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Due to replacements in the permanent exhibition, not all artworks listed in the app are currently visible in the exhibition space. Therefore we kindly ask you for your understanding. We are looking forward to present you the new permanent exhibition of Museum Folkwang from the 21st of June 2019.

Karl Ernst Osthaus ist der erste deutsche Museumsdirektor, der Werke des niederländischen Malers Vincent van Gogh ankauft. Zwischen 1902 und 1905 erwirbt er drei Gemälde des Künstlers. In engem Austausch mit Henry van de Velde entwickelt Osthaus ein sicheres Gespür für zeitgenössische Malerei und sammelt ab 1902 neben van Gogh auch Künstler wie Gauguin, Daumier, Renoir und Cézanne. Die Übersendung von 18 van Gogh-Gemälden zur Ansicht nach Hagen 1902 durch den Kunsthändler Paul Cassirer geschieht aller Wahrscheinlichkeit nach auf Veranlassung van de Veldes. Der belgisch-flämische Künstler sieht bei einem Besuch der Witwe Theo van Goghs in Bussum den Nachlass von Vincent van Gogh und rät dem befreundeten Osthaus begeistert zum Kauf zunächst zweier Werke. Ab 1903 sammelt Osthaus auch Zeichnungen des Künstlers; die ersten Blätter erwirbt er von dem Kunsthändler Ambroise Vollard in Paris, darunter auch ›Paysanne arrachant de l'herbe‹ (1885).

Unter den 1902 erworbenen Gemälden befindet sich das ungewöhnlich klare, in der Farbgebung kontrastreiche ›Portrait d‘Armand Roulin‹ (1888). Der Kunsthistoriker Julius Meier-Graefe beschreibt die Neuerungen in der Malerei dieses Bildes, nachdem er es in Hagen gesehen hatte: »Das Bild ist dünn gemalt, absolut nicht wie die anderen. Die Farben sind: blauer Hut, grüner Hintergrund in den Farben des Wassers, alles vereint in gelb und blau. Die Ausführung ist vollendet, nirgends künstlich.« Van Gogh hatte sich in Arles mit dem Vater des jungen Mannes angefreundet; zahlreiche Porträts von ihm und seiner Familie zeugen davon.

Ein weiteres Meisterwerk van Goghs ist das Gemälde ›Le parc de l’hôpital, à Saint Rémy‹ (1889), das den von einer Natursteinmauer umfriedeten Garten der Krankenanstalt zeigt, die van Gogh 1889 wegen akuter Gemütsveränderung aufsuchte. Wir wissen durch einen Brief an Émile Bernard von der starken Wirkung des zur Nerven-Heilanstalt gehörenden Parks auf den Künstler. In ›Le parc de l’hôpital, à Saint Rémy‹ gibt er eine von Wetter und Jahreszeit geprägte Landschaft stimmungsvoll wieder.

Auf der anderen Seite der den Garten umgebenden Natursteinmauer öffnet sich der Blick auf eine weite Ebene vor hügeliger Landschaft. Van Gogh konnte sie täglich aus seinem Fenster beobachten. Die schwefelgelben Felder regten ihn zu so wunderbaren Gemälden wie ›La moisson‹ (1889) an. Er hat dieses Motiv mehrfach in Gemälden und Zeichnungen variiert.

Im Herbst 1905 zeigt Karl Ernst Osthaus 11 Gemälde und 3 Zeichnungen van Goghs im Museum Folkwang, die er über Frau Cohen-Gosschalk-Bonger als Vertreterin der Familie van Gogh erhält. Es ist zu vermuten, dass der Sammler aus diesem Konvolut das Gemälde ›Le parc de l’hôpital, à Saint Rémy‹ sowie eine Auswahl der bis heute in Museumsbesitz befindlichen Zeichnungen erwarb, so etwa ›La pluie‹ (1890) oder ›Vue de la Crau‹ (1888).

Das Gemälde ›Les bateaux amarrés‹ (1888) kaufte hingegen Ernst Gosebruch 1912 bei dem Kunsthändler Eugène Druet in Paris für das Essener Kunstmuseum, mutig und angespornt durch das Beispiel Karl Ernst Osthaus‘ in Hagen. Der rührige Vorgang des Entladens der am Kai befestigten Rhônebarken inmitten einer leicht bewegten Wasserfläche hatte eine besondere Faszination auf van Gogh ausgeübt.

Zur Zeit ihres Ankaufs galten Werke van Goghs und anderer zeitgenössischer französischer Künstler wie Honoré Daumier, Paul Gauguin, Auguste Renoir oder Paul Cézanne noch nicht als die »Klassiker«, die in exemplarischer Weise die Problematik ihrer Epoche ausarbeiteten und dadurch die Kunst der Moderne maßgebend beeinflussen sollten. Umso beeindruckender ist es, wie schnell Karl Ernst Osthaus in diesen Künstlern das Potenzial erkannte, die schöpferischen Kräfte ihrer Epoche und deren Wandel am stärksten zu repräsentieren. Werke van Goghs erregten dabei durch ihre völlige Neuartigkeit der Malerei besonderes Aufsehen. Osthaus stellte ›La moisson‹ als erstes angekauftes Werk van Goghs bereits bei der Eröffnung des Museums 1902 aus. Mit der ›Lise‹ Renoirs (1867) und Werken van Goghs befinden sich im Museum Folkwang Zeugnisse sowohl des beginnenden Impressionismus als auch der Zeit dessen Überwindung. Karl Ernst Osthaus was the first German museum director to acquire works by the Dutch painter Vincent van Gogh. Between 1902 and 1905 he purchased three of the artist’s paintings. In an exchange with Henry van de Velde, Osthaus developed a good feel for contemporary art and as of 1902 collected works not only by van Gogh but also by artists such as Gauguin, Daumier, Renoir and Cézanne. When 18 van Gogh paintings were sent to Hagen on approval in 1902 by an art dealer, Paul Cassirer, this was very probably organized by van de Velde.

This Flemish artist saw van Gogh’s estate when visiting Theo van Gogh’s widow in Bussum and enthusiastically suggested that Osthaus, who was a friend of his, should initially purchase two of these works. As of 1903 Osthaus also started collecting drawings by the artist; he acquired his first sketches from an art dealer in Paris, Ambroise Vollard, including ›Peasant Woman, Stooping and Gleaning‹ (1885).

The paintings acquired in 1902 include the unusually clear ›Portrait of Armand Roulin‹ (1888), with its rich contrasts. One art historian, Julius Meier-Graefe, described the innovative painting techniques in this picture, after seeing it in Hagen: »The picture uses thin paint, not at all like the others. The colours are: a blue hat, a green background in the colours of water, everything in unified yellow and blue. The execution is consummate, not at all artificial.« Van Gogh had made friends with the young man’s father in Arles, as numerous portraits of him and his family demonstrate.

Another masterpiece by van Gogh is the painting ›A Corner of the Asylum and the Garden with a Heavy, Sawed-Off Tree‹ (1889), showing the garden, surrounded by a natural stone wall, at the institution sought out by the artist in 1889 because of his acute mood swings. We know from a letter to Émile Bernard about the strong effect the asylum’s park exerted on the artist. In ›A Corner of the Asylum and the Garden with a Heavy, Sawed-Off Tree‹ van Gogh atmospherically evokes a landscape shaped by the weather and the seasons.

On the other side of the natural stone wall surrounding the garden a vista opens up over a wide plain in front of a hilly landscape. Van Gogh could see this daily from his window. The fields of sulphurous yellow served as his inspiration for wonderful pictures such as ›The Wheatfield behind Saint Paul's Hospital with a Reaper‹ (1889). He varied this motif on several occasions, in paintings and drawings.

In the fall of 1905 Karl Ernst Osthaus showed 11 paintings and three drawings by van Gogh at Museum Folkwang, works he had received through the mediation of Ms. Cohen-Gosschalk-Bonger as the representative of the van Gogh family. We can assume that it was from this assortment that the collector acquired the painting ›A Corner of the Asylum and the Garden with a Heavy, Sawed-Off Tree‹ plus a selection of the drawings that have remained in the museum’s collection to this day, for instance ›Enclosed Field with a Sawer in the Rain‹ (1890) or ›The Plain of La Crau‹ (1888).

By contrast, the painting ›Quay with Men Unloading Sand Barges‹ (1888) was bought by Ernst Gosebruch in 1912 from art dealer Eugène Druet in Paris for the Essen art museum, in a bold move encouraged by the example set by Karl Ernst Osthaus in Hagen. The busy procedure of unloading the skiffs at the quay on the river Rhône held an especial fascination for van Gogh.

At the time of their acquisition works by van Gogh and other contemporary French artists such as Honoré Daumier, Paul Gauguin, Auguste Renoir and Paul Cézanne were not yet recognized as those »classics« that, by working through the problems of their own age in an exemplary fashion, were to exert a fundamental influence on Modern art. It is all the more impressive how rapidly Karl Ernst Osthaus recognized the potential shown by these artists to act as the most eloquent representatives of the creative power of their epoch and of its changes.

Because of its completely new painting techniques, van Gogh’s oeuvre attracted particular attention. Osthaus had already exhibited ›Enclosed Field with a Sawer in the Rain‹ as the first work by van Gogh acquired at the museum’s opening in 1902. Together with Renoir’s ›Lise‹ (1867) and van Gogh’s works, Museum Folkwang houses testimonials both to the start of Impressionism and to the time of its demise.

The major autumn exhibition Uncannily Real presents more than 80 paintings from Realismo Magico, an Italian art movement from the 1920s which remains largely unknown here in Germany. After the First World War, there was an increasing desire for calm and order, and from 1918 themselves in European and North American art. Germany witnessed the evolution of Neue Sachlichkeit, in France there were multiple neo-classical tendencies, and Italy saw the emergence of Realismo Magico.

This movement is marked by evocative images of disturbing beauty. Giorgio de Chirico’s puzzling scenic compositions of abandoned plazas were as much of an inspiration for the visual worlds of these artists as stylistic references to the masters of the Quattrocento, as can be witnessed in Carlo Carrà’s work. The works shift between melancholy and idyll, between a weariness with civilisation and the glorification of progress. Their application of paint is reminiscent of the Old Masters, and their motifs classical: still lifes, portraits, interior scenes and nudes.The paintings depict their subjects clearly and sharply, and yet seem to conceal what is essential. Closed books, musical instruments, masks and masquerades are as common among their motifs as distorted perspectives and drapery. They reference something decisive and play with the contradictions between reality and artificiality, mixing together superficiality and inscrutability.

Realismo Magico is not a group of artists, but an artistic stance. The art historian Franz Roh described the phenomenon in 1925: “With ‘magical’ as opposed to ‘mystical’, the aim is to suggest that the mystery does not enter the world being represented, but remains behind it.”
When Mussolini came to power in 1922, art began to evolve against the backdrop of a society marked by fascism. It may have been due to the political situation of those years that the ambiguities of these fascinating paintings, which all too often trigger uneasiness in the viewer, received relatively little attention in recent decades.

This exhibition provides the first ever broad overview of Realismo Magico in Germany, featuring outstanding works by the main protagonists of the movement, ranging from Antonio Donghi, Felice Casorati, Gino Severini and Edita Broglio through to more well-known artists such as Giorgio Morandi, Giorgio de Chirico and Carlo Carrà.

In late autumn 2019, Museum Folkwang will present a show that transcends media and epochs to explore the major societal issues and upheavals of the last 150 years. The Assembled Human presents art as a mirror of industrialisation, technologisation and digitisation. It provides a cultural-historical survey that encompasses key works of painting and graphic design, early experiments in photography, installations and films, along with recent works of Post-Internet Art.

The exhibition focuses on the manifold entanglements between human beings and machines, which are explored in several thematic sections. From the Industrial Revolution to the Information Age, generations of artists have dealt with technological innovations and their impact on humankind. The international loans shown in the exhibition range from photographic records of early industrialisation to Modernist art.

The 16 works inside this tour show you the highlights of the exhibition.

Image: Fernand Léger, Le mécanicien, 1920
National Gallery of Canada, Ottawa
© VG Bild-Kunst, Bonn 2019, Photo: NGC

This content is currently only available in German. The English translation will follow shortly.

Provenienzforschung, das ist die Recherche und möglichst lückenlose Dokumentation zur Herkunft sowie Besitzgeschichte eines Objekts beginnend mit seinem Zeitpunkt und Ort der Entstehung.

Es sind zum Teil spannende Geschichten, die bei sorgsamer Recherche zu Tage treten und
das Museum Folkwang möchte Sie nun mitnehmen auf einen Exkurs quer durch die wissenschaftliche Arbeit der Provenienzforschung.

Als Teil einer langen Sammlungsgeschichte hat die Provenienzforschung mittlerweile einen festen Platz im Museum Folkwang und ist seit Sommer 2019 auch räumlich im Rundgang durch die Sammlungsneupräsentation „Neue Welten. Die Entdeckung der Sammlung“ erlebbar.

In den Audiotracks und Vertiefungstexten stellen wir Ihnen ausgewählte Aspekte dieser immer noch jungen Forschungsdisziplin vor. Zum Nachlesen weiterer interessanter Fälle empfehlen wir Ihnen die Publikationen „SAMMLUNGSGESCHICHTEN I und II - Provenienzforschung im Museum Folkwang (Essen 2019 / 2020)“, die Sie im Online Shop des Museum Folkwang bestellen können.

Keith Haring’s graphic figures and iconographic visual motifs, such as little dancing figures, barking dogs or flying saucers, became well known right around the world. He was at the centre of the legendary New York art scene of the 1980s. His unmistakable, seemingly spontaneous style was a product of the energy of an age shaped by underground club culture, space travel, robotics and video games. Haring collaborated with artists such as Andy Warhol and Jean-Michel Basquiat, as well as with Madonna, Grace Jones, Vivienne Westwood and Malcolm McLaren.

Museum Folkwang is presenting an extensive exhibition on the US artist Keith Haring. About 200 works, including large-format paintings and drawings, posters, photographs and videos will convey a broad cross-section of his oeuvre.

A spokesperson for his generation, in his work Haring responded to some of the urgent issues of his time, such as political dictatorships, racism, homophobia, drug addiction, Aids, capitalism and environmental destruction. His chalk drawings in the New York metro and murals in public spaces bear witness to Haring’s desire to make art accessible to all. The exhibition in Essen celebrates the creative spirit of the 1980s, which broke down the divisions between art and pop culture. It was in this context that Keith Haring invented his universal language, made up of signs that were immediately accessible to audiences everywhere. In doing so, he inscribed himself in the public consciousness – in the midst of a media-saturated world of commerce.

In collaboration with the Keith Haring Foundation, Tate Liverpool, and BOZAR/Centre for Fine Arts Brussels

Image:
Ignorance = Fear, 1989
Collection Noirmontartproduction, Paris
(c) Keith Haring Foundation

The threat to our living spaces characterizes our reality today. As a result, demands for fundamental change are becoming increasingly urgent. But how can we rethink the seemingly unchangeable? What new forms of coexistence are even worth striving for?

Based on these current questions, the exhibition We are the Future. Visions of New Communities examines historical and current artistic ideas for alternative forms of coexistence. The turn to nature or trust in technical innovations connects the different positions.

Each chapter of the show marks a historical fault line from the Lebensreform around 1900, to the crystalline architectural visions of Wenzel Hablik or Bruno Taut, Constants Mega Project "New Babylon", the hippie modernism of the 1968 generation and individual positions in contemporary art.

With a variety of media such as painting, sculpture, graphics, video and performance, the presentation culminates in a temple-like installation created especially for the exhibition by architect and artist Yussef Agbo-Ola [Olaniyi Studio].

Image credits:
Ludwig von Hofmann, Das verlorene Paradies (Adam und Eva), 1893, Hessisches Landesmuseum Darmstadt, Photo: Linda Breidert

Ausstellung

Exhibition

Paula Rego

The Personal and The Political

Paula Rego

The Personal and The Political