Kurt Martin (31 January 1899 in Zurich – 27 January 1975 in Bad Wiessee) was a German art historian.
Martin was a professor of art history. His career began in 1927 as curator of the . From 1934 to 1956, he was director of the Staatlichen Kunsthalle Karlsruhe (National Art Gallery Karlsruhe). In 1940 he was appointed Head of the Municipal Museums of Strasbourg as well as Chief Commissioner of the Alsatian Museums. In 1956 he became Director of the Karlsruher Kunstakademie (Academy of Art Karlsruhe), and in 1957 General Director of the Bayerischen Staatsgemäldesammlungen (Bavarian State Painting Collection).
Martin was a Protestant. He was married to Dr. med. Hildegard Wangrin since 1928.
Childhood, adolescence, participation in the war and studies
Kurt Martin was born on 31 January 1899 in Zurich, as the third son of Rudolf Martin (1864–1925), professor of anthropology from Baden, and his wife Anna Hein (1865–1940). In Zurich, he attended elementary school before changing to the École Nouvelle in Lausanne and later to a secondary school in Karlsruhe. There he passed his Abitur (final secondary school examinations) in 1917. He served as a soldier in World War I. In 1920 he started his philosophy studies (among others with Martin Heidegger and Edmund Husserl) and majored in art history (with Hans Jantzen) at the University of Freiburg. He completed his art studies in 1924 at the Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität München with Heinrich Wölfflin (1864–1945) with his PhD thesis on the subject of "Die Nürnberger Steinplastik im 14. Jahrhundert" (The Nuremberger Effigy in the 14th century).
1927 – 1934: Mannheim and Badisches Landesmuseum (Baden State Museum)
Martin started his career in 1927 as a volunteer at the Kunsthalle Mannheim (Art Gallery Mannheim) with Gustav Friedrich Hartlaub. Soon he was appointed research assistant and subsequently curator at the Baden State Museum, Karlsruhe. In 1931 he addressed himself to the task of organizing the exhibition "German Poets as Painters and Drawers" for the Kunstverein (art society) Heidelberg.
Badisches Armeemuseum (Army Museum of Baden)
In the early 1930s Martin met Robert Wagner, a confidant of Adolf Hitler and NSDAP politician with whom Martin would have to do until 1945.
In the autumn of 1933 Wagner commissioned Martin with the development and organization of an army museum of Baden. Together with the retired Colonel Erich Blankenhorn, who had just been dismissed as chief of the Badische Landespolizei (State Police of Baden) by the new rulers, he built up an independent museum under the aegis of the Baden State Museum Karlsruhe (Badisches Landesmuseum). For this purpose premises were made available in the former stables of the Karlsruhe Palace, the residence of the State museum. On 13 May 1934 Robert Wagner and Kurt Martin inaugurated the museum with 80.000 guests and two days of celebration. Besides departments of the army of the Reich (Reichswehr) and color guards of the military associations, a row of delegations of NS-organizations, including SA, SS and Reich Labor Service (Reichsarbeitsdienst), marched up in the demilitarized zone.
In his opening speech from the balcony of the palace, Martin declared that the museum had benefited from over one thousand donations of military antiques. The museum was not only supposed to include the regiments of Baden, but also the regiments of the earlier 15th Alsatian army corps. The museum was supposed to be a "speaking memorial, teaching everyone the military-political achievements of our frontier people. [...] Here the youth shall learn to respect and understand the achievements of their fathers." Wagner said about the purposes of the museum: "What is given to the public today in the shape of the Army Museum is nothing else than an intellectual legacy from a time of struggling and fighting for our Germany for the struggle and fight for our Germany." In reality, the exhibition was nothing more than a "Potemkin village". Erich Blankenhorn commented on the state of the museum on the date of the opening and said that due to the short preparation period "it was only possible to decorate the first royal stables with historically incoherent paintings and objects." For that reason the museum was closed one day after the opening.
1934: Staatliche Kunsthalle Karlsruhe (National Art Gallery Karlsruhe)
On 2 July 1934 Wagner appointed Martin head of the Staatliche Kunsthalle Karlsruhe (National Art Gallery Karlsruhe). He succeeded Hans Adolf Bühler, who was loyal to the party line and whose management of the museum was characterized by a radical opposition to the so-called degenerate art. Martin remained head of the Staatliche Kunsthalle until 1956.