Dresden (dpa / sn) – The entrepreneur and patron Arend Oetker receives the Saxon Order of Merit. The ceremony will take place on September 26 in Leipzig, as the State Chancellery in Dresden announced on Wednesday. The 83-year-old is “a tireless and generous supporter of art and culture in the Free State”. He is one of the founders and chairman of the board of trustees of the Leipzig Gallery for Contemporary Art (GfZK), and is involved in art education projects.
Oetker, a great-grandson of the founder of the well-known German family dynasty, is also spokesman for the Board of Trustees of the Leipzig Bach Archive Foundation. The award also recognizes his commitment to the trade fair and the business school, which, thanks to him, has had a chair in business psychology since 2015, which deals with questions of the public interest orientation of companies and organizations.
As chairman of the culture group in the Federation of German Industries (1991-1999), he was also said to have been instrumental in securing ownership of more than 50 important works by contemporary artists who had not submitted to the guidelines of GDR cultural policy, and by representatives of post-war West German modernism were transferred to the GfZK. And on the day of the award ceremony, Oetker becomes the canon of St. Thomae – in recognition of his achievements in expanding the foundation’s capital stock.
