Max Creutz

Max Creutz (8 December 1876 – 13 March 1932) was a German art historian and curator of the Museum für Angewandte Kunst Köln and the Kaiser-Wilhelm-Museum in Krefeld where he worked from 1922 until his death.

In Krefeld, he succeeded in acquiring modern art exhibits, including works by Max Ernst, Wassily Kandinsky, and Alexej von Jawlensky.

In 1912, Creutz was on the organizing committee of the Internationale Kunstausstellung des Sonderbundes Westdeutscher Kunstfreunde und Künstler in Cologne, bringing together more than 600 artworks from artists like Van Gogh, Munch, Picasso, Cézanne, Kirchner and others.

[14][15] In addition to important individual works such as Marine verte (1925) by Max Ernst,[16] Sintflut (1912) by Wassily Kandinsky,[12] the Symphonie Schwarz-Rot (1929) by Alexej von Jawlensky,[14] works by Karl Schmidt-Rottluff, Ernst Ludwig Kirchner, Erich Heckel, Heinrich Nauen and Heinrich Campendonk were added.

[18] In 1923 Creutz succeeded in bringing a travelling model exhibition of Deutscher Werkbund to Krefeld, presenting over 2000 objects and graphic works from the Deutsches Museum für Kunst in Handel und Gewerbe [de].

[15][19] It consisted of works by the most important modern artists, architects and designers from the period 1900 to 1914, making Krefeld one of the few collections representing the Bauhaus movement.

[20] In 1923, Creutz commissioned Johan Thorn-Prikker to paint monumental murals for his museum, depicting four phases of life from childhood to maturity.

He did not have to witness how an essential part of his life's work was destroyed in 1937 by the Nazis' expropriation and sale of the Expressionist collection of the Kaiser Wilhelm Museum.

[12] The paintings Pierrot mit Schlange by Campendonk and Emil Nolde's Milking Cows (1913) returned to Krefeld after World War II.