Woodcut, as one of the oldest printing processes of mankind, experienced a peak with Albrecht Dürer, moved more and more into the background as an artistic technique over the centuries and was, at the beginning of the 20th century, rediscovered. This was also the case in Vienna, where numerous artists and a striking number of women artists revived the woodblock print.
The Schirn Kunsthalle Frankfurt is dedicating a major exhibition from 6 July to 3 October 2016 to this hitherto little-noticed phenomenon.
Round 240 works - also from related techniques such as linocut or stencil printing - by over 40 artists provide an overview and allow the aesthetic and social achievements of the colored woodcut in turn-of-the-century Vienna to become comprehensively visible for the first time.
The presentation traces the extraordinary enthusiasm with which, during a brief but all the more intense heyday between 1900 and 1910 in Vienna, both established painters and newcomers engaged with the colored woodcut. Among them were renowned members of the Vienna Secession such as Carl Moll and Emil Orlik, but also almost forgotten artists such as Gustav Marisch, Jutta Sika, Viktor Schufinsky and Marie Uchatius.
In addition, with affordable prices - even for original prints - the color woodcut opened the formerly elitist art trade to a broad public. It sparked a lively discussion within the social-reformist "art-for-all" movement about authenticity and originality on the one hand, and about art-making beyond the so-called "ivory tower" on the other. Topics that have hardly lost any of their relevance to this day.
(from the press release of the Schirn Kunsthalle)
Further information:
http://www.schirn.de/exhibitions/2016/kunst_fuer_alle/
