Clemens Jöckle

Clemens Jöckle (15 April 1950 – 2 June 2014) was a German art historian.

From 2001 to 2012, he was the director of the Städtische Galerie Speyer.

Jöckle was born in Wasserlos.

His career was bumpy at first.

Jöckle wrote several art books and compiled an encyclopaedia of saints.

He wrote numerous monographs and brochures on artists and buildings as well as exhibition catalogues.

For the Allgemeines Künstlerlexikon, he edited the Palatinate artists.

Jöckle endeavoured to promote art and artists and to contribute to the understanding of art.

He appeared as a speaker at exhibition openings in Speyer and its environs at museums, art associations and galleries.

He was a member of the board of trustees of the Speyer Cultural Foundation as well as chairman of the Arbeitsgemeinschaft Pfälzer Künstler.

In 2001, Jöckle was appointed sole director of the Städtische Galerie Speyer.

After a long political discussion, the gallery had been established in a building complex belonging to the city of Speyer, next to the Altes Stadtsaal, which was used as a children's and youth theatre and alternative cinema.

Both buildings, located behind the old town hall, together with the Zimmertheater Speyer and the Winkeldruckerey, which were also located there, formed the so-called Kulturhof Speyer.

The Städtische Galerie was run with professional opening hours, whereas many municipal galleries only opened by the day and then by the hour, and achieved maximum closing times of one week between exhibitions.

Jöckle did not want a gallery with a bar; the focus was not to be on the encounter with the wine glass, but with art.

Between its opening on 23 July 2001 and 2012, the gallery hosted almost a hundred exhibitions, including paintings by painters such as Marc Chagall, Henri Matisse and Antonio Saura as well as great Palatine painters such as Hans Purrmann, Anselm Feuerbach and Max Slevogt.

After the fall of the Wall, Jöckle organised the first western exhibition of the young New Leipzig School.

The gallery's basic programme consisted of a variety of thematic exhibitions, best-of exhibitions by young artists, anniversary exhibitions and, time and again, the presentation of otherwise inaccessible private collections.

In July 2012, he was appointed by the Mainz Ministry of Culture to prepare the planned large Wittelsbach exhibition at Villa Ludwigshöhe Palace from the beginning of 2013.

This did not happen due to a severe stroke in autumn 2012, as a result of which he died on 2 June 2014 at the age of 64.

Jöckle's grave is located in the Speyer cemetery.

The designation FamOT on the gravestone means that Clemens Jöckle was a lay member of the Teutonic Order (Ordo Teutonicus).