Hagenbund

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Peter Chrastek: Expressive, New Objective , Forbidden. Hagenbund and its artists . Vienna 2016; Background image : Karl Hauk , Night Walk 1926

The Hagenbund (1900–1938), originally called "Künstlerbund Haagen", was an association of visual artists. The association was named not after the figure of the Nibelungen saga , but after the Viennese hotelier (Hotel Victoria in Favoritenstrasse 11) and owner of an inn (Zum Blauen Freihaus in Gumpendorferstrasse) named Josef “Haagen” (1846–1918). From the 1870s onwards, younger painters, sculptors and architects met there to exchange experiences and called each other "Haagengesellschaft". The “ Vienna Secession ” was created in 1897 and the “Hagenbund” in 1900 from a large number of these artists .

Club history

Foundation and time until 1912

The association was founded on February 3, 1900 as the Künstlerbund Hagen - similar to the “ Wiener Secession ” three years earlier - a spin-off from younger artists who were dissatisfied with the practices of the “Society of Visual Artists Vienna” ( Vienna Künstlerhaus for short ). The two universal artists Joseph Urban and his brother-in-law Heinrich Lefler were the main inspiration behind this step . Until November 1900, the Hagenbund remained within the framework of the Vienna Künstlerhaus, as it were as a club with its own exhibition rights. After further disputes, the final resignation took place and thus the achievement of independence.

In 1901 exhibitions followed in the renowned Viennese Galerie Miethke and in Munich . In 1902 the first exhibition was opened in-house, part of a market hall built around 1870 in Vienna 1, Zedlitzgasse. Joseph Urban adapted the rooms and decorated them in the spirit of Art Nouveau . Today there is a substation for the Wiener Elektrizitätswerke. The main styles in these years were Art Nouveau and Impressionism.

For the next few years the Hagenbund, which represented a “moderate” modernism , was surely in the shadow of the Vienna Secession , which represented modernism around 1900, but it clearly stood out from the conservative Viennese artist house . On the other hand, the association's tolerant attitude was revolutionary from the start. Neither its own members nor guests were required to have a specific artistic or political opinion, and origins or religion were not relevant. So it was no coincidence that radical young artists such as Kokoschka, Kolig, Faistauer, and Schiele were allowed to exhibit in both 1911 and 1912.

Eviction in 1913 by the City of Vienna and time until 1920

The works shown in 1911 and 1912, especially by Kokoschka, led to negative reactions on the part of the officials of the City of Vienna, the municipality terminated the lease from 1913 and the Hagenbund had no exhibition space of its own. The heir to the throne Franz Ferdinand, who completely rejected modern art, is said to have played an inglorious role in this context. In 1913 the association was still able to exhibit at the Vienna Künstlerhaus (old disputes were resolved), and before the First World War in 1914 at the Gödinger Kunstverein (today Hodonin / Slovakia). During the war it was not possible for the artists' associations to have an orderly club life; many artists were employed by the war press headquarters as war painters. After the World War, the Hagenbund appeared again as an association and in 1918 and 1919 was allowed to make guest appearances with collections in the Vienna Secession . It was not until 1920 that the Hagenbund was able to get its renovated exhibition house back.

The Hagenbund in the interwar period

At that time, the Hagenbund was certainly the most progressive artists' association and proved to be a platform for modernity . New, mostly younger members (such as Joseph Floch , Carry Hauser, Georg Jung, Maximilian Reinitz or Otto Rudolf Schatz ), besides and after Expressionism, also cultivated the " New Objectivity " and partly also Cubism . As high as the artistic level was, the finances were just as bad. The other “artist organizations” also struggled with serious economic problems. The Hagenbund tried to make money through theater performances, poetry readings ( Franz Theodor Csokor ), dance performances ( Grete Wiesenthal ) or artist balls (carnival balls). At the end of 1920 and beyond, it was not uncommon for artists to offer their works in exchange for food, clothing and even for dental treatment. In the 1930s, a number of young new artists joined the Hagenbund (such as Friedrich Aduatz , Ernst Paar , Lois Pregartbauer, Ferdinand Stransky ), who continued to be artistically active well beyond 1945, in some cases into the 1970s and 1980s.

End of the Hagenbund

With the invasion of German troops, the end of the Hagenbund was sealed. In 1938 the association was dissolved for political, racial and artistic reasons. Many members had to leave Austria because they did not racially correspond to the new rulers (e.g. Georg Merkel , Georg Ehrlich , Albert Reuss, Viktor Tischler, Georg Mayer-Marton ). Other members left Austria for political reasons ( Carry Hauser , Otto Rudolf Schatz ), some who stayed were banned from exhibiting. Two other artists who could not escape or who could not escape far enough were murdered in concentration camps ( Fritz Schwarz-Waldegg , Robert Kohl).

The New Hagenbund after 1945

In 1947, the experiment was started by some artists, the Hagenbund reawaken by the new Hagenbund founded. However, only Carry Hauser could be won over from the members of the time for a short time, the other former members living in Austria belonged to the Vienna Secession and the Vienna Künstlerhaus, or were co-founders of a new artists' association, the "Circle". The attempt therefore had to fail, even though the Neue Hagenbund held exhibitions without a sustained response until the early 1980s.

Members of the Hagenbund

Name, dates of life, time of membership

Ordinary members (men)

Associate members (women from 1924)

There was also a large number of corresponding members and exhibiting guests from Germany and abroad.

Scientific processing

Vienna Museum

The Historical Museum of the City of Vienna (now the Vienna Museum) began the actual scientific analysis of the association's history with an exhibition in 1975. Based on a study that appeared in 1972 in the communications of the Österreichische Galerie Belvedere , attempts were made for the first time to reconstruct the events (exhibitions) and people (exhibitors) associated with the Hagenbund . The basis for this reconstruction were existing catalogs, posters, reviews and the biographical material on the artists.

Langenzersdorf Museum

As the second museum after the Wien Museum, the Langenzersdorf Museum organized a large Hagenbund exhibition in 1989, "The Artists of the Hagenbund" with 115 exhibits.

Belvedere

The research into the history of the Hagenbund continued in 1993 with the exhibition " The Lost Modern Age. The Hagen Artists' Association 1900–1938 " . The aim of the exhibition was to make the Hagenbund artists' association , its activities and achievements and their position in Austrian art history known to a wider audience. In addition to a revision of the club's history, individual topics such as exile , poster art or architecture were also taken up in the catalog for the first time . With the 2014/2015 exhibition in the Lower Belvedere “Hagenbund - A European Network of Modernism 1900–1938”, further findings were made known to the public.

Association of Friends and Scientific Research of the Hagenbund

The association has set itself the goal of researching and processing the history of the Hagenbund. The focus is on collecting exhibition catalogs, newspaper articles, magazine articles and biographical materials on individual artists. In addition, efforts are also made to document and collect works by Hagenbund members. The knowledge gained from these activities flows into the organization of exhibitions, the writing of catalog articles and the publication of monographs.

Institutional research

Since the rediscovery of the Hagenbund for research, various projects and works on individual Hagenbund artists such as B. Franz Lerch (exhibition of the Historical Museum of the City of Vienna 1975 and dissertation University of Vienna 1985), Georg Ehrlich (exhibition of the Historical Museum of the City of Vienna 1976 and diploma thesis University of Salzburg 2006), Georg Merkel (dissertation University of Vienna 1982), Carry Hauser (dissertation University of Vienna 1982 and catalog raisonné 2012), Ludwig Heinrich Jungnickel (monograph and catalog raisonné 2000) or Fritz Schwarz-Waldegg (exhibition Jewish Museum 2009). The documents found in this context from sometimes scattered estates gradually lead to a better understanding of the internal processes of the Hagenbund .

A research project entitled “Hagenbund - An international network of artists in Vienna” was funded by the anniversary fund of the Austrian National Bank in 2013/14. In this project, the phenomenon of the international networking of the Hagenbund and the reception of the exhibitions in the daily newspapers were examined from a sociological, cultural-scientific perspective .

literature

  • Peter Chrastek: Expressive, New Objective , Forbidden. Hagenbund and its artists . Vienna 1900–1938 , Vienna Museum and Association of Friends and Scientific Research of the Hagenbund, Vienna 2016, ISBN 978-3-9504059-1-0
  • Eva Bajkay, Peter Chrastek: Exhibition catalog “6 Hungarians in the Hagenbund” , January 23 to March 27, 2015 Vienna, ed. Collegium Hungaricum Vienna, Rómer Flóris Múzeum Győr, in collaboration with the Association of Friends and Scientific Research of the Hagenbund, Budapest 2015, ISBN 978-615-5389-40-5
  • Matthias Boeckl, Agnes Husslein-Arco , Harald Krejci (eds.): Hagenbund. A European Network of Modernism (1900–1938) , exhibition catalog Österreichische Galerie Belvedere Vienna, Munich 2014, ISBN 978-3-7774-2273-2
  • Dietrich Kraft , Matthias Boeckl: Otto Rudolf Schatz. 1900-1961. Published by the Association of Friends and Scientific Research of the Hagenbund, Weitra 2010.
  • Wladimir Aichelburg : The Wiener Künstlerhaus 1861–2001. Vol. 1: The artists' cooperative and its rivals Secession and Hagenbund. Österreichischer Kunst und Kulturverlag Vienna, Vienna 2003, ISBN 3-85437-189-6
  • Matthias Boeckl (Red.): Modern tradition. Artists of the Hagenbund and their Czech guests. Works from eight private collections, exhibition catalog Association of Friends and Scientific Research of the Hagenbund, Bratislava July 2 to August 2, 2002.
  • Christoph Wilhelmi: Groups of artists in Germany, Austria and Switzerland since 1900. Ein Handbuch , Stuttgart 1996, ISBN 3-7762-0400-1 , pp. 167-173.
  • Tobias G. Natter (Ed.): The lost modernity. The Künstlerbund Hagen 1900–1938 , exhibition catalog Österreichische Galerie Belvedere, Vienna 7 May to 26 October 1993 (temporary exhibition of the Österreichische Galerie, 172).
  • Robert Waissenberger (Hrsg.): Hagenbund , exhibition catalog Historisches Museum der Stadt Wien, Vienna September 18 to November 30, 1975 (40th special exhibition of the Historisches Museum der Stadt Wien).
  • Robert Waissenberger : Hagenbund 1900–1938. History of the Vienna Artists' Association , in: Mitteilungen der Österreichische Galerie Belvedere , vol. 16., Vienna 1972, pp. 54–130.

Web links

Commons : Hagenbund  - Collection of images, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Christoph Wilhelmi: Artist groups in Germany, Austria and Switzerland since 1900. A manual. Hauswedell, Stuttgart 1996, ISBN 3-7762-0400-1 , pp. 167-173 No. 93.
  2. ^ Robert Kohl , gallery at the Albertina Zetter. Retrieved April 29, 2017.