The Pinakothek der Moderne To Show Glass from the Gral Glasworks

Written by Gunther Richter Monday, 20 June 2011 22:36

Munich.- The Pinakothek der Moderne in Munich presents "Gralglas 1930-1981: An Example of German Design" from July 1st through September 18th. Blazing light, mystical spirituality, magical allure, life-giving chalice – the ‘Grail’ is the stuff of many legends. And a Swabian family company claimed the German word ‘Gral’ for itself and used it as an expression of its fascination with the material of glass. For more than half a century, the Gral glassworks was one of the leading German glass manufacturers of the 20th century.

With the support of one of the major Modernist glass artists, Wilhelm von Eiff, professor at the Kunstgewerbeschule in Stuttgart, the Gral glass workshops in Göppingen developed into one of the most advanced finishing plants for cutting and engraving until WWII. In keeping with the ideals of the Deutscher Werkbund and influenced by the modern style of Northern Europe, Gralglas evolved into a glassworks in its own right during the post-war period, by this time based in Dürnau. The high quality, plain objectivity, clear functionality and affordability of its glass products were a symbol of Gute Form (good design) – and were soon to be found in representative official residences of the still young Federal Republic of Germany. The standard and status of the Gral glassworks was roughly comparable internationally with the Daum glass company in France, Iittala in Finland, Orrefors in Sweden, Leerdam in the Netherlands, Riedel in Austria, Rosenthal in Germany and Venini in Italy, with which Gralglas was linked through the ‘Group 21’. External industrial designers, artists and international glass specialists, including Hans Theo Baumann and Hartmut Esslinger, as well as Murano glass artists such as Livio Seguso, became responsible for Gral’s new style. Apart from mass-produced everyday glassware, individual artistic pieces manufactured in in-house workshops from the end of the 1960s onwards testify to the high-quality design, the skill of the craftsmen and the delight in technical experimentation that strove to entice an ever greater power of expression from the material glass. Complemented by design drawings that widen our picture of the design process, selected pieces reflect the Gral glassworks’ multifacetted richness in this first comprehensive retrospective: wafer-thin chalices and footed beakers, strict stereometry and unconstrained forms, lucid transparency and saturated coloured landscapes.

The Pinakothek der Moderne is the modern art museum of Munich. Together with its two predecessors Alte Pinakothek and Neue Pinakothek, the Museum Brandhorst, the Antikensammlungen, the Glyptothek, the Städtische Galerie im Lenbachhaus and the new joint building of the Ägyptisches Museum and the Hochschule für Fernsehen und Film, currently both scheduled to open in 2012, it forms part of Munich's "Kunstareal" (the "art district"). Since 1945, the collection, previously exhibited in the Haus der Kunst, has grown quickly by purchase, as well as donations by individuals and several foundations. Various art movements of the 20th century are represented in the collection, including Expressionism, Fauvism, Cubism, New Objectivity, Bauhaus, Surrealism, Abstract Expressionism, Pop Art and Minimal Art. The first floor of the west wing displays works of Georges Braque, Fernand Léger, Juan Gris, Umberto Boccioni, Robert Delaunay, Joan Miró and René Magritte as well as Lyonel Feininger, Oskar Kokoschka, László Moholy-Nagy, Otto Dix, Max Ernst, Giorgio de Chirico, Salvador Dalí and Francis Bacon. There are particularly comprehensive collections of works by Pablo Picasso and Max Beckmann. The museum also displays masterpieces of German Expressionism: representing painters of two early 20th century German artist groups, Die Brücke (The bridge) and Der Blaue Reiter (The blue rider), whose members included, among others, Ernst Ludwig Kirchner, Erich Heckel, Karl Schmidt-Rottluff, Emil Nolde and Franz Marc, August Macke, Paul Klee, Alexej von Jawlensky and Wassily Kandinsky. Visit the museum's website at ... http://www.pinakothek.de

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