"Great realism and great abstraction" - the holdings of 20th-century German drawings in the Städel Museum's Prints and Drawings Collection, comprising around 1,800 sheets, move between these two poles. A selection of around 100 drawings will be presented from 13 November 2019 to 16 February 2020 in a concentrated exhibition that impressively reflects the quality of the collection and its historically evolved focal points.
The exhibition opens with masterful drawings by Max Beckmann (1884-1950) and Ernst Ludwig Kirchner (1880-1938), which also provide a comprehensive insight into the two artists' art of drawing. This is followed by works by members of the artists' association "Brücke", including Erich Heckel (1883-1970), Karl Schmidt-Rottluff (1884-1976) and Emil Nolde (1867-1956). Drawings by Rolf Nesch (1893-1975), Werner Gilles (1894-1961) and Ernst Wilhelm Nay (1902-1968) will be shown, as well as watercolours by Paul Klee (1879-1940), whose works move between object proximity and abstraction. Even in the divided Germany of the post-war period, this confrontation with the representational and the non-representational is formative for artists. This can be seen in works of Informel as well as in Neo-Expressionist movements or Pop Art, for example in the works of Karl Otto Götz (1914-2017), Joseph Beuys (1921-1986), Gerhard Richter (*1932), Georg Baselitz (*1938), A. R. Penck (1939-2017), Sigmar Polke (1941-2010) and Anselm Kiefer (*1945). In total, the exhibition brings together works by around 40 artists.
"The exploration of the holdings of the Prints and Drawings Department at the Städel has a long tradition and is now being continued with a pointed selection of 20th-century German drawings. In addition to the extensive and internationally important collection of drawings by Max Beckmann and the "Brücke" artists, the Städel holds outstanding works by Paul Klee, Willi Baumeister, Ernst Wilhelm Nay, Wols, Joseph Beuys, Georg Baselitz, Gerhard Richter, and many other artists. These expressive works, created up to 1989/90, the time of German reunification, reveal the ruptures but also the continuities of the
20th century. The changing role and task of the medium of drawing can be impressively traced," explains Städel director Philipp Demandt.
Drawing has a special role to play in the 20th century. It has always been a medium for searching, inventing and experimenting. In modern times, it also gains independence and autonomy and becomes - especially in times of state surveillance and repression - a medium of free thought. In its diversity, it reflects not least the complexity of the rapidly changing culture and society of the 20th century.
"The 20th century is polyphonic, contradictory and extreme, also in art: it was a century of avant-gardes, of artist communities and unyielding individual positions, of realisms and abstractions. The broad spectrum in which 20th-century art moves can be characterized by the two 'poles' that Wassily Kandinsky described in 1911 as fundamental to modernism: 'great realism' and 'great abstraction', the representational and the nonrepresentational. This complementary pair forms a leitmotif that links the nearly 1,800 works of 20th-century German drawing preserved in the Städel Museum's Prints and Drawings Collection, even across generations. The drawings presented in the exhibition and edited in the catalogue trace this pluralism," explains Jenny Graser, curator of the exhibition and research associate of the Städel Museum's Prints and Drawings Department.
The scholarly research of 20th-century German drawings is thanks to the Gabriele Busch-Hauck Foundation, Frankfurt am Main. In the past decades, this foundation has thankfully made possible the art-historical indexing of selected drawing holdings of the Städel Museum in a continuous commitment. A catalogue will also be published for this exhibition, providing exemplary access to the Städel Museum's holdings of 20th-century German drawings for the first time.
Text source and further information on this event: http://newsroom.staedelmuseum.de/system/files_force/field/file/2019/st_presse_grosserealistikundgrosseabstraktion.pdf
