"In 2008, I had only been at the Kunstmuseum Bonn for a very short time when I received the sad news that the lenders of the painting by August Macke, Stillleben mit Apfelschale und japanischem Fächer, were withdrawing this work from the Museum in order to auction it.
It is a very important work by August Macke, because it very clearly shows the influence of Matisse on his oeuvre and, with the Japanese fan, also the influence of Japonism, which was important for the art scene at that time in the 10s and 20s of the 20th century. It was a catastrophe that was about to happen and that we could not have prevented. We had been offered to buy this work, but of course we didn't have the money. We knew that the work was worth over 1 million and we didn't even have ten percent of the price to buy it. In the midst of this very threatening situation for us, a man called me whom I didn't know at all. He introduced himself as Jürgen Hall and told me unbelievable things, namely that he had not only bought this work at auction - for a respectable 1.6 million - but would also donate it to the museum unconditionally.
As a museum director in such a situation, I was initially suspicious as to what expectations might be attached to this offer. But I realized, and this is still true today, that there were no expectations. It really was purely a patronage act, which was driven by two reasons. The first reason was that Jürgen Hall had gone to school here in Bonn and also had a number of friends here in Bonn and Bad Godesberg.
The second, even more important reason for us was that Jürgen Hall had the wonderful opinion that pictures must be seen in their context, where they can fully unfold their meaning. And that is certainly the case here at the Kunstmuseum Bonn. Apart from Münster, we have the largest collection of August Macke works in the world.
This wonderful collaboration with Jürgen Hall has subsequently continued. In the same year that August Macke's painting returned to us, Jürgen Hall bought Emil Nolde's 1919 work “Nadia” at an auction and gave it to us as a permanent loan. Since then, we have been able to talk to Jürgen Hall about which works would be particularly attractive for the museum. We are a museum that also has an important collection of Gerhard Richter and when a large private collection came onto the market, we were able to arrange with Jürgen Hall for him to buy the important work “Zwei Schwestern” by Gerhard Richter from 1967.
This work is also significant for us because in this picture you can not only see the two sisters mentioned in the title - by the way, somewhat exposed - a motif from this very short, somewhat erotic phase by Gerhard Richter – but also a curtain in the background. This curtain, in turn, is part of our collection, so that the painting “Zwei Schwestern” forms a combination with this work.
After the death of Jürgen Hall, who sadly passed away in 2021, this collaboration with the company Tabakwaren Hall continued thanks to his foster son Michael Reisen-Hall. In 2023, Michael Reisen-Hall bought the important painting by Alexey von Jawlensky, “Mädchen mit Zopf” from 1910, and, after lengthy consideration and discussions with us, gave us this work on permanent loan. The painting fits wonderfully into the context of August Macke and the Rhenish Expressionists.
So you could say that the whole story with Jürgen Hall, from the first donation to the Jawlensky loan, is one wonderful success story and also a very nice story that shows where you can develop a museum if you have collectors who see themselves as genuine and truly charitable patrons."