Fisher, Otto (art critic)

Otto Fischer was born on May 22, 1886 in Reutlingen in the family of Ernst Fischer (1854–1922), a member of the commercial council, and his wife, Anna Fischer (née Linder). Like his brothers and sisters, Otto attended the Reutlingen Lateinschule School; later, his parents sent him to a boarding school in Bad Kreuznach , where he successfully passed the matriculation exams in 1904. In the summer semester of the same year, he began to study law at the University of Tübingen and became a member of the Igel Tübingen student fraternity. He changed his specialization after the first semester - he began to study art history and archeology ; then he went to Munich and until the fall of 1906 he studied at a local university . Before Easter, 1907 he studied at the University of Vienna - was one of the students of Professor Julius von Schlosser (1866-1938).

In December 1907, Fischer, under the guidance of Heinrich Wölflin , defended his dissertation on the topic “On Ancient German Painting in Salzburg ” and received a Ph.D. This was followed by his trips to France and Italy . Since 1909, Fischer studied Chinese painting : he wrote the first essay on East Asian art as a review - a year after the famous Munich exhibition in 1909. He believed that - although the exhibition "opened its eyes to little-known art" - acquaintance could only be called superficial. The second essay, written in 1911 on the theory of Chinese art, became a harbinger of his doctoral dissertation, defended in 1912 at the philological and historical department of the Faculty of Philosophy at the University of Gottingen . After World War I, he re-defended his dissertation, publishing it in 1923 - the book survived a number of reprints.

No later than 1911, Otto Fischer joined a group of artists who regularly visited Marianne Verevkina in her “Pink Salon”. Thanks to a series of publications in professional magazines and mass periodicals, Fisher became famous, which helped him in his professional career. In the same year, he became a member of the New Munich Art Association and a year later wrote the work “Das neue Bild”, in which he analyzed the work of many members of the association, including Alexander Mogilevsky .

After the Great War, Fischer opened a second-hand bookstore in Munich; around 1920, he became director of the Württemberg Museum of Fine Arts in Stuttgart . With financial support from the German Science Foundation and the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the Weimar Republic , in 1925 he embarked on a research trip that passed through Siberia to Korea , Japan , and China , where he became the "honorary adviser" to the government in Beijing . In 1926, he met with the artist Qi Baishi (1861-1957), whose exhibition he organized at the 1930 Berlin Secession . On the way back, the art critic visited Java and Bali .

In 1927, Fischer became director of the Basel Museum of Art - the successor to Friedrich Rintelen (1881-1926). At the same time, Fisher received the position of extraordinary professor at the University of Basel . To build a new museum building, opened in 1936, an art critic invited Professor Paul Bonatz (1877-1956) to Basel in Stuttgart. After almost ten years as director, Fischer was forced to leave the museum service due to his health condition: in 1938 he moved with his family to Ascona (canton of Ticino ), where he continued his literary studies and wrote several books. In 1945, Fisher became seriously ill and returned to Basel, where he died on April 9, 1948.

• Das neue Bild. Veröffentlichung der Neuen Künstlervereinigung München. Delphin, München 1912.
• Chinesische Landschaftsmalerei. Kurt Wolff, München 1923.
• Die Kunst Indiens, Chinas und Japans (= Propylaen-Kunstgeschichte. Bd. 4). Propyläen, Berlin 1928.
• Wanderfahrten eines Kunstfreundes in China und Japan. Deutsche Verlags-Anstalt, Stuttgart / Berlin 1939.
• Kunstwanderungen auf Java und Bali. Deutsche Verlags-Anstalt, Stuttgart / Berlin 1941.

• Hilde Flory-Fischer: Otto Fischer: Ein Kunsthistoriker des zwanzigsten Jahrhunderts, Reutlingen 1886-Basel 1948, Hrsg. von der Stadt Reutlingen. Reutlinger Geschichtsverein, Reutlingen 1986.
• Heinrich Geissler, Martin Kaulbach: Otto Fischer. Kunstgelehrter und Museumsmann 1886-1948, Ausstellung der Staatsgalerie Stuttgart (Alte Staatsgalerie), 20.3. - 11.5.1986, Stuttgart: Staatsgalerie, Graphische Sammlung 1986.
• Annegret Hoberg: “Neue Künstlervereinigung München” and “Blauer Reiter”. In: Ausstellungskatalog: Annegret Hoberg, Helmut Friedel (Hrsg.): Der Blaue Reiter und das Neue Bild: Von der “Neuen Künstlervereinigung München” zum “Blauen Reiter”, Prestel, München 1999.
• Nikolaus Meier: Ars una: Der Kunsthistoriker Otto Fischer. In: “Reutlinger Geschichtsblätter”, Neue Folge, Bd. 50 (2011), S. 147-208.
• Arno Piechorowski: Ein Gelehrtenleben für Museum und Wissenschaft. In: Otto Fischer: Ein Kunsthistoriker des zwanzigsten Jahrhunderts, Reutlingen 1886-Basel 1948, Reutlingen 1986.

• Ein Deutscher marschierte mit Mao: Kontakte zwischen zwei Völkern - Lehrer, Händler, Generale (German) // Der Spiegel. - 1972.- 16 Oktobers ( Bd. 43 ).