We mourn the loss of
Prof. Kasper König
who passed away on August 9, 2024
When Kasper König in 1987 became a professor at the Städelschule and soon thereafter its Rector, he quickly transformed the school. He established the Portikus, an important Kunsthalle associated with the Städelschule and invited many of the most significant artists in Germany and beyond to exhibit their works.
Where did he come from?
In the mid-1960s, Robert Fraser’s gallery was the epicenter of Swinging London. Artists, musicians and the entire European jet set gathered at the openings – it was here that Peter Blake was commissioned to make the record cover for The Beatles’ Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band. It was here that Richard Hamilton accepted the commission to design the White Album.
In 1965, a twenty-two-year-old intern, Kasper, from the small German town Mettingen arrived at the gallery. He soon received the task to transport a Francis Picabia painting to New York. There he immediately got to know Andy Warhol and was given a job at The Factory.
Being in the right place at the right time has always been crucial. The young Kasper König was good at it. Three years later, not yet twenty-five years old, he was one of the curators of Warhol’s first museum exhibition. It opened in the spring of 1968 at the Moderna Museet in Stockholm.
The museum’s director, Pontus Hultén, became König’s mentor and appointed the young German to be his museum’s representative in New York.
König came from a family of entrepreneurs. He had no formal education, never even made the German Abitur. None the less, he became one of the art world’s most inspiring and original impresarios, a role model for generations of younger curators.
What was König’s strength?
To begin with, he was always on the artists’ side. He never tried to push his own ideas on them but followed them in the direction their art took them. And they followed him.
He was an unpretentious and playful sidekick to the artists, never a bureaucrat. But he eventually also became a power player at the highest level, despite the fact that for most of his life he was not responsible for any major museum.
After decades of freelancing as a curator of unnumerable famous exhibitions, König became professor of public art in Düsseldorf in 1985. Three years later he moved to the Städelschule and established the Portikus.
In 2000, he left to become director of the Museum Ludwig in Cologne but stayed at the Städelschule as an honorary professor.
We, his colleagues at the Städelschule and the Portikus, are thankful for all his important contributions he made to our institutions. We owe him a lot and will miss his inspiring manner, which has shaped us all.