Friends for the Arts of East Asia in Berlin

In 1926 the Gesellschaft für Ostasiatische Kunst (Society for East Asian Art, GOK for short) was established as the first society of Friends of the Ostasiatische Kunstsammlung (East Asian Art Collection), a forerunner of the Museum für Asiatische Kunst. This temporary presentation drawn from museum holdings and long-term loans from the collection of the Deutsche Gesellschaft für Ostasiatische Kunst (German Society for East Asian Art, DGOK for short), re-established and named in the spirit of the former society in 1990, celebrates 100 years of engagement with and for the arts of East Asia in Berlin by members of the civilian society.

In the 1920s the Friends supported the museum in many ways: by underwriting acquisitions, loans from members’ collections, advice and feed-back as well as by organising major presentations of East Asian Art such as the Ausstellung Chinesischer Kunst (Exhibition of Chinese Art) in 1928 and Japanische Malerei der Gegenwart (Contemporary Japanese Painting) in 1931, both displayed at Akademie der Künste located at Pariser Platz. They contributed to the publishing expenses of the journal “Ostasiatische Zeitschrift” which had been initiated by the first museum curator-director, Otto Kümmel (1874 – 1952) and his assistant, the scholar William Cohn (1880 – 1961), The Friends officially took over the role of editor when the latter’s names had to be dropped after the Nazi rise to power, because Cohn was Jewish. Fascist rule was disastrous for the society of Friends, and even more so for many of its Jewish members who suffered from persecution, exile, multiple losses or even death during the Holocaust. Since the museum building was hit and severely damaged by a bomb and the major part of collections were relocated after the Second World War to the U.S.S.R. where they presumably remain to this day, the short and variegated history of the first society of friends came to an end in 1945.