Permanent Elberfeld-Barmer art exhibition

from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Location of the exhibition: the casino in Elberfeld (lithograph from 1828)
Exhibits: Johann Peter Hasenclever's children of the pastor ... (lost in the war)
... and The Cardsharps by Ludwig Knaus (today in the Düsseldorf Art Palace )

The permanent Elberfeld-Barmer art exhibition was an event in Elberfeld that was held from 1851 to 1854. The art exhibition was "a unique, significant and daring attempt to present visual art" in German art history, and that in a "culturally conservative" and "strictly ecclesiastical" environment.

history

In the course of the 19th century, art associations were founded in many German cities, which were initiated by members of a liberal, educated middle class. In the place of princely or ecclesiastical patrons came new organizational forms of art marketing, with exhibitions, sales and raffles of works of art. This created a free market without governmental constraints, which was not only beneficial for the artists themselves, as they had to adjust to new structures and marketing strategies. The art associations were only intended for the bourgeois class, an opening "downwards" was not intended. The oldest art association of this kind was founded in Zurich in 1787 .

The permanent Elberfeld-Barmer art exhibition was also planned by a committee of respected citizens and carried out in 1851, including the publisher Julius Theodor Baedeker , the banker August von der Heydt and the painter Johann Richard Seel . The following year, Elberfeld's mayor, Karl Emil Lischke, also joined the Comité, whose daughter Emmy was a painter herself. Several members of the committee had personal relationships with Düsseldorf painters ; the most important liaison to the local art scene was the journalist Hermann Püttmann . The Düsseldorf Artists Association for mutual help and support presumably acted as a partner of the organizers.

On May 4, 1851, the announcement of the permanent art exhibition appeared in the Elberfelder Zeitung : “The purpose […] is to appropriate the advantage of other less important cities in our area […] and to take the appropriate position in the field of fine arts […] . “Two weeks later, on May 18th , the permanent art exhibition in Elberfeld and Barmen was opened in the garden hall of the casino , the society house of the casino company in Elberfeld . Annual tickets were sold by subscription for access.

The works of numerous artists from the Bergisch area , from Düsseldorf and Cologne , some from more distant cities such as Berlin, were shown . These included paintings by Andreas Achenbach , Eduard Bendemann , Joseph Fay , Johann Peter Hasenclever , Theodor Hildebrandt , Carl Friedrich Lessing , Richard Seel and Johann Wilhelm Schirmer . From the beginning, the local newspapers reported regularly on new consignments, sales and other events related to the exhibition. Works by Johann Wilhelm Preyer , Siegmund Lachenwitz , Ludwig Knaus , Benjamin Vautier , Fritz Wolff , Gustav Adolf Koettgen , Heinrich Christoph Kolbe and others followed. At the end of August 1851 it was announced that by this time 371 pictures had been exhibited, 18 of which were sold on commission. On November 1, 1851 it was announced that 2300 thalers had been earned through sales. In addition, other works of art were raffled among the holders of the annual tickets.

It was planned that the commissions from sales and the tickets to the exhibition should be used to purchase additional pictures, which in turn should be raffled off. After deducting all costs, however, the surpluses were not as high as expected, so that the painting raffle association was also founded in October 1851 . Shares were sold for five talers; It was not paintings that were raffled off, but credits for amounts of money in various amounts that could be redeemed when purchasing works of art.

Many of the works of art exhibited at that time are lost today or were destroyed in the Second World War.

The exhibitions were accompanied by numerous articles, especially in the Elberfelder Zeitung , the author of which from May 1851 to 1852 was the co-initiator and manager of the art exhibition Hermann Püttmann. He had previously written a book about the Düsseldorf School of Painting and worked as an art reviewer for the Kölnische Zeitung . In the year before the exhibition, he had founded the early socialist workers newspaper Der Volksmann , whose publication had to be stopped again under pressure from the Elberfeld police. In 1853 he was described in a police protocol as a “staunch supporter of the revolutionary party” and “soon to be managing director of the local art association”, but Püttmann had already been dismissed as such the year before. Presumably the bourgeois Comité had become too sensitive to contact with a socialist under police surveillance. Shortly afterwards, Püttmann and his large family moved to England. The art exhibition thus lost its most active and professional protagonist.

The permanent art exhibition was continued in 1853 and 1854 , but the interest among artists and art lovers decreased. The American Standard newspaper also reported only sporadically after the departure of Püttmann after 1854 lack any reports. “The project was ended without a hitch and fell into oblivion”: The concept of a permanent exhibition had failed.

The Barmer Kunstverein was founded in 1866, and the Elberfeld Museum Association in 1892 . Apparently there was no personal connection to the committee of the permanent art exhibition in either association. The associations merged in 1946 to form the Wuppertal Art and Museum Association , which, like its predecessors, regularly organizes temporary exhibitions in Wuppertal museums and exhibition halls.

literature

  • Ulrike Becks-Malorny: The art association in Barmen 1866-1946. Civil patronage between the German Empire and National Socialism . Ed .: Art and Museum Association, Wuppertal. Born, Wuppertal 2002, ISBN 3-87093-060-8 .
  • Horst Heidermann : Wuppertal on the way to becoming an art city - a bold attempt fails. The Elberfeld-Barmer art exhibition from 1851 to 1854 and the painting raffle association . In: Romerike Berge . tape 51 , no. 1 , 2001, p. 3-14 .

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ The cardsharps. In: d: kult online. Retrieved August 6, 2019 .
  2. ↑ a b c Heidermann, Wuppertal on the way to the city of art , p. 3.
  3. ↑ Os - Roq. P. 354 ( limited preview in Google Book search).
  4. ↑ Ulrike Becks-Malorny, Der Kunstverein in Barmen , p. 10 f.
  5. ↑ a b Heidermann, Wuppertal on the way to the art city , p. 4.
  6. ↑ a b Heidermann, Wuppertal on the way to the art city , p. 10.
  7. ↑ a b Heidermann, Wuppertal on the way to the art city , p. 6.
  8. ↑ a b Heidermann, Wuppertal on the way to the art city , p. 11.
  9. ↑ Ulrike Becks-Malorny, Der Kunstverein in Barmen , p. 18 ff.