Sonderbund (painting)

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The Sonderbund , officially Sonderbund Westdeutscher Kunstfreunde und Künstler , was founded in 1909 in Düsseldorf as an association of artists, collectors and museum experts under the chairmanship of Karl Ernst Osthaus , founder of the Folkwang Museum in Hagen. The aim was to promote artistic activities and encourage collaboration between artists and audiences.

Foundation and exhibitions of the Sonderbund

Prehistory and foundation

The first chairman Karl Ernst Osthaus . Painting by Ida Gerhardi , 1903

In 1905 the Kunstverband Düsseldorf was founded, to which Max Clarenbach , August Deusser and Wilhelm Schmurr belonged, and which was the direct forerunner of the White Nettle exhibition club , whose name referred to the white wall covering of the exhibition rooms made of bleached cotton fabric . The Sonderbund emerged from this .

In 1909, the Düsseldorf painter joined Julius Bretz , Max Clarenbach, August Deusser, Walter Ophey , Wilhelm Schnurr, Otto Sohn-Rethel and his brother Alfred Sohn-Rethel and founded the group Sonderbund , whose name probably to the art historian Wilhelm Niemeyer back . It referred to the first special exhibition held from May 10 to 31, 1908 in the Düsseldorf art gallery . The group, which so far consisted of seven artists, was expanded to include Otto von Wätjen , Ernst te Peerdt , Rudolf Bosselt and the typographer Fritz Helmuth Ehmcke . Christian Rohlfs , who came from Hagen , was added later and served as an artistic role model for the younger members. In the following years it developed into one of the most important exhibition movements of modernism in Germany. Its first chairman was Karl Ernst Osthaus , founder of the Folkwang Museum , his deputy was the Cologne cigarette manufacturer Josef Feinhals . The board of directors included Alfred Hagelstange , director of the Wallraf-Richartz Museum , Walter Cohen , assistant director at the Provinzialmuseum Bonn and Fritz Wichert , director of the Städtische Kunsthalle Mannheim . Art dealers on the working committee of the exhibition were Alfred Flechtheim (board member), Paul Cassirer and Félix Fénéon . Max Liebermann was one of the honorary members. Art dealers such as Wilhelm Abels from Cologne, Josse Bernheim-Jeune from Paris and Fritz Bismeyer from Bismeyer & Kraus from Düsseldorf were among the members.

From May to June 1909 the second special exhibition of Düsseldorf artists took place in the Düsseldorf Kunsthalle. 85 pictures by Düsseldorf artists were shown together with 15 works of French Impressionism , which were hung between the groups of works by the painters of the Sonderbund, which already announced the objective of the Sonderbund to demand an artistic examination of French and Düsseldorf art. After this publicly controversial exhibition, the official establishment of the Sonderbund Westdeutscher Kunstfreunde und Künstler , so the full name, took place in Düsseldorf.

Exhibitions in 1910 and 1911

After the foundation of the Sonderbund , the aim of which was, among other things, "to make the problems of contemporary art consistently understandable through exhibitions of works [...] in Düsseldorf" and "to make the new, most serious endeavors of Düsseldorf art known to the outside world," three found further exhibitions take place.

From July 16 to October 9, 1910, the second exhibition of the Sonderbund Westdeutscher Kunstfreunde und Künstler took place in the Städtisches Kunstpalast . It was subtitled German and French New Art , which indicated the juxtaposition of Expressionism and Fauvism . 242 paintings and sculptures as well as 278 handicrafts were shown. Artists represented in the exhibition included Ernst Ludwig Kirchner , Max Pechstein , Karl Schmidt-Rottluff , Emil Nolde , Wassily Kandinsky , Alexej von Jawlensky as well as André Derain , Maurice de Vlaminck , Édouard Vuillard , Georges Braque and Pablo Picasso , who for the first time in Düsseldorf with their works could be seen.

In 1911, from May to July, the third Sonderbund exhibition took place in the Städtische Kunsthalle , which was subtitled Rhenish and French Art . 147 exhibits were shown, including 101 French works.

The 1912 exhibition

Vincent van Gogh: The Potato Eaters , 1885, No. 1 in the exhibition catalog

Of the joint exhibitions of the Sonderbund, the International Art Exhibition of the Sonderbund of West German Art Friends and Artists in 1912 was the most important. It was the fourth and took place - after the three exhibitions in Düsseldorf in previous years - in 1912 in Cologne , Am Aachener Tor, from May 25th to September 30th. According to the catalog, the “much controversial painting of our day”, modernism , should be systematically represented there. Alfred Flechtheim was co-organizer .

The focus of the total of 634 works, which were spread over 29 halls, was, after Vincent van Gogh with 107 works, to which halls 1 to 5 were assigned, the French, who were shown in small individual presentations in halls 6 to 9: Paul Cézanne with 24 pictures and two watercolors in room 6, Paul Gauguin , which was exhibited in a separate room - room 7. The extensive, but separate presentation made it possible to portray the artists in their unique, specific visual language.

Pablo Picasso, who was shown in room 8, was represented with 16 works, alongside Henri Matisse , Georges Braque, André Derain, Auguste Herbin , Maurice de Vlaminck and Odilon Redon with two still lifes, Kees van Dongen and the Fauves in rooms 10 and 11. In room 10, the room of the Dutch , Piet Mondrian's hyacinth drawing hung in the direct vicinity of Peter Alma, and Otto van Rees , Henri Edmond Cross and Paul Signac shared room 9. The Swiss artists such as Ferdinand Hodler and Giovanni Giacometti were in the room 12, Austrian representatives such as Oskar Kokoschka , Egon Schiele and Albert Paris Gütersloh can be seen in room 15, Edvard Munch in room 20.

In addition, the Neue Künstlervereinigung München (NKVM) was represented with works by Adolf Erbslöh , Alexej Jawlensky, Alexander Kanoldt and Wladimir Bechtejew in halls 17 and 18 as well as Pierre Girieud and Karl Hofer in halls 10 and 23, and Werner Heuser in room 23 the German bridge and a selection of the Blue Rider's artists - including Wassily Kandinsky and Franz Marc - in halls 21 to 24 August Deusser was given the largest space with room 25. El Greco , who had inspired both Picasso and the Expressionists , was represented with a painting in the Picasso room.

The sculptor Bernhard Hoetger was given the privilege of having his own room in which his figure cycle of the light and dark sides of life was shown (15 works).

The artists associated with Rhenish Expressionism a year later were represented by Carlo Mense , Heinrich Nauen , Hans Thuar , Olga Oppenheimer and Walter Ophey . This was exhibited in room 21 together with one painting each by August Macke , Franz Matthias Jansen , William Straube and Max Clarenbach and two works each by Rudolf Levy and two sculptures by Wilhelm Lehmbruck . Five works by Heinrich Nauen, two paintings by August Macke and one painting each by Helmuth Macke , Max Pechstein and Georg Tappert were shown in room 22. Works by Walther Bötticher , Erich Heckel , Hans Keller , Ernst Ludwig Kirchner , César Klein , Carlo Mense, Wilhelm Morgner , Otto Mueller , Max Pechstein, Karl Schmidt-Rottluff and Georg Tappert were presented in room 16 . Furthermore, Paula Modersohn-Becker , Hanns Bolz , Otto Freundlich and Paul Klee could be seen. There were also halls I to IV, in which an arts and crafts exhibition by the “Gilde” could be seen.

  • Pictures in the exhibition

  • Paul Cézanne: Farmer in a blue coat (Paysan en blouse bleue) , around 1897; in the catalog as a farmer with a red scarf , No. 146

  • Paul Cézanne: Still Life with Apples , 1893–1894, No. 129

  • Paul Gauguin: Vincent van Gogh, Painting Sunflowers , 1888, No. 154

  • Vincent van Gogh: Self-Portrait with Palette , 1889, no.86

  • Franz Marc: Tiger , 1912, no.450

  • Egon Schiele: Mother and Child , 1912, no.370

The exhibition marked the farewell to the conceptless collective shows of the 19th century by establishing a new type of exhibition, internationally oriented, programmatic and non-commercial. In recognition of modern painting, the exhibits were displayed on a white wall and mostly hung in one row; these means helped the intrinsic value of color and shape to a greater effect and influenced subsequent institutions from exhibitions to the present day. The model for this was a planned exhibition of contemporary French artists such as Édouard Manet and Paul Cézanne in 1897 in the National Gallery in Berlin ; the purchase of the painting and the presentation, which had been designed in a new way in advance, came from its director Hugo von Tschudi . However, it was rejected by Kaiser Wilhelm II and carried out according to the old rules; academic painting continued to dominate, and French artists were only given a secluded exhibition space. Other innovations in Cologne included the short guide to the works on display per room, street banners and refreshment rooms. The way of presentation was not entirely new: the opening of the Mathildenhöhe in Darmstadt in 1901 already followed a memorable and uniform overall concept and James McNeill Whistler was also following complex design principles 20 years earlier. Particularly at the Sonderbund exhibition in 1912 was the consistency with which a “ corporate identity ” was created for the exhibition. Fritz Helmuth Ehmcke was responsible for the design , who also made the decision for white walls with black boundary lines.

The Sonderbund officially dissolved on July 31, 1915 after quarrels between artists and the board of directors over the selection of the pictures by a jury. The new 1st chairman of the Sonderbund, the painter August Deusser, blocked all federal activities after the exhibition in Cologne in 1912, so that there were no more exhibitions.

meaning

The Sonderbund exhibition in 1912 was the first summary of modern art in Europe and was of great importance not only for the artists, but also for the art market, an effect that would only be comparable to documenta 1 in Kassel 43 years later . She inspired the planning of the Armory Show in New York in 1913 - the structure, title and typography of the catalog, among other things, were based on her model - after Arthur B. Davies , President of the Association of American Painters and Sculptors, had seen the catalog of the Sonderbund. He then sent a colleague, Walt Kuhn , to Germany, who arrived in Cologne on the last day of the exhibition. Almost six months later, many exhibits from the Cologne exhibition were shown at this first American presentation of modern European art in New York.

In 1913, the art dealer Herwarth Walden helped modernism in Germany to hold another exhibition, called the First German Autumn Salon , in a specially rented building on Potsdamer Strasse in Berlin . Among the 366 paintings on display, the Blue Rider, the Cubists , Henri Rousseau and Robert Delaunay, in contrast to Cologne and New York, also included the Italian Futurists . The exhibitions of 1912 and 1913 showed the simultaneity of different, if not contradicting, tendencies of modernism. The members of the Sonderbund had a decisive influence on the culture of their time in their various functions; an example of this is Edwin Redslob , who, as Reichskunstwart , played a key role in shaping the state's art and cultural policy, including the state's self-portrayal of the Weimar Republic .

Reconstruction of the 1912 exhibition

Exhibition poster "1912 - Mission Moderne", Wallraf-Richartz-Museum & Fondation Corboud, Cologne

Under the title “1912 - Mission Moderne. The Century Show of the Sonderbund ”showed the Wallraf-Richartz Museum in Cologne from August 31 to December 30, 2012 a reconstruction of the Sonderbund exhibition from 1912. According to information from the museum, 115 exhibits could be researched and obtained as loans. The retrospective was supposed to follow the show of 1912 in its focal points and objectives and, at historical intervals of 100 years, clarify the great importance of the exhibition for the history of modern art.

  • Impressions from the exhibition
  • 1912 - Mission Moderne - Museum Wallraf 2012-8628.jpg
  • 1912 - Mission Moderne - Museum Wallraf 2012-8743.jpg
  • 1912 - Mission Moderne - Museum Wallraf 2012-8654.jpg
  • 1912 - Mission Moderne - Museum Wallraf 2012-8733.jpg
  • 1912 - Mission Moderne - Museum Wallraf 2012-8632.jpg
  • 1912 - Mission Moderne - Museum Wallraf 2012-8702.jpg

literature

  • International art exhibition of the Sonderbund Westdeutscher Kunstfreunde und Künstler zu Cologne 1912 . City Exhibition hall at Aachener Tor from May 25th to May 30th. Sept., ill. Catalog. Facsimile edition true d. Original catalog from 1912, occasionally d. Exhibition Westkunst in Cologne 1981. Cologne, Wienand 1981 DNB
  • Wulf Herzogenrath (Ed.): Sonderbund 1912, Werkbund 1914, Pressa USSR 1928 : Commentary on the reprints of the exhibition catalogs. Cologne 1981, ISBN 3-87909-111-0 , therein: H. von Wedderkop : Guide through the Sonderbund Exhibition (1912), pp. 240-269.
  • Bernd Klüser, Katharina Hegewisch (Hrsg.): The art of the exhibition. A documentation of thirty exemplary art exhibitions of this century . Insel Verlag, Frankfurt a. M. / Leipzig 1991, ISBN 3-458-16203-8 .
  • Stefan Kraus: Walter Ophey 1882–1930. Life and work. With a catalog raisonné of the paintings and prints . Hatje, Stuttgart 1993, ISBN 3-7757-0403-5 . (also dissertation, University of Cologne 1991)
  • Magdalena M. Moeller : The special union. Its requirements and beginnings in Düsseldorf , Cologne 1984, ISBN 3-7927-0798-5 .
  • Uwe M. Schneede : The history of art in the 20th century . CH Beck, Munich 2001, ISBN 3-406-48197-3 .
  • Barbara Schaefer (Ed.): 1912 - Mission Moderne. The show of the century of the Sonderbund . Wienand, Cologne 2012, ISBN 978-3-86832-111-1 .

Web links

Commons : 1912 - Mission Moderne  - Collection of pictures, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Rika Wettstein: Hans Goltz - Sonderbund. bad-bad.de, accessed on October 29, 2009 .
  2. ↑ a b c Stefan Kraus, Stuttgart 1993, p. 18 f.
  3. ↑ Bernd Klüser / Katharina Hegewisch (eds.), The art of the exhibition. A documentation of thirty exemplary art exhibitions of this century , 1991, p. 40
  4. ↑ a b Stefan Kraus, Stuttgart 1993, p. 20
  5. ↑ Stefan Kraus, Stuttgart 1993, p. 21 f.
  6. ^ Catalog: International art exhibition of the Sonderbund Westdeutscher Kunstfreunde und Künstler zu Cöln, 1912
  7. ^ Dagger stabs , faz.net, October 25, 2010, accessed April 12, 2011
  8. ^ International art exhibition of the Sonderbund Westdeutscher Kunstfreunde und Künstler zu Cöln, 1912, Werner Heuser, Paris, Room 23: Female Nude , Ballet , p. 58
  9. ↑ Barbara Schaefer (Ed.), Cologne 2012
  10. ^ The Blue Period. Pablo Picasso's Art and Life , serdar-hizli-art.com, accessed November 7, 2012
  11. ^ Exhibition catalog Cologne: International art exhibition of the Sonderbund Westdeutscher Kunstfreunde und Künstler zu Cöln. 1912, p. 73 .
  12. ↑ Stefan Kraus, Stuttgart 1993, p. 25
  13. ↑ Bernd Klüser, Katharina Hegewisch (Ed.), P. 41 f.
  14. ↑ Uwe M. Schneede: The history of art in the 20th century , CH Beck, Munich 2001, ISBN 3-406-48197-3 , p. 61 f.
  15. ↑ Uwe M. Schneede: The history of art in the 20th century, Munich 2001, pp. 61–65.
  16. ↑ Marion Ackermann, Colored Walls. On the design of the exhibition space from 1880 to 1930, Wolfratshausen 2003, 82f.
  17. ↑ Antonina Kostretska: Munch 1912 Sonderbund Cologne , Grin Verlag 2008
  18. ↑ Bernd Klüser, Katharina Hegewisch (Ed.), P. 43
  19. ↑ Stefan Kraus, Stuttgart 1993, p. 24
  20. ↑ Bernd Klüser, Katharina Hegewisch (Ed.), P. 47
  21. ↑ Uwe M. Schneede, p. 62 f.
  22. ↑ Uwe M. Schneede, p. 64 f.
  23. ↑ The breakthrough of modernity ( memento of January 17, 2016 in the Internet Archive ), art-magazin.de, accessed on January 17, 2016