Wiesbaden (dpa/lhe) – The Frankfurt literature professor Anne Hügelkamp-Renken will receive the Hessian Culture Prize for the year 2022. As Prime Minister Boris Rhein (CDU) announced in Wiesbaden on Wednesday, the merits of the director of the Goethe House and the German Romantic Museum will be recognized in Frankfurt for literature and research. “Anne Hügelkamp-Renken is a highly respected literary scholar who, with her tireless commitment to art, culture and education, has rendered great service not only to the city of Frankfurt but also to the whole of Hesse,” said Rhein.
The award has been presented by the state of Hesse since 1982 and is endowed with 45,000 euros. According to the State Chancellery, it is the most valuable culture prize in Germany. Most recently, the two Frankfurt architects Andrea Wandel and Wolfgang Lorch were honored with it in 2019, but the prize was not awarded in the pandemic years 2020 and 2021. Previous winners include director Volker Schlöndorff (1987), philosopher Jürgen Habermas (1999) and writer Florian Illies (2003).
Biegenkamp-Renken has been the director of the Freies Deutsches Hochstift in Frankfurt since 2003, which includes the German Romantic Museum, which opened in 2021. Since 2012 she has also been working as a professor for modern German literature at the Goethe University in Frankfurt.
“Thanks to her, we now have the world’s first museum in Frankfurt dedicated to the entire Romantic era, which is so important for art, culture and the humanities,” said Rhein. Bonenkamp-Renken played a key role in driving the idea and financing it forward. A unique place of culture was created with a radiance far beyond national borders. Rhein also highlighted the literary scholar’s research projects on the hybrid edition of Goethe’s “Faust” and the editions of Clemens Brentano’s works and letters.
