COLOGNE.- In 2014, the Munich-based Galerie Thomas celebrated its 50th anniversary. In 2016 it has been awarded the prize of
ART COLOGNE, which is this year taking place for the 50th time. Galerie Thomas has been an exhibitor from the start. The ART COLOGNE Prize is awarded jointly each year by the German association of galleries and art dealers (BVDG) and Koelnmesse for exceptional performance in the communication of art. The prize will be awarded in the presence of invited guests on Thursday, 14 April 2016 at 10:00 a.m. in the historic city hall of Cologne.
Following a programme of study in architecture, Raimund Thomas realised an unusual idea for becoming familiar with the gallery scene of the time: he travelled to the world's important art trade centres over the course of a year. This started in 1961 with a half-year stay in London, where he visited all galleries and many artists in their studios. He started with the Marlborough gallery, for which he brought a letter of recommendation from Ernst Wilhelm Nay. He purchased his first painting from him – the initial impulse for the wish to found his own gallery.
Raimund Thomas continued his Tour d´Horizon for two additional months in America and, especially in New York, established contact with the leading gallery owners of the time: Sidney Janis, Illeana Sonnabend and the legendary Leo Castelli. He finally parked a caravan in Versailles in France and drove to Paris everyday to explore the museums and art landscape there.
The born Rhinelander deepened the experiences acquired with several semesters of art history in Munich. He opened his gallery there in the Maximilianstraße in 1964, and since then it has developed into one of the leading addresses for modern art, German Expressionism and international contemporary art. Only recently was the old main gallery vacated in favour of more space in the Türkenstraße, directly opposite the Museum Brandhorst and in the middle of the Munich art district.
The long list of exhibitions of the gallery includes nearly all of the names of artists of central importance for German art history of the 20th century. In addition to the painting of Willi Baumeister, Max Ernst, Erich Heckel, Wassily Kandinsky, Gabriele Münter, Otto Mueller and Karl Schmidt-Rottluff, the attention of Raimund Thomas was also always directed toward sculpture, with Ernst Barlach, Lothar Fischer and the Spaniard Chillida. With Louise Nevelson, Frank Stella and Tom Wesselmann, American artists were also considered.
In 1987 Raimund Thomas founded an art museum, the A 11 Art Forum, in the space once occupied by a large bakery. Here he primarily wanted to provide contemporary artists with an opportunity for exhibitions and installations outside of the commercial gallery world. "What I earned in the Maximilianstraße, I spent in the A 11 Art Forum“, according to Raimund Thomas. Prior to the closing of this ambitious but no longer privately financeable project in 1990, a collection with works of Joseph Beuys, artists of the Transavanguardia, including Francesco Clemente, Enzo Cucchi, Nicola de Maria and Mimmo Paladino, and, already in 1988, works by young Chinese artists was shown here, as were other works. Jean Michel Basquiat and Keith Haring also made their first Munich appearances in the A 11 Art Forum.
Accompanying the exhibits, Galerie Thomas issued more than 200 publications. Examples of these include the weighty volumes on the lithographic oeuvre of Picasso, on sculptures by Botero, on the artistic parallels between E.L. Kirchner and Edvard Munch or the five volume "Masterpieces" series on Max Beckmann, Alexej von Jawlensky, Paul Klee, Fernand Leger, Emil Nolde, Chaim Soutine and many other artists.
The continuation of the decades of art communication activities of the gallery is not least ensured by Raimund Thomas' daughter Silke. With the goal of maintaining the tradition of modernity and setting new accents for contemporary art, the art historian joined the company 20 years ago and was able to recruit an artist as important as Rebecca Horn. The duo of father and daughter thus intensifies the professionalism, expertise and the highest degree of enthusiasm for the visual arts.
With Raimund Thomas, the ART COLOGNE Prize honours a founding member of the "Kunstmarkt Köln", the predecessor of today's ART COLOGNE. Since 1967, Galerie Thomas has been one of the permanent exhibitors of the world's first trade fair for modern and contemporary art. Collectors and visitors look forward every year to the imaginative designs of the stands, which often revolve around a special theme, and in which the creative side of the architect Raimund Thomas can shine.
