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KUNSTPALAST DÜSSELDORF: Paintings, Sculpture, and Mixed Media

Updated: Sep 5, 2022

(A separate post on the Kunstpalast's collection of glass art can be found here.)


The Kunstpalast Düsseldorf is just one of the city's several fine art museums, but on my brief visit it was the only one I was able to explore. A good choice...


It has a fine mix of arts, but particularly impressive in the main museum are the German early 20th Century artists and German abstract and mixed media artists.


Emil Nolde: Flower Garden (Girl with Laundry), 1908


In 1905, Dresden architecture students Fritz Bleyl, Erich Heckel, Ernst Ludwig Kirchner, and Karl Schmidt launched a new artistic movement called Künstlergruppe Brücke, or the Bridge. It was the beginning of Expressionism as a movement, and some draw parallels between it and the French Fauvists. They were heavily influenced by African, Oceanic, and Asian art, painted in bright vivid colors, and tried to break with traditional European realistic and illusionistic styles in favor of simpler forms and images, attempting to regenerate primal sources of creativity.


They were bohemian, utopian, and socialist, attempting to counter the dehumanizing effects of a rapidly industrializing modernity with a new form of community, where artists, workers, acrobats, dancers, and families with children lived and worked with and amongst each other, mutually supporting and inspiring each other. As would the 1960s San Francisco music scene, they were trying to transform the world not through revolution but through expanded consciousness. Dresden was known to have a progressive arts and cultural scene, but to the Brücke it was considered reactionary.


In 1906, they invited the Danish-German Emil Nolde to join their group. Recognizing an aesthetic kinship, he accepted, but didn't enjoy city life in Dresden, and quickly came to feel his artistic inspiration was hampered by trying to adhere to a group ideology. He resigned from the group in 1907, although he remained friendly with many of its members, and sometimes participated in exhibitions that included them.


Ernst Ludwig Kirchner: Nude girls talking (Two Girls), 1909/1920


At its earliest exhibitions, Die Brücke artists circulated a short manifesto explaining its artistic goals, which are not dissimilar to the goals of generations of artistic and political movements, although not all are as assiduous in their efforts and successful in their achievements.


With a belief in evolution, in a new generation of creators as well as appreciators, we call together all youth. And as youth that is carrying the future, we intend to obtain freedom of movement and of life for ourselves in opposition to the older, well-established powers. Whoever renders directly and authentically that which impels him to create is one of us.


Before they dissolved in 1913, they would hold at least seventy exhibitions, and participate in another thirty with artists groups from other countries.


Wassily Kandinsky: Small town in Upper Bavaria (Murnau), 1911


In 1911, the other main German Expressionist movement, Der Blaue Reiter (The Blue Rider), was founded in Munich, by Russian emigres such as Kandinsky, Alexej von Jawlensky, and Marianne von Werefkin, and Germans such as Paul Klee, Franz Marc, August Macke, and Gabriele Münter, who was Kandinsky's partner and strongly influenced his early work. Der Blaue Reiter and Die Brücke sometimes exhibited together.


Der Blaue Reiter would break up in 1914, on the eve of World War I. Kandinsky's art would grow more abstract while remaining dazzlingly colorful, and he would become one of the 20th Century's most celebrated artists..


Franz Marc: The Foxes, 1913


One of the founders of Der Blaue Reiter, Marc often painted sweet, benign animals, and this is one of his most famous works. In the summer of 1913, haunted by newspaper reports about the increasingly brutal violence of the Second Balkan War, he painted Die Wölfe (Balkankrieg)— The Wolves (Balkan War), with the animals, uncharacteristically for him, sinister and ominous.


In the 1912 First Balkan War, Bulgaria, Greece, Serbia, and Montenegro had fought as allies to liberate themselves from the Ottoman Empire. In the 1913 Second Balkan War, Bulgaria fought against Greece, Serbia, Montenegro, and the Ottomans, to get a larger share of the territory won in the first war. Most historically significant, Serbia had become a military power, its soldiers now hardened by combat experience, and it was becoming emboldened to take on Austria-Hungary, which of course triggered World War I.


In 1914, Marc would be drafted into the German army, which was allied with Austria-Hungary. By 1916, he was on a list of artists to be removed from combat, but he was killed at the Battle of Verdun before the orders reached him.


Ernst Ludwig Kirchner: Moonrise over Fehmarn, 1913


By 1911, the Brücke artists had collectively moved to Berlin where they fragmented as a group. Kirchner's art grew angular, frenetic, and aggressive. He lived with sisters Erna and Gerda Schilling, who were his lovers and muses, and whom he drew hundreds of times, and painted in his Judgement of Paris.


In the summer of 1913, after Die Brücke finally dissolved, Kirchner went to the island of Fehmarn with Erna and some friends, where they relaxed, enjoyed the isolation, spent time with local friends and their children, and painted each other. It has been called maybe the happiest time of Kirchner's life. At the end of summer, he would return to Berlin and paint some of his most famous works of a bustling, jangled, impersonal city.


Walter Ophey: House with Clouds, 1921


Starting in the 1890s, a number of artists' groups, mostly in Germany and Austria, began to break with traditional European styles and institutions. They became known as Secessionists. The Sonderbund group started in Köln in 1909, and is credited with introducing French styles such as Impressionism to Germany. The Düsseldorf art scene was late to the game, but in 1912, Ophey was one of the founders of its local Sonderbund group. The Kunstpalast has the largest collection of his work.


Walter Ophey: Church with Sun, 1920-1923


Dora Schmetz-Diel: Young Woman, undated


Little is known about her, and the Kunstpalast isn't even sure of the year of her death. She was born in Australia and lived in Aachen with Wilhelm Schmetz, a landscape artist who was born and studied art in Düsseldorf.


Heinrich Maria Davringhausen: The Trafficker (Profiteer), 1920-1921


Davringhausen was part of a 1920s movement called New Objectivity, which was a post-war reaction against Expressionism, emphasizing dispassionate realism. This is one of his most famous works, and reflects the cold, calculating business environment of Weimar Germany. He fled to Spain, then France, when the Nazis rose to power.


Gert H. Wollheim: The Theater Director, 1925


Wollheim was from Dresden, was wounded fighting in World War I, and after kicking around for a while ended up in Düsseldorf, where he was part of the avant-garde Young Rhineland group. His style evolved from Expressionism to New Objectivity.


He was one of many artists whose work was declared degenerate by the Nazis, and much of it was destroyed. He fled to France, and then to the United States.


Eduard Julius Friedrich Bendemann: The Two Maidens, 1833


Bendemann was a respected traditional painter who received prestigious commissions and academic appointments.


Andreas Achenbach: Mill on the River Erft, 1866


Achenbach was one of the founders of the original Düsseldorf school of painting, which was very traditional, emphasizing realistic details. It also favored plein air techniques, working outside to paint what was seen.


Gabriel Grupello: Johann Wilhelm van der Pfalz, app. 1700


Grupello was a celebrated Flemish sculptor who received multiple commissions from members of the aristocracy.


Duke Johann Wilhelm was Elector Palatine from 1690 to 1716, making him one of nine members of the secular and religious elite that elected the Holy Roman Emperor. Having been born in Düsseldorf, he moved his court there after Heidelberg, the traditional seat, was ravaged by the French during the Nine Years' War. He eventually moved his court back to Heidelberg.


He was also a great patron of the arts, although many of his collection's key works are now in Munich. His second wife was Anna Maria Luisa de' Medici, the heiress of the great Medici art collection, which she ended up bequeathing to the museums and palaces of Florence, where they remain, helping keep Florence one of the art capitals of the world.


The museum has an impressive collection of Japanese art, and a large number of Netsuke was donated by the Bruno Werdelmann Collection in 2004.


Masatoshi: Lucky Gods on the Dragon Boat, app. 1840~1860


These are Sennin, immortal holy hermits. The three on the left are from the 19th Century, the three on the right from the 18th.


The second on the left is Gama Sennin, who is always depicted with a toad on his back. According to legend, he learned the secrets of immortality from a toad, could shape-shift into one, and was generous with his great magical healing powers.


On the left is Ômu Komachi by Hidemasa, from around 1820-1830.


Komachi was a 9th Century Waka poet. She is considered one of the Thirty-Six Immortals of Poetry.


Two Oni demons, the one on the right from the mid-19th Century.


An 18th Century Karasu Tengu, which is a mythological bird.


Tomotane: Hound, 2nd half 18th Century.


"Alas, poor Yorick! I knew him, Horatio."


I didn't see any description of this one, so Shakespeare will do.


The two at the rear are Shishi guardian dogs, the one on the left by Ikkosai from the mid-19th Century, the one on the right from the 17th or 18th Century.


Left: Shishi and pup, 2nd half 18th Century


Middle (in focus): Kirin, 18th or 19th Century. Kirin are a cross between a dragon and a horse or deer.


Right, in front (in focus): Fushô: Dragon, around 1830-1850


Lucas Cranach: The Dissimilar Couple, around 1530


The museum doesn't have a lot of German Old Masters, so this late Cranach is a treat. Cranach's early work often was of religious themes, and he also frequently showed people immersed in nature. Summoned to Wittenberg by the Elector of Saxony, he became a follower of Luther, and has been called the leading German Protestant painter.


In line with Protestant iconoclasm, which saw many religious paintings destroyed, his later works tended toward humanism and stories from mythology or history, sometimes incorporating into them playfully coquettish nudes. He was also patronized for his skill at portraits. His work always had a humane charm, but stylistically he never showed the level of influence of Italian Renaissance realism that his great contemporary Albrecht Dürer mastered.


Heinz Mack, Otto Piene, Günther Uecker: Lichtraum (Hommage à Fontana), 1964


Mack, Piene, and Uecker were founders of the Düsseldorf Zero movement of the late 1950s and 1960s, which explored kinetic art with different media. The use of monochromatism helps emphasize the textures and motion of both objects and light. Even videos don't capture the effect.


Heinz Mack: Cloud grid, 1960


A more traditionally abstract piece, from Mack


Nam June Paik: Mercury, 1991


Paik was from South Korea, and is considered the founder of video art. He also staged classical music settings with nude performers.


The rectangles in this work are video screens, streaming and flashing coordinated images. I'd never heard of Paik, but the Kunstpalast has a few of his works, all of them marvelous.


Johan Thorn Prikker: Day and Night, 1925


In the foyer, which you pass through to different wings of the museum. Prikker was Dutch but worked mostly in Germany. He worked with many different media and explored many different styles.


I love the abstract pointillist paintings of Hermann-Josef Kuhna, who died in 2018, at age 74.


Raimund Girke: Twilight, 1990


Girke taught at art academies and universities in Hanover, Düsseldorf, and Berlin, and was a leading German artist of the second half of the 20th Century. From the 1950s, he explored abstract styles, often in monochromatic washes, and was considered part of the Analytical Painting movement of the 1970s. Its artists eschewed all representation, and separated their art from any other relationship to the outside world. Art was to be of itself, referencing only itself, representing only itself. As such, they often painted in monochromes, focusing on the paint itself and the medium upon which it was painted.


Ursula Kaechele: Kaleidoscope, 2001


I really love this one. I'm not usually a fan of sharply angled geometric forms, but the way she juxtaposes them to break form apart is beautiful. I don't know much about Kaechele other than that she was born in 1939. And is a wonderful talent.


Gotthard Graubner: Shadow Play, 1983/1984


Graubner worked and taught in several cities, but studied, taught, worked, and lived mostly in Düsseldorf. His work often consisted of one main brilliant color and subtle hints and shadings of others, forming depth and space, sometimes compared to clouds or the work of Rothko. He died in 2013.


Rolf Cavael: untitled, 1975


An important German abstract painter strongly influenced by the later works of Kandinsky, Cavael was banned from painting by the Nazis, but resumed his work after the war. In 1949, he was part of a Munich art movement called Zen 49, which expanded the concepts of art and the creation of art, including recognizing the potential of unconscious and spontaneous acts of creation.


Bernard Schultze: Rosen-Geschwüre, 1955


This one makes me think of Ents.


Born in Poland, Schultze spent most of his life in Germany, co-founding the Frankfurt Quadriga abstract artists' group in 1952, which helped launch the pan-European Art Informel movement,


Breaking with earlier and more formal and geometric abstract styles, Art Informel was wide open with possibilities, not only of forms and media, but of how materials were used, including painting without brushstrokes and using random gestures and applications, infused in the moment beyond conscious intent. It was the birth of European Abstract Expressionism. He joined the Zen 49 group in 1955.


His fascination with layered textures and high relief led to him making free-standing figurative works of plants, animals, and people. He died in 2005.


Karl Otto Götz: Homage to Melville, 1960


Götz was a creative polyglot, using many kinds of media for his art, and also writing and making films. His abstract and surrealist styles banned by the Nazis, he made a living painting landscapes, and later served in the German military, as mandated. Like millions of Germans, he survived by going along to get along, and thus, even in small ways, helped along what he ideologically opposed. Tens of millions didn't survive.


Another co-founder of the Quadriga group, he thus helped launch Abstract Expressionism in Germany. His experiments with television as art influenced Paik. Not all important artists were good people.


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