„A magic dwells in each beginning”, Hermann Hesse once wrote. When the art gallery Commeter moved into its first premises in the Johannisstraße, nearly 200 years ago, in October 1821, it was the first business of its kind in Hamburg/Germany. Compared to the following years, the early times of the gallery were even more important, because dealing in art and artistic objects had a more important impact and meaning back in those days, compared to nowadays.
Till 1847, both founders, Ernst Georg Harzen (1790 – 1862) and Johann Matthias Commeter (1791 – 1869), have had a major influence in Hamburg’s cultural life. With the legacy of the two internationally renowned art dealers and collectors the Hanseatic city received 30.000 prints and drawings, among others from Dürer, Rembrandt and Raffael, that laid the foundation for the world famous collection of prints and drawings, the Kunsthalle Hamburg exhibits today. “Without Harzen and Commeter, a profounder artistic education in Hamburg could not have been acquired”, Alfred Lichtwark, the first Director of the Kunsthalle in Hamburg, mentioned later on. The gallery remained a defining institution in Hamburg's art scene even after the founding period: in 1847, Wilhelm Becker and Christian Meyer, long-time employees, took over the art gallery, which by then resided at Neuer Wall 29. They were succeeded by Wilhelm Suhr in 1878. He moved the business premises to Hermannstraße, offered a forum to the Hamburg Realists and Impressionists promoted by Alfred Lichtwark and led the gallery into the dawn of modernism. In this important era, Commeter was the first gallery to show Munch, Nolde and the Expressionists of the ‘Brücke’ in Hamburg. Wilhelm Suhr brought his son on board as a partner as early as 1897. Under the management of Wilhelm Suhr Junior, the gallery and the associated art publishing house found a new home in 1908 in a splendid Art Nouveau building in Hermannstrasse, right next to Hamburg City Hall. A large commercial building in the city centre dedicated solely to the art trade! That would be unthinkable today. No wonder Gustav Pauli, Lichtwark's successor at the Kunsthalle, gave his foreword to the anniversary publication in 1921 the title ‘The art trade in the service of culture’. In 1952, Andreas Suhr took over the gallery for a brief period. He was succeeded in 1969 by his daughter Hella Suhr and her husband Bernd Sommer, who dedicated their first two exhibitions to Dali and Hrdlicka, but also cultivated the gallery's old contacts with the ‘Brücke’ painters. The sceptre of management was passed on from Hella Suhr in 1997, naturally within the family: Carola Persiehl, whose great-great-grandfather Wilhelm had once taken over the Commeter'sche Kunsthandlung, still runs the business today. And with her, the gallery has arrived at the centre of contemporary art: The Commeter Gallery is home to artists such as Jochen Hein, Stephan Heggelke, Maria Ikonomopoulou, Minjung Kim, Katarzyna Kot, Nikolai Makarov, Rupprecht Matthies, Klaus Schweier, Li Trieb, Lei Xue, Lars Zech and Zoyt with paintings and sculptures. In 2007, Carola Persiehl also founded the sister gallery Persiehl & Heine together with Oliver Heine, which specialises in photographs by contemporary artists and shows exhibitions with works by Amanda Means, Mathias Bothor, Laurent Chéhère, Kenro Izu, Silke Lauffs, Robert Lebeck, Beba Lindhorst, Sarah Moon, Christian Schoppe, Michael Schnabel, Alex Timmermans and Gregor Törzs. Her programme is based on an attitude that has characterised the gallery from the very beginning: ‘You have to fall in love with a picture if you want to recommend it,’ says Carola Persiehl about her work. And adds that knowledge of contemporary art and art history, as well as many business contacts, are of course also important. But that (almost) runs in the family. The magic inherent in all beginnings has thus survived to the present day: Enthusiasm for art and business acumen, the combination of idealism and knowledge with the pragmatic maxim that even the good, the true and the beautiful have their price - this is the legacy of Harzen and Commeter. It has been preserved through all the vicissitudes of history and forms the solid foundation for all the ‘art things’ that we will be able to discover in Commeter's in the future.
