It takes a long time to get Carlo Schwind to talk.

And even then, the answers are often short.

When asked, for example, how one becomes an art auctioneer, he first reacts by pointing to a Leitz folder full of forms, before saying: “With nerves and patience”, smiling for a moment and adding: “And be patient with the authorities. And why would you want to become one at an age when others are eyeing their retirement?

Schwind says he didn't want to look any longer, tersely, but without hesitation, as pictures that he once sold as a gallery owner came under the hammer elsewhere - and were often knocked down at prices that he offered his customers at a would definitely have paid for the buyback.

Freddie Langer

Editor in the features section, responsible for the “Reiseblatt”.

  • Follow I follow

The first auction will take place on October 1st at the Kunstauktionshaus Leipzig, which he bought earlier this year and which he wants to reorient from applied art and household goods to fine art.

Karl Marx stares thoughtfully into the distance from the title of the catalogue, which includes 401 lots, a hollow-cast bronze of just his likeness, lots of hair and beard, little face, created in 1953 by the sculptor Fritz Cremer, who is best known for his work on war and concentration camp memorials became.

The illustration does not show that the head is more than seventy centimeters high.

You have to look it up in the catalogue.

Or experience it in Leipzig: there, the presence of the sculpture now determines the entrance to the auction house.

It should cost at least 7500 euros,

which is neither determined by Marx's law of value nor by his labor theory of value, not even by an expert's report.

Rather, it is the minimum amount that the consignor expects.

It's done that way throughout the catalogue, which is why a number of lots are priced in the low triple digits in the hope that demand will fix it.

Other consignors, on the other hand, play it safe.

The call for two large, self-determining nudes by Arno Rink will start at 25,000 euros each, a crowd of people by Werner Tübke, which looks like it came from the Renaissance, at 35,000 euros – and the most expensive picture, “Yellow Summer Evening” with people bathing in a lake by Wolfgang Mattheuer at 80,000 euros.

The four paintings are the eye-catchers among dozens of pictures on the walls of the large and bright auction room, including other prominent artists such as Bernhard Heisig, Wolfgang Peuker, Hartwig Ebersbach and Ulrich Hachulla, all older representatives of the so-called Leipzig School, but also their student Heinz Zander and Gero Künzel, Ulf Puder and Michael Triegel.

The offer makes a coherent impression, with the unmistakable focus on figurative art, which also applies to the large selection of graphics - including as a separate chapter in the catalog sheets from Willi Sitte's estate, mostly personally dedicated gifts from his fellow artists on various occasions, which the lends a special charm to leaves.

If you look back at the career of the gallery owner Carlo Schwind, everything seems to have been harmoniously built on top of each other: from the first exhibition in 1989 with graphics in his small apartment to a gallery in Frankfurt, now at the sixth location, to the opening of branches in Leipzig and Berlin.

But there was never a business plan.

And also no reason to foresee such a development.

Rather, chance often had a hand in the game.

Maybe that's exactly where Carlo Schwind's strength lies, grabbing him at the right moment.

His first picture show was only dedicated to Christian Schad because everyone in Aschaffenburg, Schwind's home town, knew him.

He had advertised her with a classified ad in the "Main-Echo" and given the telephone number of the parents as the contact.

A few weeks later the works were all sold.

The same happened with the drawings by Karl Hubbuch and Franz Masereel, which he now offered in a tiny shop in Frankfurt's Bornheim district.

The Städel was even among the customers.

The move to the vicinity of the Museum of Modern Art in the center of Frankfurt followed promptly;

the gallery program began to gain profile.