Hans Hess (museologist)

Hans Hess
OBE
Born1907
Died1975 (1976) (aged 68)
NationalityGerman
Occupation(s)Museum curator
Artist
Art historian
Industrialist
Academic work
DisciplineArt history

Hans Hess OBE (1907–1975) was a German museum curator and art historian who worked in Leicester and York.

Biography

He was born in Erfurt, the son of a successful Jewish shoe manufacturer and patron of the arts Alfred Hess and his wife Thekla Hess, née Pauson (1884–1968). The artists Feininger, Kandinsky, Klee, and Pechstein were family friends as well as people like Otto Bamberger [de] who lived in the town where his mother was born and raised. Hans Hess attended the reform boarding schools Wickersdorf Free School Community and Schule am Meer where he also got confronted with a rich variety of expressionist arts, artists like Christian Rohlfs, their paintings and art historians like Walter Kaesbach [de].[1]

Hess worked for the publisher Ullstein until 1933, when he was forced out for being Jewish. He moved to London in 1935 and co-founded the Inside Nazi Germany magazine and, in 1938, helped to launch the 'Free German League of Culture'.[2] He was interned on the Isle of Man as an 'enemy alien' before being deported to Canada. Hess returned to Britain in 1942.[2]

In early 1944 he was appointed Assistant Keeper of Art under the director Trevor Thomas (1907–1993) to Leicester Museum and Art Gallery just before the opening of an exhibition, which ran from 5–27 February 1944, titled 'Mid-European Art', which was supported by the Free German League of Culture.[3][4] Hess was promoted to Keeper of Art following Thomas' sudden and forced departure in 1946. Later, he was appointed curator at York Art Gallery in 1948, when the gallery reopened after being bombed during the Second World War. He lived with his wife (and fellow German refugee) Lillie Williams and their daughter Anita at 56 Skeldergate in York.[2]

He was awarded an OBE in the 1958 New Year Honours.[5]

Hans Hess preparing for the Mystery Plays outside York Art Gallery, 1966

During his time in York he was artistic director of the York Festival in 1954, 1957, 1960, 1963, and 1966.[6] He left York in 1967 to take up a post with the University of Sussex after a public altercation with Jack Wood, a York councillor, regarding the programme for the 1966 Festival.[6]

Throughout his life Hess was an active Marxist and contributed articles to Marxism Today, the theoretical magazine of the Communist Party of Great Britain.[7]

At the University of Sussex he was Reader in the history and theory of art.[7]

In 2010 he was the subject of a Sheldon Memorial Trust Lecture by John Ingamells.[8]

Select publications

  • Hess, H. 1959. Lyonel Feininger. Stuttgart, Kohlhammer Verlag.
  • Hess, H. 1963. George Grosz, 1893–1959. London, Arts Council.
  • Hess, H. 1964. The artist in an industrial society. Hull, University of Hull.

References

  1. ^ Student's records of Schule am Meer, Juist, p. 11 (registered as Hanns Hess, signed by himself as Hans Hess, includes a portrait picture). In: Schleswig-Holsteinische Landesbibliothek, Kiel (= Schleswig-Holstein State Library in Kiel), Legacy Luserke, Martin, call number Cb 37
  2. ^ a b c "The Friends of York Art Gallery celebrate 70 years". Yorkshire Life. 4 April 2018. Retrieved 7 October 2019.
  3. ^ "The Story of the Hess Family". Leicester's German Expressionist Collection. 6 November 2014. Retrieved 6 November 2019.
  4. ^ "£100m secret of woman they call 'Stalin's granny'". London Evening Standard. 18 November 2006. Retrieved 2009-06-04.
  5. ^ "Supplement to the London Gazette". The London Gazette. 31 December 1957. p. 13.
  6. ^ a b Rogerson, Margaret (2009). Playing a Part in History: The York Mysteries, 1951 - 2006. University of Toronto Press.
  7. ^ a b Wright, Nick (20 January 2015). "Hans Hess: Picture these arguments". Morning Star Online. Retrieved 12 November 2019.
  8. ^ "Sheldon Memorial Trust Lectures: Hans Hess O.B.E (1907 -1975)". Sheldon Memorial Trust. March 2010. Retrieved 6 November 2019.


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