Kasper König

Rudolf Hans "Kasper" König (; 21 November 1943 – 9 August 2024) was a German museum director and curator. He curated exhibitions of works by Claes Oldenburg and Andy Warhol in the 1960s, initiated the Skulptur Projekte Münster in the 1970s, founded the Portikus hall and became a professor at the Städelschule in Frankfurt in the 1980s, and was director of the Museum Ludwig in Cologne from 2000 to 2012.

Early life Rudolf Hans König

From 1973 to 1975, König taught as an associate professor at the Nova Scotia College of Art and Design in Halifax, Canada.

Personal life König was married to Ilka Schellenberg who was the daughter of Walter Schellenberg. Their son is the New York City-based art gallerist Leo Koenig. He was later married to the actress . Their son Johann König is a Berlin-based art dealer. The marriage ended in divorce. His third wife, Barbara Weiss, a gallerist from Berlin, died in 2016. His fourth wife was Heidi Specker.

Legacy Before his death, König donated around 50 works from his art collection to Museum Ludwig, In 2024, shortly after his death, around 400 works sold from König's private holdings – including works by Richard Artschwager, Thomas Bayrle, William Copley, On Kawara and Sigmar Polke – raised around €6 million ($6.5 million) during a series of sales that took place at the headquarters of Van Ham auction house in Cologne. Kawara’s May 7, 1967, the sale’s top lot, went for €1.06 million with fees, setting a record for one of the artist’s date-centered works

Exhibitions 1966: Claes Oldenburg, at Moderna Museet in Stockholm 1993: Der zerbrochene Spiegel, Kunsthalle Wien, Deichtorhallen Hamburg, with Hans Ulrich Obrist

Awards 2000: Award for Curatorial Excellence from the Center for Curatorial Studies, Bard College 2009: Lifetime Achievement Award from the Guggenheim Foundation