The work of art (magazine)

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Cover picture of the magazine "The Artwork", first issue 1946

The work of art was a German art magazine founded by Woldemar Klein in Baden-Baden in 1946 and dedicated to modern art. It was one of the “most important publication organs for the history of modern and contemporary art in West Germany.” In the first post-war period, the issues were published irregularly, after which it was published monthly. It was discontinued in 1991.

history

The work of art was founded in 1946 by the publisher Woldemar Klein and the art historian Leopold Zahn in Baden-Baden in the French occupation zone . It was the first art magazine in the West Zone devoted to contemporary art and published extensive text and image contributions on Expressionism and contemporary abstract art .

The founder Woldemar Klein already ran a publishing house in Munich, then from 1934 in Berlin, in which he primarily published Russian literature and later increasingly art books and art postcards. In 1943 he moved from bombed Berlin to Baden-Baden on the Leisberghöhe. Klein was born on May 7, 1892 in Saint Petersburg , he was married to Ruth Klein (née Thierfelder). He studied at the Technical University of Karlsruhe , where he graduated with a degree in engineering and became an honorary citizen in 1960. Klein became a member of the PEN Center in 1955 . After Klein's death in 1962, his widow Ruth, an author, continued to run the book publishing company and, since the mid-1970s, has been cooperating with Rudolf Georgi's publishing house in Aachen , which was then renamed as Woldemar Klein / Dr. Rudolf Georgi traded.

Publishing house Woldemar Klein

The first edition appeared in 1946 under the editorship of Leopold Zahn and Ludwig E (manuel) Reindl with a volume of 40 pages, as well as some advertising pages. A small medieval woodcut was printed on the cover and the frontispiece, showing a sower whose seeds already contained all the components of the plant. In addition to a foreword by the publisher, articles such as Manfred Hausmann's : Him zum Bilde appeared. Artists and the present , Kurt Gerstenberg : Tiepolo's frescoes in the residence in Würzburg , Hans Carossa : The little town in the hand of the saint , Egon Vietta dealt with the artist Karl Rössing . The editor Leopold Zahn wrote on the subject of plastic and Reindl: About a figure by Richard Scheibe .

Agis publishing house

In 1955, the work of art was sold to the Krefelder Agis publishing house, founded in 1949 by Karl Georg Fischer (1899–1994), who served as publisher until 1968. The buyer's son, the artist Klaus Jürgen-Fischer , moved up to the editorial team alongside Zahn. The full title has since been The Work of Art. A magazine covering all areas of the visual arts. Founded by Waldemar Klein . The takeover and the new editor were received critically: "The Fischers narrowed Klein's» magazine for all areas of the visual arts «into a propaganda sheet for the current directions of the present, among which the abstracts still dominated around 1960 ..." Karl G. Fischer conceived 1959 the Baden-Baden art talk on the subject of “Is modern art managed?”, In which Theodor W. Adorno, Konrad Farner, Daniel-Henry Kahnweiler, Egon Vietta, HAP Grieshaber and others took part.

Kohlhammer Publishing House

In 1968 the magazine moved to W. Kohlhammer Verlag in Stuttgart and the artist and friend Fischer's Rolf-Gunter Dienst was added to the editorial team alongside him and Zahn. The subtitle was Zeitschrift für bildende Kunst.

At the beginning of the 1990s, the last edition appeared with The Artwork 4/1991 and the thematic focus on New Pictures , which had a length of 114 pages. The authors were the Frankfurt museum director Klaus Gallwitz , who wrote about the figurative painter Horst Antes , Manfred Schneckenburger , the documenta director, examined the paintings by Kuno Gonschior under the title The love of colors has method and Tayfun Belgin wrote: About the painting by Ulrich Erbens . Editor-in-chief Rolf-Gunter Dienst reported on new work by Konrad Klapheck : Chance is the master of inspiration and Eduard Beaucamp took on Hans Peter Reuter's watercolors.

Kohlhammer has been keeping the magazine “The Work of Art” alive for several years through cross-subsidies .

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Nikola Doll: Art history after 1945: Continuity and a new beginning in Germany . Böhlau Verlag Köln Weimar, 2006, ISBN 978-3-412-00406-4 , p. 137
  2. ↑ Maike Steinkamp: The unwanted legacy: the reception of “degenerate” art in art criticism, exhibitions and museums of the Soviet zone of occupation and the early GDR , Akademie Verlag, Berlin, 2008 ISBN 978-3-05-004450-7 , p. 364
  3. ↑ Nikola Doll: Art history after 1945: Continuity and a new beginning in Germany . P. 140
  4. ↑ Börsenblatt for the German book trade, ed. from Börsenverein des Deutschen Buchhandels, 1980, p. 2852

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