Johanna Ey (4 March 1864 – 27 August 1947) was a German

art dealer An art dealer is a person or company that buys and sells works of art, or acts as the intermediary between the buyers and sellers of art. An art dealer in contemporary art typically seeks out various artists to represent, and builds relationsh ...

during the 1920s. She became known as ''Mutter Ey'' (Mother Ey) for the nurturing support she provided to her artists, who included

Max Ernst Max Ernst (; 2 April 1891 – 1 April 1976) was a German-born painter, sculptor, printmaker, graphic artist, and poet. A prolific artist, Ernst was a primary pioneer of the Dada movement and surrealism in Europe. He had no formal artistic trai ...

and

Otto Dix Wilhelm Heinrich Otto Dix (; 2 December 1891 – 25 July 1969) was a German painter and Printmaking, printmaker, noted for his ruthless and harshly realistic depictions of German society during the Weimar Republic and the brutality of war. Alon ...

Biography

Ey was born in humble circumstances in Wickrath (today a quarter of

Mönchengladbach Mönchengladbach (, ) is a List of cities and towns in Germany, city in North Rhine-Westphalia, western Germany, west of the Rhine, halfway between Düsseldorf and the Netherlands, Dutch border. Geography Municipal subdivisions Since 2009, th ...

). At the age of 19 she moved to

Düsseldorf Düsseldorf is the capital city of North Rhine-Westphalia, the most populous state of Germany. It is the second-largest city in the state after Cologne and the List of cities in Germany with more than 100,000 inhabitants, seventh-largest city ...

. She married and had twelve children, of whom eight died young. In 1910, middle aged and divorced, she opened a bakery in the proximity of the Düsseldorf Academy of Arts. This became a popular meeting place of actors, journalists, musicians and especially painters, who appreciated her policy of granting credit to artists and students. She displayed their works in her shop windows, and became a collector of art by accepting paintings as payment. In 1916 she closed her café and opened a gallery on the Hindenburgwall (today

Heinrich Heine Christian Johann Heinrich Heine (; ; born Harry Heine; 13 December 1797 – 17 February 1856) was an outstanding poet, writer, and literary criticism, literary critic of 19th-century German Romanticism. He is best known outside Germany for his ...

avenue), where she showed works by academic painters. In the years following

World War I World War I or the First World War (28 July 1914 – 11 November 1918), also known as the Great War, was a World war, global conflict between two coalitions: the Allies of World War I, Allies (or Entente) and the Central Powers. Fighting to ...

, however, the gallery became the center of the artists of the "Junge Rheinland" (Young Rhineland) group. Ey initially decided to exhibit their art not for theoretical or economic reasons, but rather because of her personal friendships with the artists, although she quickly became an energetic proponent of

modernism Modernism was an early 20th-century movement in literature, visual arts, and music that emphasized experimentation, abstraction, and Subjectivity and objectivity (philosophy), subjective experience. Philosophy, politics, architecture, and soc ...

. Her support for her artists extended even to darning their socks, and she defended Wollheim and

Dix DIX or Dix may refer to: Computing * Danish Internet Exchange Point, in Copenhagen * Data Integrity Extensions, data corruption error-handling field in data storage technology * Device Independent X, part of the 2D graphics device driver in th ...

when they were hauled into court on charges that their paintings were immoral.Michalsky 1994, p. 126. During the 1920s, she was frequently painted by the artists in her circle, notably by Dix in 1924, and in 1925 by Arthur Kaufmann, who placed her at the center of his composition ''Contemporaries (Düsseldorf's Intellectual Scene)''. According to art historian Sergiusz Michalsky, "Johanna Ey's portrait was painted more often than that of any other woman in Germany." With the rise to power of

Hitler Adolf Hitler (20 April 1889 – 30 April 1945) was an Austrian-born German politician who was the dictator of Nazi Germany from 1933 until Death of Adolf Hitler, his suicide in 1945. Adolf Hitler's rise to power, He rose to power as the lea ...

in 1933, nearly all the artists associated with Ey were denounced as degenerate artists; most were also political opponents of

National Socialism Nazism (), formally named National Socialism (NS; , ), is the far-right totalitarian socio-political ideology and practices associated with Adolf Hitler and the Nazi Party (NSDAP) in Germany. During Hitler's rise to power, it was frequ ...

. In April 1934 Johanna Ey gave up running her gallery. She died in Düsseldorf in 1947. Among the artists associated with Ey's gallery were

, Otto Pankok, Gert Heinrich Wollheim, Ulrich Leman, , Adolf Uzarski, Arthur Kaufmann, , , ,

Jankel Adler Jankel Adler (born Jankiel Jakub Adler; 26 July 1895 – 25 April 1949) was a Polish-Jewish avant-garde painter and printmaker active primarily in Germany, France and England. He began his career as an engraver in Belgrade before studying ar ...

, , Franz Monjau, , and Curt Lahs.

Notes

References

*Karcher, Eva (1988). ''Otto Dix 1891-1969: His Life and Works''. Cologne: Benedikt

Taschen Taschen is a luxury art book publisher founded in 1980 by Benedikt Taschen in Cologne, Germany. As of January 2017, Taschen is co-managed by Benedikt Taschen and his eldest daughter, Marlene Taschen. History The company began as Tasch ...

. *Michalski, Sergiusz (1994). ''New Objectivity''. Cologne: Benedikt Taschen. *Schmied, Wieland (1978). ''Neue Sachlichkeit and German Realism of the Twenties''. London: Arts Council of Great Britain.

External links

* Michael Hausmann: ''Johanna Ey: a critical reappraisal.'' University of Birmingham, 2010: http://archiv.ub.uni-heidelberg.de/artdok/volltexte/2013/2351
Painting of Johanna by Otto Dix

* ttp://www.openstreetmap.org/?lat=51.227053&lon=6.774489&zoom=18&layers=M Best seen from Andreasstrasse {{DEFAULTSORT:Ey, Johanna 1864 births 1947 deaths German art dealers German women art collectors 19th-century art collectors 20th-century German art collectors People from the Rhine Province People from Mönchengladbach