Leopold Museum Presents German Expressionists

Written by James Mulvey Sunday, 15 May 2011 22:33

Vienna, Austria - This autumn the Leopold Museum is presenting a comprehensive show on the theme of “German Expressionism”.  Approximately 130 works, including 50 oil paintings and 80 drawings, prints and watercolors as well as several sculptures will be on view.  Using a representative selection of works of a high artistic standard, the various groups and directions within Expressionism will be shown side by side.  The selection of artists ranges from Ernst Ludwig Kirchner, Karl Schmidt-Rottluff, Ernst Heckel, Max Pechstein, Otto Mueller, Emil Nolde and those belonging to the Munich group “Der Blaue Reiter” including Franz Marc, Wassily Kandinsky, Alexej von Jawlensky and August Macke to the individualist Lyonel Feininger and finally to Otto Dix, Georg Grosz and Max Beckmann.  With this exhibition the Leopold Museum is also celebrating the fifth anniversary of its opening.

The “German Expressionists” exhibition illustrates the development of Expressionism in Germany in its entire breadth.  The “Blaue Reiter” almanac, a publication of seminal programmatic importance, will be shown in the original alongside paintings by Franz Marc and Alexej von Jawlensky as well as “Impressions” and “Improvisations” by Wassily Kandinsky.  On exhibit 28 September 2006 through 10 January 2007.

The work of the “Brücke” artists is also represented by a comprehensive selection of high-quality works.  Ernst Ludwig Kirchner occupies a prominent position with numerous works, including his most well-known portrait “Fränzi in Front of a Carved Chair” and key works of graphic art.

Paintings and woodcuts by Heckel, Schmidt-Rottluff and Nolde illustrate the idea of “Primitivism” in direct comparison with original sculptures of African and Oceanian origin.  With regard to landscape, the “Brücke” painters’ central motif of the nude in nature represents a key new development, and the special significance of landscape painting in general for Emil Nolde is also highlighted.

The breadth of Expressionist sculptural creation is illustrated with carefully selected pieces, whereby Lehmbruck’s key work “Large Kneeling Figure”, Barlach’s “Avenger” and works by Käthe Kollwitz serve to represent the work of an entire generation of artists.

The section entitled “Metropolis” demonstrates the significance of this pictorial theme in its varied facets, beginning with Ernst Ludwig Kirchner’s Berlin street scenes.  The growing criticism of the social hardships that followed the First World War is manifested in the penetrating artworks of George Grosz and Otto Dix, whereby Grosz’ painting “Street Scene (Kurfürstendamm)” from the Thyssen-Bornemisza Collection is of central significance.  In the works of Conrad Felixmüller, Jeanne Mammen and Max Beckmann, the individual’s isolation in the anonymity of the big city is repeatedly contrasted with the addiction to pleasure represented by cabarets and bordellos.

 Late works by Max Beckmann, such as the 1945 painting “Before the Costume Party”, round out the show, standing both temporally and thematically for a caesura in German social history. 

German Expressionists from the Thyssen-Bornemisza Collection

The show has been made possible by the Thyssen-Bornemisza Collection, which has provided numerous items on loan from its inventory of major German Expressionist works.  Both the Museo Thyssen-Bornemisza in Madrid and the heirs of the collector Baron Hans Heinrich von Thyssen-Bornemisza, who passed away in 2002 and whose daughter Francesca von Hapsburg deserves special mention, have provided some of the greatest works of German Expressionism.  Further important works on loan have also been provided by the Nationalgalerie Berlin and the Nolde Stiftung Seebüll as well as by public and private collections in Germany, France, Holland, Liechtenstein, Scotland, Switzerland and Spain.

Visit The Leopold Museum at : www.leopoldmuseum.org