee School of Engineering, Stadt Moosburg, Museen der Stadt Kempten, Otto Hellmeier Stiftung, Gemeinde Dießen, Deutsche Post AG Augsburg, Museum Schwabach, Städtisches Kulturamt Memmingen, Gemeinde Oberaudorf, Gemeinde Lermoos, Sparkassenstiftungen Memmingen-Mindelheim, Musealverein Waidhofen, Waitzinger Keller Kulturzentrum Miesbach, Gemeinde Hagnau, Amt der Stadt Feldkirch, Stadtbibliothek, Kunsthalle Göppingen, Gemeinde Lenggries, Freunde des Museums Friedberg, Kulturamt der Stadt Füssen, Stadt Burghausen, Förderverein Museum der Stadt Grafing, Freundeskreis der Städtischen Museen Landsberg, Schweizerisches Landesmuseum Zürich, Gemeinde Bernried, Bayerische Schlösserverwaltung München, Schloß Nymphenburg.

Due to these sales I was able to add substantially to the collections of the mentioned places and some of the museums used it as an opportunity to arrange exhibitions, for example (2006) Mindelheimer Museen “Dreams of Landscapes” with numerous works by Carl Millner as well as Heinrich Reinhold and his circle. Since my knowledge of paintings of the 19th century is profound, I was asked for assistance and advice in this matter. In the Landesmuseum in Zurich in Switzerland, the purchase of a mixed lot of drawings by Countess Henriette Anne Fordescue, who travelled Switzerland in the early 19th century by horse carriage, led to an exhibition.

Ms. Ingrid Zimmermann of the Süddeutsche Zeitung wrote a report about me in 2006 with the title “Collector of souls that have turned into pictures”, expert of the Münchner Schule, as well as a short biography about my qualifications. (No. 39, February 16th, Starnberger Ausgabe “Kultur”)

At this point I take the liberty to point out that I organized exhibitions of paintings of the 19/20th centuries in the Otto Helmer Kulturhaus for years. Various reports about the exhibitions, shown by me, were published in the Süddeutsche Zeitung and other media.

In the course of my activities I created much documentation and expertise (evaluations) about paintings. Furthermore you can find publications of mine in the Bruckmann Lexikon der Münchner Malerei (W.L. Lehmann, Caspar Ritter). I can also refer to publications about notable artists like Walther Püttner (Scholle Kreis), Albert von Keller, etc. I would also like to point out that I thoroughly analysed numerous works by Heinrich Reinhold in museums as well as privately owned ones. Setting up and taking care of collections is as much part of my tasks as trading with significant art auctioneers.

Lots of outstanding recommendations of art historians, art experts and collectors as well as public authorities prove my expert knowledge.

The painter Heinrich Reinhold has fascinated me since the beginning of the 1990s. During my research I had the pleasure of meeting Professor Dr. Domenico Riccardi, as early as 1993, who had written an outstanding article for the exhibition in Gera (Heinrich Reinhold 1788-1825, Italian Landscapes in the art gallery of Gera, to honour his 200th birthday in 1988. Further steps took me to meet Mr. Reinhard Spieß, director of the museum in Perleberg. Mr. Spieß also contributed two scientific articles to the above mentioned exhibition titled “Heinrich Reinhold in art literature”. . The exchange of experience with both colleagues was very interesting und eye-opening. I did not have the chance of meeting the initiator of the above mentioned exhibition in Gera though.  I want to articulate my cordial thanks towards him here at this point.

He was able to start the exhibition in Gera in 1988 after overcoming great obstacles. Later his home was searched by the Stasi in order to find incriminating proof of any kind about him. He suffered greatly from this event as his wife later pointed out to me.

Since the catalogue in Gera had mentioned the artistic assets of Heinrich Reinhold several times I now visited Ms. Mathilde Fleißig, whose maiden name had been Reinhold, in Frankenberg. Ms. Fleißig was Dr. Heinrich Reinhold’s daughter (Heinrich Reinhold’s grand nephew) who rounded up Heinrich Reinhold’s artistic assets in painstaking work, and who prepared an unpublished manuscript.

I received valuable hints and insight concerning Heinrich Reinhold’s life from Ms. Fleißig. In this legacy there are numerous letters which are indispensable for the fundamental research about Heinrich Reinhold.

After Ms. Fleißig had died, the legacy was in her niece’s hands. After various personal encounters with her I was allowed to take photos of the paintings and was finally given some pictures to supply them with new frames. I was able to gain the heirs’ trust and was invited to join talks about a sale. I made the suggestions to contact the Klassik-Stiftung Weimar. In preparation for the sale I was allowed to render my expert opinion and to evaluate the pictures, and finally I prepared the offer for the Klassik-Stiftung Weimar. In the course of the presentation of the paintings, Professor Dr. Mildenberger, Dr. Föhl, Professor Dr. Bothe, the niece of the Reinhold family, my wife and I were present.

As a matter of form, I want to add that Professor Dr. Börsch-Supan and Dr. Sieveking were able to bring the matter to a satisfactory conclusion for the Klassik-Stiftung in Weimar after years of waiting.

We can consider ourselves lucky that Heinrich Reinhold dedicated his life to art and we immensely cherish his art assets. In his groundbreaking oil studies made in Italy, we can already find an expressive style which guides the German way of painting into the right direction. Who else should be mentioned here: Carl Blechen, Johann Wilhelm Schirmer?  They came to Italy later and Carl Rottmann travelled Italy in 1826. His style showed some kind of idealization at that time, on this matter I agree with Professor Dr. Gerhard Winkler’s opinion. He writes in the Gera catalogue “Carl Rottmann achieved a similar way of expressing himself as Heinrich Reinhold had done, only at the end of his life in the oil study (Battlefield of Marathon about 1848)”.

Heinrich Reinhold used glazing techniques but you can also find covering colours and slightly raised structures (cloud tops and sea surf) in his works. I can recognize his genius in his works, the quest and the struggle for expression, in order to capture nature by means of a painter in its perfection with the atmospheric appearances. You cannot, when judging the works of Heinrich Reinhold, put him into a schematic bodice. Professor Dr. Gerhard Winkler writes so fittingly in the Gera catalogue:

“Between the priorities of liberation and disentanglement of the art from confessional bonds, theorems, and dogmas and in the search for art shaped by subjective perception, he has achieved something uniquely significant.”  The pictures in the Gera catalogue no. 185, Campagnalandschaft (provenance  legacy Reinhold family), 1822 Südliche Landschaft  catalogue no. 178, Hannover, Niedersächsisches Landesmuseum Landesgalerie, are proof for this thesis.

Finally we’ll let Heinrich Reinhold speak for himself in a letter he wrote to his brother Gustav November 24th, 1824: “Gustav, you will never err when you keep sticking to nature. But I am of the opinion that you can also exaggerate this, so that in the end you won’t dare to take another step like a child tied to apron’s strings and then the imagination will die. That’s what you have to watch out for because nature has to be stamped into a completion only by the art in a good product. Studies of nature as they are, can never be applied to a picture which aims towards perfection but serve perfectly to adapt as its own, to amalgamate with its imagination und then use it in an appropriate way considering the whole. Wanting to reach for nature would be stupidity, due to a lack of fabrics and materials, and here is the point where art comes into the picture and shows me the means how to fight this lack by adding contrasts, smart sacrifice, interesting ideas or compositions, in order to produce an offensive appeal which can or even must differ very much from nature.”

I politely ask owners of oil paintings and gouaches of Heinrich Reinhold to contact me under the provided e-mail address.