Written by: Elena Lanzanova

The Reinhold Wurth Collection: The Ascending Parable From The German Typhoon

Wednesday 2 April 2008

Article translated by Amritee Mahabir

It was not long ago that the German industrialist, Reinhold Wurth, discovered his great passion. It was the start of the seventies and a promising young man was approaching the world of art, showing interest in the german painter Emil Nolde, in German expressionism, to then push himself towards contemporary art, but also turning his eye to German Renaissance art. Reinhold Wurth is known worldwide for his screw business, established as one of one hundred richest men on the planet, according to the ranking drafted each year by the American magazine, Forbes.

An atypical and particular man, he begins his ascending parable in 1954 when at the age of nineteen, he redirected the business after his father’s premature death. In the following years, Wurth manages to transform the small family run tool shop into a true multinational business, world leader in the production of various fasteners. One could insinuate that his great love for art followed, almost parallel to, the expansion of the business. In fact, in the sixties, Wurth became passionate about art and began a collection following only his instinct, personal taste and his country’s art history. Since the beginning, he was especially passionate for single works, without taking a precise route or having the will to achieve a strong artistic-cultural project from which he gathered genuine transport of the subject.

Until the sixties, his “hobby” became his passion, his work, maniacal research; he produced a “modest” private collection that included more than 10,500 works, constantly adding new acquisitions. His first love is German expressionism, and the Die Bruke group with works by Max Liebermann, Ernst Ludwing Kirchner, Emil Nolde, Max Beckmann, but also artists like Edvard Munch and some post impressionist French artists. After this, Wurth became fascinated by abstractism and in particular, Ecole de Paris and active painters after the fourties. Following the eighties, he began to frequently collect sculptures of which the works of Henry Moore, Tony Cragg and Anish Kapoor are prominent. But his fundamental passion lies and will always lie in paintings even in European neo-figurative declensions like the German Neo-expressionists and the Transavant-garde.

Wurth’s industrial empire, world famous for producing fastening screws, would seem to have little to do with art, of each epoch and origin, but is in fact a trademark recognised by his own Foundation and Museum which, for many years now, has promoted culture in every way. The Wurth Foundation in fact organises cultural events in its own spaces of various genres paying particular attention to art, the founder’s first and foremost love. The scheme to bind together the art world with his business came to him in the mid-eighties when the need to construct new central offices in Kunzelsau presented itself. From that moment on, the company’s employees would have worked together with many pieces of art from his collection.

Of even more importance is that a company characterised by a strong artistic presence, could bring positive results even in publicity terms. Let’s note for example, the project to wrap up central offices executed by Christo and Jeanne Claude in 1995, an event that developed into advertising relapses estimated by the group manager to be around one hundred million old German brands. Now the building is visited every year by more than 160 million people and merchandising lines were created on purpose. It’s with this point of view that the Wurth Art Forum was also opened in 2007 in Capena, just outside Rome. It was a well-managed marketing operation capable of offering high level art distributing it as popular publication. The attempt managed to bring as many people as possible closer to art, with free entrance and a captivating supply shop furnished with a fun variety of gadgets singed strictly by Wurth.

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