The Kunsthalle Bremen is an art museum in
Bremen
Bremen ( Low German also: ''Breem'' or ''Bräm''), officially the City Municipality of Bremen (german: Stadtgemeinde Bremen, ), is the capital of the German state Free Hanseatic City of Bremen (''Freie Hansestadt Bremen''), a two-city-state cons ...
,
Germany
Germany,, officially the Federal Republic of Germany, is a country in Central Europe. It is the second most populous country in Europe after Russia, and the most populous member state of the European Union. Germany is situated betwee ...
. It is located close to the Bremen Old Town on the "Culture Mile" (german: Kulturmeile). The
Kunsthalle
A kunsthalle is a facility that mounts temporary art exhibitions, similar to an art gallery. It is distinct from an art museum by not having a permanent collection.
In the German-speaking regions of Europe, ''Kunsthallen'' are often operated by ...
was built in 1849, enlarged in 1902 by architect Eduard Gildemeister, and expanded several more times, most notably in 2011. Since 1977, the building has been designated a
Kulturdenkmal
Kulturdenkmal is the official term to describe National Heritage Sites listed by lawAccording to international law, the English term is Cultural property, but can also be called ''Protected monument''. in German-speaking areas of Europe, to protec ...
on Germany's buildings heritage list.
[ ]
The museum houses a collection of European paintings from the 14th century to the present day, sculptures from the 16th to 21st centuries and a New Media collection. Among its highlights are French and German paintings from the 19th and 20th century, including important works by
Claude Monet
Oscar-Claude Monet (, , ; 14 November 1840 – 5 December 1926) was a French painter and founder of impressionist painting who is seen as a key precursor to modernism, especially in his attempts to paint nature as he perceived it. During ...
,
Édouard Manet
Édouard Manet (, ; ; 23 January 1832 – 30 April 1883) was a French modernist painter. He was one of the first 19th-century artists to paint modern life, as well as a pivotal figure in the transition from Realism to Impressionism.
Bor ...
and
Paul Cézanne
Paul Cézanne ( , , ; ; 19 January 1839 – 22 October 1906) was a French artist and Post-Impressionist painter whose work laid the foundations of the transition from the 19th-century conception of artistic endeavour to a new and radically d ...
, along with major paintings by
Lovis Corinth,
Max Liebermann
Max Liebermann (20 July 1847 – 8 February 1935) was a German painter and printmaker, and one of the leading proponents of Impressionism in Germany and continental Europe. In addition to his activity as an artist, he also assembled an important ...
,
Max Beckmann
Max Carl Friedrich Beckmann (February 12, 1884 – December 27, 1950) was a German painter, draftsman, printmaker, sculptor, and writer. Although he is classified as an Expressionist artist, he rejected both the term and the movement. In the 1920s ...
and
Paula Modersohn-Becker
Paula Modersohn-Becker (8 February 1876 – 20 November 1907) was a German Expressionist painter of the late 19th and early 20th century. Her work is noted for its intensity and its blunt, unapologetic humanity, and for the many self-portraits the ...
. The New Media section features works by
John Cage
John Milton Cage Jr. (September 5, 1912 – August 12, 1992) was an American composer and music theorist. A pioneer of indeterminacy in music, electroacoustic music, and non-standard use of musical instruments, Cage was one of the leading f ...
,
Otto Piene
Otto Piene (pronounced PEE-nah, 18 April 1928 – 17 July 2014) was a German-American artist specializing in kinetic and technology-based art, often working collaboratively. He lived and worked in Düsseldorf, Germany; Cambridge, Massachusetts; ...
,
Peter Campus
Peter Campus (born 1937 in New York, NY), often styled as peter campus, is an American artist and a pioneer of new media and video art, known for his interactive video installations, single-channel video works, and photography. His work is held ...
,
Olafur Eliasson
Olafur Eliasson ( is, Ólafur Elíasson; born 5 February 1967) is an Icelandic–Danish artist known for sculptured and large-scale installation art employing elemental materials such as light, water, and air temperature to enhance the viewer's ...
, and
Nam June Paik
Nam June Paik (; July 20, 1932 – January 29, 2006) was a Korean American artist. He worked with a variety of media and is considered to be the founder of video art. He is credited with the first use (1974) of the term "electronic super h ...
. The Department of Prints and Drawings has 220,000 sheets from the 15th to 20th centuries, one of largest collections of its kind in Europe.
The Kunsthalle Bremen is operated by the non-profit Bremen Art Society (german: Kunstverein Bremen), making it the only German museum with an extensive art collection from the 14th to 21st centuries which is still in private ownership.
Wulf Herzogenrath
Wulf Herzogenrath (born 23 March 1944, Rathenow, Province of Brandenburg), Germany is a German art historian and art curator. He is a leading expert in the fields of Video art, New Media Art and the Bauhaus. He has assembled a large collection ...
, Ingmar Laehnemann: ''Noble Gäste. 200 Meisterwerke der Kunsthalle Bremen zu Gast in 22 deutschen Museen'' (Bremen: Hachmannedition, 2009)
History
History of the Art Society
In 1823, a group of 34 businessmen interested in art founded an Art Society (german: Kunstverein) in
Bremen
Bremen ( Low German also: ''Breem'' or ''Bräm''), officially the City Municipality of Bremen (german: Stadtgemeinde Bremen, ), is the capital of the German state Free Hanseatic City of Bremen (''Freie Hansestadt Bremen''), a two-city-state cons ...
with the aim of "spreading a sense of beauty and form." It is one of the oldest such societies in Germany. The first years of the association's activities were focused on private art exhibitions, with the acquisition of works backed financially from ticket proceeds and business donations. Ten years after its founding, the Society owned 13 paintings, 585 drawings and 3917 leaf prints. The majority of the paintings were Old Masters, including the famous Madonna of Masolino and a series of paintings of Dutch painters of the 17th Century, such as
Jan van Goyen
Jan Josephszoon van Goyen (; 13 January 1596 – 27 April 1656) was a Dutch landscape painter. The scope of his landscape subjects was very broad as he painted forest landscapesm marines, river landscapes, beach scenes, winter landscape, cityscap ...
and
Pieter Wouwerman
Pieter Wouwerman (September 13, 1623 – May 9, 1682) was a Dutch Golden Age landscape painter.
Biography
He was born in Haarlem. According to Arnold Houbraken, a biographer of artists from the Dutch Golden Age, Pieter Wouwerman was the broth ...
. After 1843, large public exhibitions were organized in association with similar associations in
Hannover
Hanover (; german: Hannover ; nds, Hannober) is the capital and largest city of the German state of Lower Saxony. Its 535,932 (2021) inhabitants make it the 13th-largest city in Germany as well as the fourth-largest city in Northern Germany ...
,
Lübeck
Lübeck (; Low German also ), officially the Hanseatic City of Lübeck (german: Hansestadt Lübeck), is a city in Northern Germany. With around 217,000 inhabitants, Lübeck is the second-largest city on the German Baltic coast and in the state ...
,
Greifswald
Greifswald (), officially the University and Hanseatic City of Greifswald (german: Universitäts- und Hansestadt Greifswald, Low German: ''Griepswoold'') is the fourth-largest city in the German state of Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania after Rosto ...
,
Rostock
Rostock (), officially the Hanseatic and University City of Rostock (german: link=no, Hanse- und Universitätsstadt Rostock), is the largest city in the German state of Mecklenburg-Vorpommern and lies in the Mecklenburgian part of the state ...
and
Stuttgart
Stuttgart (; Swabian: ; ) is the capital and largest city of the German state of Baden-Württemberg. It is located on the Neckar river in a fertile valley known as the ''Stuttgarter Kessel'' (Stuttgart Cauldron) and lies an hour from the Sw ...
. By 1846 the society had grown to 575 members. The Kunstverein Bremen is still the exclusive owner of the Kunsthalle Bremen and today has over 8000 members. The society is funded from foundations, private donations, bequests, and grants from the city of Bremen.
History of the Kunsthalle
The building of 1849
Supported by numerous foundations and patrons, the Art Society put out a competitive bid for a new museum building. A then very young Lueder Rutenberg—himself a member of the Art Association—won against prominent competitors. The Society broke ground on the Kunsthalle on 1 July 1847, becoming the first Society in Germany with its own building. The construction project was located on a former rubbish dump in the vicinity of the old city ramparts and the building was finished in 1849. Rutenberg's design was of a dignified but understated two-story building with a three-axis central projection of round arches.
[ While the collections were largely owned by the Kunstverein, the property itself was owned by the city. Four stone figures over the entrance are of ]Raphael
Raffaello Sanzio da Urbino, better known as Raphael (; or ; March 28 or April 6, 1483April 6, 1520), was an Italian painter and architect of the High Renaissance. His work is admired for its clarity of form, ease of composition, and visual ...
, Michelangelo
Michelangelo di Lodovico Buonarroti Simoni (; 6 March 1475 – 18 February 1564), known as Michelangelo (), was an Italian sculptor, painter, architect, and poet of the High Renaissance. Born in the Republic of Florence, his work was ins ...
, Dürer, and Rubens
Sir Peter Paul Rubens (; ; 28 June 1577 – 30 May 1640) was a Flemish artist and diplomat from the Duchy of Brabant in the Southern Netherlands (modern-day Belgium). He is considered the most influential artist of the Flemish Baroque traditio ...
, created by the sculptor Adolph Steinhäuser (1825-1858).
Expansion in 1902
After another competition among Bremen architects, a much-needed enlargement was commissioned in 1898. Albert Dunkel was selected to design the interiors, Eduard Gildemeister for the monumental sandstone facade, and decoration by renowned sculptors Georg Roemer and Georg Wrba
Georg Wrba (3 January 1872 – 9 January 1939) was a German sculptor and graphic artist. He created some 3,000–4,000 works, including as a collaborator of the Zwinger (Dresden), Zwinger workshop.
Life
Wrba was born in Munich in 1872, the so ...
. The foundation work was begun in 1899 and on 15 February 1902 the opening ceremony took place. The facade was under construction until 1904. The expansion was funded by foundations and businessmen in Bremen.
Consequences of World War II
The art gallery was closed shortly after the outbreak of war and the collection was initially stored in the basement. In the night of 5 September 1942, a fire bomb destroyed the central staircase and six rooms upstairs. It also burned the painting '' Washington Crossing the Delaware'' by Emanuel Leutze
Emanuel Gottlieb Leutze (May 24, 1816July 18, 1868) was a German-American history painter best known for his 1851 painting '' Washington Crossing the Delaware''. He is associated with the Düsseldorf school of painting.
Biography
Leutze was born ...
, which because of its size could not be removed. Today a second version hangs in the Metropolitan Museum of Art
The Metropolitan Museum of Art of New York City, colloquially "the Met", is the largest art museum in the Americas. Its permanent collection contains over two million works, divided among 17 curatorial departments. The main building at 1000 ...
in New York
New York most commonly refers to:
* New York City, the most populous city in the United States, located in the state of New York
* New York (state), a state in the northeastern United States
New York may also refer to:
Film and television
* '' ...
.[Kunsthalle Bremen: ''Geschichte 1914-1945']
online
retrieved 3 June 2012.
After this damage, large parts of the collection were moved to protected areas underneath the Bremer Landesbank and Norddeutschen Kreditbank. As the severity of air raids on Bremen increased, Mayor Böhmcker finally decreed that the collection should be housed outside the city in safety. The removal of the artworks began in 1943 to four different places: the paintings, drawings and graphic sheets were divided between Karnzow Castle of Count Königsmarck near Kyritz, Neumühle Castle of Count von der Schulenburg in Salzwedel
Salzwedel (, officially known as Hansestadt Salzwedel; Low German: ''Soltwedel'') is a town in Saxony-Anhalt, Germany. It is the capital of the district (''Kreis'') of Altmarkkreis Salzwedel, and has a population of approximately 21,500. Salz ...
, and Schwöbber Castle near Hameln
Hamelin ( ; german: Hameln ) is a town on the river Weser in Lower Saxony, Germany. It is the capital of the district of Hamelin-Pyrmont and has a population of roughly 57,000. Hamelin is best known for the tale of the Pied Piper of Hamelin.
Hi ...
. The sculptures were taken to the princely crypt at Bückeburg Castle.
Karnzow Castle was located in Margraviate of Brandenburg
The Margraviate of Brandenburg (german: link=no, Markgrafschaft Brandenburg) was a major principality of the Holy Roman Empire from 1157 to 1806 that played a pivotal role in the history of Germany and Central Europe.
Brandenburg developed out ...
closer to Berlin
Berlin ( , ) is the capital and largest city of Germany by both area and population. Its 3.7 million inhabitants make it the European Union's most populous city, according to population within city limits. One of Germany's sixteen constitu ...
and it held 50 paintings, 1715 drawings and about 3000 prints from the collection. The castle was taken in May 1945 by Soviet troops and on their return home it was plundered. The Soviets also left the hiding place open, with the result that works of art were within the reach of everyone. Berlin sculptor Kurt Reutti, head of a unit of the Berlin City Council, was able to find several items by extensive research and reclamation from the local black market. However, the losses of the Kunsthalle Bremen stand alongside those of the Prussian Cultural Heritage Foundation and the Dresden art collections as the largest and most devastating of any German museum from the war. In all over 1,500 works from the Kunsthalle remain missing today.
Reconstruction after 1945
In the immediate postwar period, the conditions of the Museum and the activities of the Art Society were extremely difficult. Between 1947 and 1948, soldiers of the US Army were billeted in the art gallery, Print Room and Board Room. Because of war damage the building was unusable for displaying art, although exhibitions were organized at other locations starting in 1946. In 1948, ten rooms upstairs were again opened to the public for the 125th anniversary of the Art Society. After further repairs, all rooms on the upper floor were usable again by the end of 1951. In 1961 an extensive restoration was carried out which repaired the heavy war damage. The staircase and the front entrance were modernized in the style of the time.
Expansion in 1982
An extension to the building was completed in 1982 by architect Werner Düttmann and caused a scandal. Contrary to the plans which had been approved in sandstone red brick facade was built instead.
Renovations 1990–1999
In 1990 the Art Society secured financing for the renovation of the workshops, storage areas and the main Print Room of the now structurally and functionally obsolete building. Between 1996 and 1998, more renovations of the Art Gallery continued under the chairman Georg Abegg and director Wulf Herzogenrath
Wulf Herzogenrath (born 23 March 1944, Rathenow, Province of Brandenburg), Germany is a German art historian and art curator. He is a leading expert in the fields of Video art, New Media Art and the Bauhaus. He has assembled a large collection ...
. These were urgent because the exhibition halls were in poor condition, the lighting did not meet the requirements and climate conditions did not meet international standards.
In 1995 the Art Society's board of trustees began a "Save the Art Gallery" capital campaign under the leadership of the merchant and deputy chairman Dieter Harald Berghöfer, which reached out to patrons. Within one year it had received 7 million marks, a third of the calculated construction costs (in a city with fewer than 600,000 inhabitants). The state of Bremen and the Federal Republic then provided the other two thirds. Due to unexpected difficulties with the building, construction costs rose to almost 25 million DM, and these additional costs were raised solely by donors who wanted to support the efforts of the Art Society and the board of trustees.
As a result of the renovation, golden oak parquet replaced the linoleum, while the 24 halls and intimate cabinets in which the permanent collection is grouped are bathed in color.
Extension 2011
Between 2009 and 2011, the older constructions of 1961 and 1982 were demolished and two modernist, cubic wings with of gross floor area were added to the old main building according to the plans by architects Hufnagel, Putz and Rafaelian. The main building with of gross floor area was completely renovated and portions modernized. The project cost around €30 million. The families of Friedrich and Peter Lürßen of Lürssen shipyard fame and the Karin and Uwe Hollweg Foundation contributed a third, and the city of Bremen and the Federal Government each one-third of these costs. Additional costs of €3.5 million for among other things geothermal heating were covered by the art society. The new Art Gallery opened on 20 August 2011 and held its first major exhibition at the on 15 October 2011.
Collections
Paintings
The museum's paintings span the 14th century to the present day and are primarily West European.[The Athenaeum: Works at the Kunsthalle Breme]
online
retrieved 3 June 2012. Among the collection's highlights are French and German works from the 19th and 20th century, including important pieces by Paul Cézanne
Paul Cézanne ( , , ; ; 19 January 1839 – 22 October 1906) was a French artist and Post-Impressionist painter whose work laid the foundations of the transition from the 19th-century conception of artistic endeavour to a new and radically d ...
, Édouard Manet
Édouard Manet (, ; ; 23 January 1832 – 30 April 1883) was a French modernist painter. He was one of the first 19th-century artists to paint modern life, as well as a pivotal figure in the transition from Realism to Impressionism.
Bor ...
, Claude Monet
Oscar-Claude Monet (, , ; 14 November 1840 – 5 December 1926) was a French painter and founder of impressionist painting who is seen as a key precursor to modernism, especially in his attempts to paint nature as he perceived it. During ...
, Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec
Comte Henri Marie Raymond de Toulouse-Lautrec-Monfa (24 November 1864 – 9 September 1901) was a French painter, printmaker, draughtsman, caricaturist and illustrator whose immersion in the colourful and theatrical life of Paris in th ...
and Vincent van Gogh
Vincent Willem van Gogh (; 30 March 185329 July 1890) was a Dutch Post-Impressionist painter who posthumously became one of the most famous and influential figures in Western art history. In a decade, he created about 2,100 artworks, inc ...
. It holds major paintings by Max Beckmann
Max Carl Friedrich Beckmann (February 12, 1884 – December 27, 1950) was a German painter, draftsman, printmaker, sculptor, and writer. Although he is classified as an Expressionist artist, he rejected both the term and the movement. In the 1920s ...
, Lovis Corinth, Max Liebermann
Max Liebermann (20 July 1847 – 8 February 1935) was a German painter and printmaker, and one of the leading proponents of Impressionism in Germany and continental Europe. In addition to his activity as an artist, he also assembled an important ...
, and Paula Modersohn-Becker
Paula Modersohn-Becker (8 February 1876 – 20 November 1907) was a German Expressionist painter of the late 19th and early 20th century. Her work is noted for its intensity and its blunt, unapologetic humanity, and for the many self-portraits the ...
. The museum also houses early modernist works by artists from the nearby art colony
An art colony, also known as an artists' colony, can be defined two ways. Its most liberal description refers to the organic congregation of artists in towns, villages and rural areas, often drawn by areas of natural beauty, the prior existence o ...
of Worpswede
Worpswede (Northern Low Saxon: ''Worpsweed'') is a municipality in the district of Osterholz, in Lower Saxony, Germany. It is situated in the Teufelsmoor, northeast of Bremen. The small town itself is located near the Weyerberg hill. It has bee ...
. Other represented artists include:
* Andreas Achenbach
Andreas Achenbach (29 September 1815, Kassel – 1 April 1910, Düsseldorf) was a German landscape and seascape painter in the Romantic style. He is considered to be one of the founders of the Düsseldorf School. His brother, Oswald, was also a ...
* Albrecht Altdorfer
* Arnold Boecklin
* Carl Blechen
Carl Eduard Ferdinand Blechen (29 July 1798, Cottbus – 23 July 1840, Berlin) was a German (his mother was a Sorb) landscape painter and a professor at the Academy of Arts, Berlin. His distinctive style was characteristic of the Romantic idea ...
* Merry-Joseph Blondel
* Willy von Beckerath
* Julius Schnorr von Carolsfeld
Julius Schnorr von Carolsfeld (26 March 1794 – 24 May 1872) () was a German painter, chiefly of Biblical subjects. As a young man he associated with the painters of the Nazarene movement who revived the florid Renaissance style in religious ar ...
* Gustave Courbet
Jean Désiré Gustave Courbet ( , , ; 10 June 1819 – 31 December 1877) was a French painter who led the Realism movement in 19th-century French painting. Committed to painting only what he could see, he rejected academic convention and ...
* Camille Corot
Jean-Baptiste-Camille Corot ( , , ; July 16, 1796 – February 22, 1875), or simply Camille Corot, is a French landscape and portrait painter as well as a printmaker in etching. He is a pivotal figure in landscape painting and his vast o ...
* Lucas Cranach the Elder
Lucas Cranach the Elder (german: Lucas Cranach der Ältere ; – 16 October 1553) was a German Renaissance painter and printmaker in woodcut and engraving. He was court painter to the Electors of Saxony for most of his career, and is kno ...
* Eugène Delacroix
Ferdinand Victor Eugène Delacroix ( , ; 26 April 1798 – 13 August 1863) was a French Romantic artist regarded from the outset of his career as the leader of the French Romantic school.Noon, Patrick, et al., ''Crossing the Channel: Britis ...
* Albrecht Dürer
Albrecht Dürer (; ; hu, Ajtósi Adalbert; 21 May 1471 – 6 April 1528),Müller, Peter O. (1993) ''Substantiv-Derivation in Den Schriften Albrecht Dürers'', Walter de Gruyter. . sometimes spelled in English as Durer (without an umlaut) or Due ...
* Adam Elsheimer
__NOTOC__
Adam Elsheimer (18 March 1578 – 11 December 1610) was a German artist working in Rome, who died at only thirty-two, but was very influential in the early 17th century in the field of Baroque paintings. His relatively few paintin ...
* Heinrich Jakob Fried
Heinrich Jakob Fried (11 March 1802, Queichheim - 2 November 1870, Munich) was a German painter.
Life and work
He studied at Stuttgart and Augsburg, and from 1822 under Johann Peter von Langer and Peter von Cornelius at the Academy of Fine Art ...
* Joseph von Führich
* Otto Gildemeister
Otto Gildemeister (13 March 1823 Bremen - 26 August 1902) was a German journalist and translator.
Biography
In 1850 he became editor-in-chief of the ''Weser-Zeitung'' of Bremen. He is known for his German renderings of Byron's complete works (18 ...
* Eva Gonzalès
* Franz Krüger
* Johann Liss
* August Macke
August Robert Ludwig Macke (3 January 1887 – 26 September 1914) was a German Expressionist painter. He was one of the leading members of the German Expressionist group Der Blaue Reiter (The Blue Rider). He lived during a particularly act ...
* Franz Marc
Franz Moritz Wilhelm Marc (8 February 1880 – 4 March 1916) was a German painter and printmaker, one of the key figures of German Expressionism. He was a founding member of '' Der Blaue Reiter'' (The Blue Rider), a journal whose name later ...
* Hans von Marées
Hans von Marées (24 December 1837 – 5 June 1887) was a German painter.
Initially specialising in portraiture he later turned to mythological subjects. He spent the last years of his life in Italy.
Life
Marées was born into a banking family ...
* Anton Raphael Mengs
Anton Raphael Mengs (22 March 1728 – 29 June 1779) was a German painter, active in Dresden, Rome, and Madrid, who while painting in the Rococo period of the mid-18th century became one of the precursors to Neoclassical painting, which replace ...
* Edvard Munch
Edvard Munch ( , ; 12 December 1863 – 23 January 1944) was a Norwegian painter. His best known work, '' The Scream'' (1893), has become one of Western art's most iconic images.
His childhood was overshadowed by illness, bereavement and the d ...
* Friedrich Paul Nerly
* Jules Pascin
Julius Mordecai Pincas (March 31, 1885 – June 5, 1930), known as Pascin (; erroneously or ), Jules Pascin, or the "Prince of Montparnasse", was a Bulgarian artist known for his paintings and drawings. He later became an American citizen ...
* Camille Pissarro
Jacob Abraham Camille Pissarro ( , ; 10 July 1830 – 13 November 1903) was a Danish-French Impressionist and Neo-Impressionist painter born on the island of St Thomas (now in the US Virgin Islands, but then in the Danish West Indies). ...
* Odilon Redon
Odilon Redon (born Bertrand Redon; ; 20 April 18406 July 1916) was a French symbolist painter, printmaker, draughtsman and pastellist.
Early in his career, both before and after fighting in the Franco-Prussian War, he worked almost exclusivel ...
* Théo van Rysselberghe
Théophile "Théo" van Rysselberghe (23 November 1862 – 13 December 1926) was a Belgian neo-impressionist painter, who played a pivotal role in the European art scene at the turn of the twentieth century.
Biography
Early years
Born i ...
* Otto Scholderer
Otto Franz Scholderer (25 January 1834 – 22 January 1902) was a German painter.
Life
He was born in Frankfurt am Main. On completing his schooling, Scholderer went to the Städel academy of arts in 1849, where he remained until 1851. Amo ...
* Carl Schuch
Carl Eduard Schuch (30 September 1846 – 13 September 1903) was an Austrian painter, born in Vienna, who spent most of his lifetime outside Austria, in Germany, Italy and France. He painted primarily still lifes and landscapes.
From 1865 to ...
* Alfred Sisley
Alfred Sisley (; ; 30 October 1839 – 29 January 1899) was an Impressionist landscape painter who was born and spent most of his life in France, but retained British citizenship. He was the most consistent of the Impressionists in his dedicatio ...
* Max Slevogt
Max Slevogt (8 October 1868 – 20 September 1932) was a German Impressionist painter and illustrator, best known for his landscapes. He was, together with Lovis Corinth and Max Liebermann, one of the foremost representatives in Germany of t ...
* Sébastien Stoskopff
* Hans Thoma
Hans Thoma (2 October 1839 – 7 November 1924) was a German painter.
Biography
Hans Thoma was born on 2 October 1839 in Bernau in the Black Forest, Germany. He was the son of a miller and was trained in the basics of painting by a painter of ...
* Carl Wagner
Carl Wilhelm Wagner (May 25, 1901 – December 10, 1977) was a German Physical chemist. He is best known for his pioneering work on Solid-state chemistry, where his work on oxidation rate theory, counter diffusion of ions and defect chemistry ...
Prints and drawings
The Department of Prints and Drawings has 220,000 sheets from the 15th to 20th century, including hand drawings, aquarelle
Watercolor (American English) or watercolour (British English; see spelling differences), also ''aquarelle'' (; from Italian diminutive of Latin ''aqua'' "water"), is a painting method”Watercolor may be as old as art itself, going back to ...
s, copperplate prints, and printed graphs. It is one of largest and most important collections of its kind in Europe. Artists include:[
* ]Edgar Degas
Edgar Degas (, ; born Hilaire-Germain-Edgar De Gas, ; 19 July 183427 September 1917) was a French Impressionism, Impressionist artist famous for his pastel drawings and oil paintings.
Degas also produced bronze sculptures, Printmaking, prints ...
* Albrecht Dürer
Albrecht Dürer (; ; hu, Ajtósi Adalbert; 21 May 1471 – 6 April 1528),Müller, Peter O. (1993) ''Substantiv-Derivation in Den Schriften Albrecht Dürers'', Walter de Gruyter. . sometimes spelled in English as Durer (without an umlaut) or Due ...
* Berthe Morisot
Berthe Marie Pauline Morisot (; January 14, 1841 – March 2, 1895) was a French painter and a member of the circle of painters in Paris who became known as the Impressionists.
In 1864, Morisot exhibited for the first time in the highly e ...
New Media
The New Media section features works by John Cage
John Milton Cage Jr. (September 5, 1912 – August 12, 1992) was an American composer and music theorist. A pioneer of indeterminacy in music, electroacoustic music, and non-standard use of musical instruments, Cage was one of the leading f ...
, Otto Piene
Otto Piene (pronounced PEE-nah, 18 April 1928 – 17 July 2014) was a German-American artist specializing in kinetic and technology-based art, often working collaboratively. He lived and worked in Düsseldorf, Germany; Cambridge, Massachusetts; ...
, Peter Campus
Peter Campus (born 1937 in New York, NY), often styled as peter campus, is an American artist and a pioneer of new media and video art, known for his interactive video installations, single-channel video works, and photography. His work is held ...
, Olafur Eliasson
Olafur Eliasson ( is, Ólafur Elíasson; born 5 February 1967) is an Icelandic–Danish artist known for sculptured and large-scale installation art employing elemental materials such as light, water, and air temperature to enhance the viewer's ...
, Nam June Paik
Nam June Paik (; July 20, 1932 – January 29, 2006) was a Korean American artist. He worked with a variety of media and is considered to be the founder of video art. He is credited with the first use (1974) of the term "electronic super h ...
and others. The Kunstverein promotes current art trends by awarding the Böttcherstrasse Art Prize and organizing exhibitions of the ''Förderkreis für Gegenwartskunst'' (association for the support of contemporary art).
Baldin Collection
In 1945 Soviet Army officer Viktor Baldin discovered the stored works from the Kunsthalle in the basement of Karnzow Castle. In order to protect them from complete destruction, he grabbed drawings by Rembrandt
Rembrandt Harmenszoon van Rijn (, ; 15 July 1606 – 4 October 1669), usually simply known as Rembrandt, was a Dutch Golden Age painter, printmaker and draughtsman. An innovative and prolific master in three media, he is generally cons ...
, Titian
Tiziano Vecelli or Vecellio (; 27 August 1576), known in English as Titian ( ), was an Italians, Italian (Republic of Venice, Venetian) painter of the Renaissance, considered the most important member of the 16th-century Venetian school (art), ...
, Rubens
Sir Peter Paul Rubens (; ; 28 June 1577 – 30 May 1640) was a Flemish artist and diplomat from the Duchy of Brabant in the Southern Netherlands (modern-day Belgium). He is considered the most influential artist of the Flemish Baroque traditio ...
, Goya
Francisco José de Goya y Lucientes (; ; 30 March 174616 April 1828) was a Spanish romantic painter and printmaker. He is considered the most important Spanish artist of the late 18th and early 19th centuries. His paintings, drawings, and e ...
, Van Gogh
Vincent Willem van Gogh (; 30 March 185329 July 1890) was a Dutch Post-Impressionist painter who posthumously became one of the most famous and influential figures in Western art history. In a decade, he created about 2,100 artworks, inc ...
and Édouard Manet
Édouard Manet (, ; ; 23 January 1832 – 30 April 1883) was a French modernist painter. He was one of the first 19th-century artists to paint modern life, as well as a pivotal figure in the transition from Realism to Impressionism.
Bor ...
and brought them to the Soviet Union
The Soviet Union,. officially the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. (USSR),. was a transcontinental country that spanned much of Eurasia from 1922 to 1991. A flagship communist state, it was nominally a federal union of fifteen nationa ...
in a suitcase. In 1963 Baldin became Director of the Moscow Architecture Museum. In the autumn of 1989 he visited the Bremen Kunsthalle and reported to the chairman of the Art Society that he had the time to get two paintings and 362 drawings out of Castle Karnzow and had handed them over to the Schtschusev State Research and Science Museum for safekeeping. In the following years he tried repeatedly to return the artwork to the Bremen Art Society by appealing to the highest authorities of the USSR
The Soviet Union,. officially the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. (USSR),. was a transcontinental country that spanned much of Eurasia from 1922 to 1991. A flagship communist state, it was nominally a federal union of fifteen nati ...
, but without success. The whole issue of " looted art" from Germany was still taboo at that time. In 1995, a show named after him was held in the Hermitage collection in St. Petersburg. In February 2003, the then Russian Minister of Culture, after a formal request of the Kunstverein in 2000, provided a written commitment that the Baldin Collection should be returned to Bremen. Although the collection is not covered by the Plundered Art Laws, the Russian State Duma has so far refused to return it. In 2005 Russia's Culture Minister Alexander Sokolov said that returning the collection to Germany was "out of the question."
See also
* List of art museums
* List of museums in Germany
This is a list of museums and galleries in Germany.
Baden-Württemberg
Bavaria Augsburg
* Augsburg Puppet Theater museum
* Augsburg Railway Park
* Fuggerei museum
* German Ice Hockey Hall of Fame
Bayreuth
* Kunstmuseum Bayreuth
Eichst� ...
References
External links
*
Repatriation of artworks stolen from the museum during WWII
Virtual tour of the Kunsthalle Bremen
provided by Google Arts & Culture
Google Arts & Culture (formerly Google Art Project) is an online platform of high-resolution images and videos of artworks and cultural artifacts from partner cultural organizations throughout the world.
It utilizes high-resolution image technol ...
*
{{Authority control
Museums in Bremen (city)
Art museums and galleries in Germany
Art and cultural repatriation
Art museums established in 1849
1849 establishments in Germany