koenig - art appreciation

Koenig invited students to his house once a year. There was art everywhere. He was a unique professor. Jack Duensing  January 12, 2015

I am thinking of Henry Koenig. He was at the college and I helped him move his paintings across campus.     

It was when I was in high school. He was moving artwork he had in his collection from his office to his house. He lived on Faculty Lane. He had so many pieces in his house. There was hardly a space left on the wall. (laughs)  David Held April 9, 2015

Silver Maples, 1950

He was an English teacher and he had a collection of prints or very good material. He brought those things out for us to see in his art appreciation class. Gerald F. Brommer Jan. 19, 2015

                           Koenig and his collection:

   Koenig's collection of things came to Concordia through his bequest, and his death was sometime after Marx arrived on campus. Only then did it require a caretaker, a job that probably just fell to Marx by default. Actually the term "curator" seems too formal for what he did at the time. 

    Marx and Koenig seem to have had a good relationship. Koenig was not an artist; he was a beloved Humanities professor at Concordia.  Koenig was not a sophisticated art collector. Koenig's eclectic collection—which by all accounts filled his house—consisted of many decorative glass, ceramic, metal objects from many sources (only a small number had much aesthetic or monetary value); many framed reproductions of all kinds of images (even some from magazines); a few oil paintings purchased at department stores; and a number of original lithographs and etchings published by the Associated American Artists in New York in the 30's, and maybe the 40's. Only the latter had and continue to have value, depending on who the artists were. Collection was stored in the gallery area in Weller basement.

    For many years the framed reproductions were rented for a nominal charge to faculty and community people on an annual basis. However, by far the real significance to the University is that it became the start of an important collection of original prints on paper that was developed over the years, mainly through grants and occasional donations...keeping the name the Koenig Collection. I took over responsibilities both for the exhibition program and for the Koenig Collection a year or two after I came to teach at Concordia in 1964 (in exchange for getting rid of having to teach "Children's Art" !)  I saw to it that the collection of original prints was properly cataloged, that all the original prints were correctly matted in archival acid free materials, and that the collection grew with the addition of works on paper by significant contemporary artists. These works are often displayed both in gallery exhibitions and elsewhere on campus today and the current collection has received some recognition in the state.

    Of course, the name of the gallery changed from the Koenig Gallery to the Marxhausen Gallery when its location shifted from Weller basement to the space in Jesse Hall.

    Jim Bockelman has been in charge of the gallery and the collection for some years now.  Dick Wiegman December 31, 2014