He was one of the earliest and most important patrons of contemporary art in Munich: the gallery owner and collector Heiner Friedrich. Now he was honored in Munich with the Federal Cross of Merit. Minister of Art Markus Blume had the certificate handed over by his head of office, but emphasized: “You have rendered outstanding service to contemporary art in Bavaria like hardly anyone else, by anchoring the works of nationally and internationally renowned artists here and making them shine.” Heiner Friedrich opened his first gallery in Munich in 1963 together with his then wife Six and Franz Dahlem, showed German artists such as Baselitz, Beuys, Polke and Richter, and brought the American avant-garde such as Chamberlain, Flavin, Twombly and Warhol to Europe. In the early 1970s he went to New York, where he co-founded the Dia Art Foundation in 1974. Walter de Maria’s “Lightning Field” in New Mexico in 1977, the “Vertical Earth Kilometer” in the same year and Joseph Beuys’ “7000 Oaks” in 1982, both Documenta installations in Kassel, the Andy Warhol Museum in Pittsburgh in 1994 and the Cy Twombly Gallery in Houston in 1995 were based on his initiatives. In 2011, Heiner Friedrich founded the Das Maximum foundation in Traunreut, which maintains a museum for contemporary art on the Friedrich family’s former factory site.
Federal Cross of Merit for art collector Heiner Friedrich – Munich
