Gustav Zumsteg

Gustav Zumsteg
Born(1915-10-11)11 October 1915
Zürich, Switzerland
Died17 June 2005(2005-06-17) (aged 89)
Zürich, Switzerland
Occupations
ParentHulda Zumsteg (mother)

Gustav Zumsteg (11 October 1915 – 17 June 2005) was a Swiss art collector, silk merchant and restaurateur. He was the owner of the restaurant Kronenhalle in Zürich.[1]

Early life

Gustav Zumsteg was born in Zürich to Hulda Zumsteg, owner of the Kronenhalle restaurant.[2] He had an older sister, Hedi. His father died when Gustav was eight weeks old.

Professional life

Silk trading house Ludwig Abraham & Co

In 1931 he joined as an apprentice at the silk trading house Ludwig Abraham & Co - a business founded in 1863 under the name Königsberger, Rüdenberg & Co.[3] in Krefeld, Germany,[4] and that moved to Zürich where Jakob Abraham became a partner in 1878.[3]

From 1936, Zumsteg lived in Paris, where he met the artists and couturiers personally. He also managed Abraham's Paris subsidiary from 1941 on, became the chief designer and in 1943 a partner in the company.[5][6] In 1957 he met Yves Saint Laurent, whose collections were henceforth influenced by Zumsteg's designs and Abraham's fabrics.[2]

In 1968, after the resignation of Ludwig Abraham, Zumsteg became the sole proprietor and director of the silk company.[4] He mainly focused on textiles for haute couture and began Abraham's collaboration with well known Parisian fashion houses[7] — not just with Cristóbal Balenciaga[8] but also Christian Dior, Hubert de Givenchy, Coco Chanel, and Emanuel Ungaro.[4] Abraham's Ltd will become one of the major suppliers of fabrics to the house of Saint Laurent.[9]

However, the company itself did not manufacture the silk fabrics.[10] The production was outsourced to manufactories in France and Italy who implemented the work of Paris and Lyon based design teams led by Zumsteg.[11]

From 1970s on, the market for Haute Couture has gradually vanished due to the global end-of-an-era changes with cheaper silk prints from Asia and the rising mass market with easier to care for fabrics that did not need tailoring.[10] With the design of prints for the high end of the ready-to-wear market, Zumsteg adjusted the business to the new situation.[12]

By the 1990s, the silk company was operating at a loss, even after Zumsteg's injections from his personal fortune.[10] After the 40-year collaboration with Abraham's longest client Yves Saint Laurent[4] came to an end in 1995[12] and no successor to Zumsteg was found, Abraham's Ltd. ceased operations in 2002.[4]

Restaurant "Kronenhalle" and art collecting

After the death of his mother, Hulda Zumsteg, in 1957, he took over the management of the restaurant Kronenhalle.[13]

As an art collector until his death in 2005, he ensured that guests could dine in his Zürich restaurant surrounded by the works of world-famous artists -among others Joan Miró, Marc Chagall, Pierre Bonnard, Georges Braque, Alberto Giacometti and Jean Tinguely.[1][14]

His private collection was auctioned in Zurich in 2006.[15][16]

References

  1. ^ a b Studer, Margaret (9 June 2006). "Dining With Modernism's Masters". Wall Street Journal. Retrieved 5 May 2022.
  2. ^ a b Times, Susan Heller Anderson Special To the New York (16 March 1980). "Food, Fabric, Art: Gustav Zumsteg's Three Lives; Some Distinguished Guests Fabrics for Saint Laurent". The New York Times. Retrieved 5 May 2022.
  3. ^ a b Soie pirate. Zürich: Scheidegger & Spiess. 2010. ISBN 978-3-85881-724-2.
  4. ^ a b c d e Jacobs, Laura (28 May 2011). "Fashion's Eternal Flame". Wall Street Journal. Retrieved 3 June 2022.
  5. ^ "The Design Library | Abraham Paper Impression Collection". design-library.com. Retrieved 3 June 2022.
  6. ^ "Art". Kronenhalle Restaurant & Bar (in French). Retrieved 2024-11-16. En tant que véritable esthète, Gustav Zumsteg offrait régulièrement à la Kronenhalle, dès les années 1940, des œuvres d'art de sa propre collection
  7. ^ Nick Foulkes (12 March 2018). "A rare interview with Hubert de Givenchy". Financial Times. Retrieved 3 June 2022.
  8. ^ Jacobs, Laura (8 February 2013). "The Mortal Weight of the Dress". Wall Street Journal. Retrieved 3 June 2022.
  9. ^ Morris, Bernadine (6 December 1983). "Gala Night at MET hails Saint Laurent". The New York Times. Retrieved 3 June 2022.
  10. ^ a b c Isobel Leybold-Johnson (25 October 2010). "The rise and fall of a silk empire". SWI swissinfo.ch. Retrieved 3 June 2022.
  11. ^ Zitzmann, Marc (9 September 2021). "Yves Saint Laurent: Neue Ausstellung in Paris über seine Stoffe". NZZ (in Swiss High German). Retrieved 14 June 2022.
  12. ^ a b "Silks & Prints from the Abraham archive: Couture in Colour / MoMu Antwerp". MoMu Antwerp. 30 March 2018. Retrieved 3 June 2022.
  13. ^ Cansino, Barbara (4 January 1987). "Zurich's haven of genius and joviality". The New York Times.
  14. ^ Groppo, Pierre (2019-03-18). "Quand Gustav Zumsteg conviait l'avant-garde de la mode et de l'art dans son restaurant". Vanity Fair (in French). Retrieved 2024-11-16.
  15. ^ "Les trésors d'un roi de la soie en vente - Le Temps" (in French). 2006-06-24. ISSN 1423-3967. Retrieved 2024-11-16.
  16. ^ "COLLECTION D'UN GRAND AMATEUR D'ART" (PDF). 67 œuvres de la collection privée de Gustave Zumsteg vont être mises en vente en faveur d'une fondation d'utilité publique Christie's Zürich, le 27 juin 2006

Further reading