Fred Kocks Explained

Fred Kocks (24 January 1905 – 1989) in Düsseldorf was a German landscape and figure painter, draughtsman and lithographer as well as curator, museum director and author.

Life

Born in Ulm, Kocks studied painting with the Düsseldorf landscape painter Helmuth Liesegang.[1] Study trips took him to the Netherlands, Belgium, France and Italy. As a line-loyal member of the Nazi Party as well as protégé, "text designer and artistic collaborator"[2] of the Düsseldorf Gauleiter Friedrich Karl Florian, he made a career in the Düsseldorf cultural administration in the 1930s. He quickly rose to become curator of the Museum Kunstpalast and director of the Alte Kunsthalle. There, he organised in particular the seasonal exhibitions of Düsseldorf artists.

At the same time, he continued to be active as a painter. With the oil painting Sommeridyll am Bach he was represented at the Große Deutsche Kunstausstellung in the Haus der Kunst in Munich in 1942.[3] In 1943 he presented his painting Am Schloßweiher there.[4] In 1944 he was among selected representatives of Art in Nazi Germany at the exhibition in Breslau.[5]

After the death of the art historian Hans Wilhelm Hupp in 1943, he was given the provisional management of the municipal art collections. As such, he organised the exhibition D' Arte contemporanea di Duesseldorf, which took place in 1943 in the Palazzo Strozzi in Florence.[6] His transfer to another office within the Düsseldorf administration took place in 1945 at the instigation of the British military government.[7] In 1953, against the opposition of the art historian who had taken over the management of the municipal art collection in 1949 and thwarted an attempt to reassign Kocks in 1949, he was reinstated as its curator. Kocks held this post until 1964.

Together with the landscape painters, Willy Reetz, and, with whose family there were close ties, Kocks was one of the founders of the Düsseldorfer Künstlergruppe 1949.[8]

Publications

Further reading

Notes and References

  1. [Museum Kunstpalast]
  2. Der Hoheitsträger. Vol. 5, 1941, .
  3. Book: Große Deutsche Kunstausstellung 1942 im Haus der Deutschen Kunst zu München. Bruckmann. München. 45.
  4. Große deutsche Kunstausstellung im Haus der Kunst zu München. Ausstellungskatalog, Verlag F. Bruckmann, Munich 1943,, no. 467
  5. [Gottlob Berger]
  6. Book: Schardt. Hermann. Esposizione d'Arte Contemporanea di Duesseldorf, Firenze 1943: [April – Maggio, 1943, XXII; esposizione Palazzo Strozzi] = Ausstellung Düsseldorfer Kunst der Gegenwart, Florenz 1943]. Sindacato Fascista Belle Arti.. Palazzo Strozzi.. Esposizione d'Arte Contemporanea di Duesseldorf. 1943. Graf & Schumacher. Düsseldorf. German. 882980967.
  7. Kay Heymer: Die Kunstsammlungen der Stadt Düsseldorf 1945–1953. Ankaufspolitik und Ausstellungen in der Ära Werner Doede. In Julia Friedrich, Andreas Prinzing (eds.): "So one simply began, without many words". Exhibition and Collection Policy in the First Years after the Second World War. Akademie Verlag, Berlin 2013,,
  8. Hermann Schardt: Ausstellung Düsseldorfer Künstlergruppe 1949. Ausstellungskatalog, Kunsthalle Düsseldorf, Düsseldorf 1949.
  9. https://www.worldcat.org/oclc/79305689 Düsseldorfer Maler und Bildhauer der letzten 50 Jahre

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