Great Berlin art exhibition

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Advertising poster for the Great Berlin Art Exhibition in 1893 by Ernst Hildebrand , German Historical Museum
Great Berlin Art Exhibition 1894 , title page from the exhibition catalog
Advertising poster for the Great Berlin Art Exhibition 1895 by Carl Röchling
Advertising poster Great Berlin Art Exhibition 1897 by Melchior Lechter , symbolism
Advertising poster for the Great Berlin Art Exhibition in 1898 by Karl Ferdinand Klimsch , based on a self-portrait by Albrecht Dürer
Advertising poster Great Berlin Art Exhibition 1898 by Eduard Liesen, Art Nouveau
Advertising postcard for the Great Berlin Art Exhibition 1910 , by Friedrich Kallmorgen
Advertising postcard of the Great Berlin Art Exhibition 1912 , by Hans Looschen
The Exhibition Palace 1898
Plaster model Screaming Deer by Richard Rusche (1 ⅓ life size) at the Great Berlin Art Exhibition 1899
Kaiser Wilhelm II and Empress Auguste Viktoria at the Great Berlin Art Exhibition on the anniversary of the reign of His Majesty the Emperor , 1913
View into the hall of the Novembergruppe , Great Berlin Art Exhibition 1919, Federal Archives
View into the sculpture hall, Great Berlin Art Exhibition 1920, Federal Archives
Installation of the sculpture ( lime wood ) Female nude by Christoph Voll in a room belonging to the November Group , Great Berlin Art Exhibition 1924, Federal Archives
Opening day of the Great Berlin Art Exhibition on May 31, 1924, Federal Archives
View of the exhibition building of the Great Berlin Art Exhibition 1928 at Lehrter Bahnhof , Federal Archives
Opening address by Hans Baluschek at the Great Berlin Art Exhibition in 1931 in Bellevue Palace , Federal Archives
Opening address by Hans Baluschek with press people in the background at the Great Berlin Art Exhibition in 1931 in Bellevue Palace, Federal Archives
In the foreground the room of abstracts , Great Berlin Art Exhibition 1931 in Bellevue Palace, Federal Archives
Opening address by Hans Baluschek at the Great Berlin Art Exhibition in 1932 in Bellevue Palace, Federal Archives

The Great Berlin Art Exhibition , also Grosse Berliner Kunstausstellung , abbreviated GroBeKa or GBK , was an annual art exhibition that existed from 1893 to 1969 with intermittent breaks. In 1917 and 1918, during the First World War , it took place in Düsseldorf instead of in Berlin . In 1919 and 1920 it operated under the name Kunstausstellung Berlin . From 1970 to 1995, the Free Berlin Art Exhibition was held annually in its place .

The exhibition

Wilhelmine era

Until the 1890s, with the exception of the International Art Exhibition of 1891, the Fine Arts Section of the Royal Academy of Arts organized and directed the academic art exhibitions for more than a hundred years . The first major Berlin art exhibition took place in 1893 on the basis of the statutes approved by Kaiser Wilhelm II to reorganize its internal circumstances. From now on, the entirety of the Berlin artist community was to take over the art exhibition, represented by the cooperative of the members of the Royal Academy of Arts and the Association of Berlin Artists . Düsseldorf's artists were also allowed to participate in the management of the exhibition . On May 14, 1893, the Prussian minister of culture, Robert Bosse, opened the first major Berlin art exhibition . This and the following exhibitions took place in the Glass Palace , in the exhibition building of the State Exhibition Park at Lehrter Bahnhof .

In 1896, to celebrate the bicentenary of the Royal Academy of the Arts, instead of the Great Berlin Art Exhibition, the International Art Exhibition and the Berlin Trade Exhibition were held in the exhibition building, in the adjacent building and in the state exhibition park.

It is disputed whether in 1898 the jury of the Great Berlin Art Exhibition rejected the landscape painting Grunewaldsee by the painter Walter Leistikow and this, among other things. a. was the reason for the foundation of the Berlin Secession . In order to raise the long-lamented average size of this exhibition, the jury rejected around 1,500 works, i.e. a third of the works submitted. Walter Leistikow's pictures were not affected by this. All pictures submitted by him were accepted.

At the beginning of May 1898, 60 artists founded the Berlin Secession as a consequence of current and previous disagreements with the Association of Berlin Artists . Most of the members did not take part in the Great Berlin Art Exhibition for a while from 1899 and showed their works in a building on Kantstrasse in the Secession's own exhibitions.

Käthe Kollwitz was nominated for a gold medal by the jury of the Great Berlin Art Exhibition for her cycle A Weavers' Uprising , but Kaiser Wilhelm II probably found the works too socially critical and in 1898 he prevented the award of medals.

In 1900 16 of the 24 exhibited works by the sculptor and painter Gustav Eberlein fell victim to the censorship and were removed from the exhibition on “highest instruction”, including the works Adam and Eve at the end of life , The Spirit of Bismarck and Workers (also sack-bearers ).

In 1905 the Berliner Werkring , the Association for House and Apartment Art were represented in the exhibition and in 1908 the Dresden artist group Die Elbier .

On the occasion of the anniversary of the reign of the emperor, the exhibition under the title Great Berlin Art Exhibition for the reign of His Majesty the Emperor took place in 1913 . The wish to include the Berlin Secession in this great Berlin art exhibition , with its own jury and its own halls, was not fulfilled. The Berlin Secession declined the invitation.

Since the exhibition building of the State Exhibition Park was used for military purposes due to the First World War , the Great Berlin Art Exhibition took place in 1915 in the exhibition building at Palais Arnim of the Royal Academy of Arts on Pariser Platz with a smaller exhibition area. In order to be able to show at least around 600 works, the exhibition was divided into two stages. 300 works were on view during the first half of the exhibition and another 300 during the second half.

The exhibition in 1916, again in the Glass Palace, was almost entirely devoted to the war. There were three categories: The War Pictures Exhibition , the Portrait Gallery : “Great Men from Great Times” and the General Art Exhibition , whereby in the latter, which was divided into five groups, the Association of German Illustrators group also “Political caricature and war humor “Had as the main theme. On September 15, Herwarth Walden criticized this exhibition in his article The Forgotten Core in the magazine Der Sturm, which he edited .

In 1917 and 1918 the Great Berlin Art Exhibition was relocated to the Kunstpalast Düsseldorf . Also included were artists from the Berlin Secession and artists from the Free Secession . In 1917 new acquisitions from the municipal art collections in Düsseldorf were also exhibited, and in 1918, on the 80th birthday of the painter and professor at the Düsseldorf Art Academy, Eduard von Gebhardt's works from collections and private collections. Konrad Haenisch and Max Schlichting worked on a reform of the exhibition in 1918.

Weimar Republic

In 1919, at the beginning of the Weimar Republic , the exhibition took place under the name Kunstausstellung Berlin in the newly renovated Glaspalast in the Landesausstellungpark, as it did in 1920, but in 1921 it again had its old name, the Great Berlin Art Exhibition . The exhibition was now sponsored by the government of the new republic and had been reorganized. The Association of Berlin Artists , Berlin Secession , Free Secession and the November Group were represented , albeit separately from one another, each with its own jury and its own rooms.

On May 14, 1921, President Friedrich Ebert opened the Great Berlin Art Exhibition . The Berlin Secession was not represented at this exhibition. In September 1922 the lithograph Sentimental Sailor and the watercolor Patriotic Wandering Theater by the artist Georg Scholz were declared " lewd " and confiscated in the November group . The following year, Ebert and Hans Baluschek spoke at the opening event.

In 1927 the exhibition was directed for the first time by the cartel of the united associations of visual artists in Berlin . The cartel was founded to serve the interests of all artists. The exhibition commission consisted of one representative each from various groups and associations, namely from the Allgemeine Deutsche Kunstgenossenschaft, Ortsverein Berlin eV , the architects' association Der Ring , the Berliner Secession eV, the international association of Expressionists, Futurists, Cubists and Constructivists Die Abstrakten , The Free Association of Graphic Artists in Berlin eV, the Artists' Association of Berlin Sculptors eV, the Novembergruppe eV, the Association of Berlin Artists , the Association of Berlin Artists and the Women's Art Association eV There was also one for artists who did not belong to any association of the cartel Representative. The 1927 exhibition included a special exhibition with pictures by Malevich . Since Malevich had to travel back to the Soviet Union early , he gave the pictures to Hugo Häring in his function as treasurer of the exhibition. On the one hand, Malevich hoped for more sales, on the other hand, he hoped to return to Berlin. The pictures went on an “odyssey” and never returned to Russia. Of the 73 exhibited paintings, 18 are now considered lost.

On July 12, 1928, the "Führer" of the NSDAP and former painter Adolf Hitler visited the exhibition, which showed expressionist , futuristic , cubist , constructivist works and works of the New Objectivity , works that contradicted his understanding of art, therefore not his Nazi art ideal of German Art corresponded and later with the seizure of power by the Nazis in 1933 as degenerate art were branded.

Due to the dilapidation of the glass palace in the exhibition park, Bellevue Palace served as the exhibition venue from 1929 . From now on, the exhibition manager was Hans Baluschek.

In 1930 most of the submitted works by the Dadaist and painter of Berlin nightlife Christian Schad were rejected. A year later, the painting § 218 by Alice Lex-Nerlinger , the wife of Oskar Nerlinger , was confiscated by the police during the exhibition. The controversial painting Blessed are the poor in spirit by Horst Strempel was removed from the exhibition in 1932.

German Empire 1933 to 1945

Even in the early days of National Socialism , the National Socialists in 1933 removed Hans Baluschek as a so-called “ Marxist artist” from his position as exhibition director and later banned him from working and exhibiting. They condemned his works as " degenerate ". In 1933 and 1934, however, his pictures were still exhibited at the Great Berlin Art Exhibition . The opening speech of the exhibition was given by the Prussian Minister of Education, Bernhard Rust . Excluded from the board of the Association of Berlin Women Artists , Harriet von Rathlef-Keilmann withdrew her works from the Great Berlin Art Exhibition in Bellevue Palace as a consequence of the increasing anti-Semitic riots and the art policy of the National Socialists . The exhibition of 1934 was presented in the exhibition rooms of the Prussian Academy of the Arts , works by Gustav Wunderwald were rejected.

In 1936 Georg Netzband was banned from exhibiting because of "political unreliability".

During the Second World War in 1940, the exhibition was shown in the new exhibition hall of the Haus der Kunst in Hardenbergstrasse 21–23. The previous House of Art at Koenigsplatz 4 had been demolished.

In 1942 the exhibition took place in the National Gallery . For the thirteen-minute propaganda documentary Summer Sunday in Berlin from 1942 produced by Deutsche Wochenschau , around thirty seconds of film material was shot in and in front of the Great Berlin Art Exhibition in 35 mm film format . After about two minutes of the film, the recordings of the Great Berlin Art Exhibition follow . The sculpture is shown in close-up is the Wasserträgerin of Walter Hauschild .

Federal Republic of Germany

On May 25, 1956, the first major Berlin art exhibition since the war was opened in the exhibition halls at the Berlin radio tower . The exhibition was organized by the Professional Association of Visual Artists Berlin . From now on, Lou Scheper-Berkenkamp was jointly responsible for the design of the exhibitions. On the occasion of Waldemar Rösler's 40th year of death , his works were shown.

In 1958, the then mayor of West Berlin Willy Brandt and Federal President Theodor Heuss were present at the opening . In 1961, Paul Ohnsorge was awarded the Grand Prize of the Berlin Art Exhibition by Willy Brandt in the presence of the former Federal President Theodor Heuss .

The last Great Berlin Art Exhibition took place in 1969 .

Exhibiting artists (selection)

Wilhelmine era

Weimar Republic

German Empire 1933 to 1945

Federal Republic of Germany

Digitized exhibition catalogs

Web links

Commons : Great Berlin art exhibition  - collection of pictures, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. Catalog International Art Exhibition 1891
  2. ^ The International Art Exhibition in Berlin in 1891 by Cornelius Gurlitt
  3. Description of the first major Berlin art exhibition in the exhibition catalog from 1893 (digitized online)
  4. 1893 in the Living Museum Online
  5. Page 7 ( memento of November 29, 2014 in the Internet Archive ) of the PDF file from the Käthe Kollwitz Museum Cologne , chapter The Origin of the Berlin Secession
  6. ^ Walter Leistikow , page 2, bottom right and page 4, top left
  7. Weber walkout
  8. ^ Weavers ' revolt in the curriculum vitae
  9. ^ Works by Gustav Eberlein in the exhibition catalog, 1900
  10. Illustration of Adam and Eve at the end of life , third picture (click to enlarge the picture)
  11. See creative periods , 1895–1900
  12. ^ Foreword to the exhibition catalog 1913 (digitized online)
  13. ^ Report on the 1915 exhibition in German Art and Decoration
  14. ^ Report on the 1915 exhibition in Art for All
  15. Article in The Storm
  16. Kristina Kratz-Kessemeier: Art for the Republic: The Art Policy of the Prussian Ministry of Culture, p. 148
  17. Pages 147 to 179 in Art for the Republic
  18. May 14, 1921
  19. ^ Exhibition report 1921
  20. ^ Page 288 in Art for the Republic
  21. Pages 7 to 9 of the 1927 exhibition catalog
  22. Malevich 1927
  23. ^ Adolf Hitler 1928
  24. Dilapidation of the Glass Palace , page 537
  25. Black and white illustration ( memento of February 7, 2015 in the Internet Archive ) of the painting § 218 by Alice Lex-Nerlinger
  26. PDF file Ostracized artists in the Third Reich - FKW , Alice Lex-Nerlinger, on page 2 (original page 19)
  27. ^ Photo by Bernhard Rust at the opening speech of the Great Berlin Art Exhibition in 1933.
  28. Georg net tape
  29. October 7, 1940
  30. youtube search: Summer Sunday in Berlin 1942
  31. Details on the documentary Summer Sunday in Berlin
  32. ^ Photo by Willy Brandt and Theodor Heuss at the opening in 1958
  33. Medals up to 1896
  34. Medals up to 1903
  35. Medals up to 1906
  36. Medals up to 1909 and exhibition catalog 1907