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Introduction

Expressionist Visions

Prints and Drawings from the Museum's Collection
December 4, 1992 - January 24, 1993

In 1933, Germany's Third Reich mounted a campaign against art and artists who were antipathetic to its ideology. This attempt to control artistic production and presentation effectively outlawed the work of all artists' organizations other than the official Reichskulturkammer (National Chamber of Culture). Most severely sanctioned were the artists of the Expressionist movements of the first three decades of the century. Forced from their teaching positions, forbidden to create or exhibit their art, many left in exile, closing a chapter on German art that was born of a belief in the indominability of the human spirit.

Conceived, in part, as a confrontation with the techniques and naturalist subject matter of the Impressionists, and as a means to join forces against academic restrictions, the Expressionist movement grew through the creation of small, sympathetic artists' coalitions. The paintings of Vincent Van Gogh, exhibited in Germany after his death in 1890, and the art of Edvard Munch, who moved to Berlin in 1892, were important references for young artists who saw in their rejection of impressionist styles and their depiction of personal experiences the means to convey higher emotions in art.

The current exhibition surveys the artists whose work, it can be argued, was ultimately unable to convince its viewers of the value of freedom of expression. While concentrated on German art, it also includes examples by those who influenced it, such as Munch, or kept pace with it outside Germany, such as Oscar Kokoschka and Egon Schiele. In the latter's four drawings of 1916-1917, anxiety and hope coexist in an uneasy reflection of a society that could not imagine the corporal and spiritual devastation that was to follow. Determined to search behind the veils of appearances for the hidden aspects of nature, the Expressionists revealed social and political struggles as well as artistic and personal aspirations.

Selected Objects

Otto Dix

Landscape, 1933
No Image Available

Otto Müller, designer

Bathing Women, 1921

Edvard Munch, designer

The Kiss, 1902

Egon Schiele

Portrait of Marga Boerner, 1917

Oskar Kokoschka, designer

Untitled, 1908

Lyonel Feininger, designer

Church (with Leaning Tower) (Kirche mit Schiefem Turm), 1918

George Grosz

Twilight (Dämmerung), 1919/1920

Paul Klee

Die Heilige vom Inneren Licht, 1921
No Image Available

Ernst Barlach, designer

The Godly Beggar, 1921
No Image Available

Käthe Kollwitz, designer

Death with Girl in Lap, 1934

Lyonel Feininger

Villa am Strand, 4, 1921

Paul Klee, designer

Hoffmannesque Scene, 1921
No Image Available

Ernst Barlach

Woodcuts for Goëthe’s Walpurgisnacht, 1923

Max Beckmann, designer

Behind the Wings, 1922
No Image Available

Lovis Corinth, designer

Portrait of the Motion Picture Director Ernst Lubitsch, late 1800s-early 1900s

Max Beckmann, designer

Shooting Gallery, 1922
No Image Available

Käthe Kollwitz, designer

Hunger, 1923
No Image Available

Lovis Corinth, designer

Bench in the Woods II, 1917

Otto Dix

Shot to Pieces (Zerschossene), 1924
No Image Available

Ernst Barlach, designer

The Cathedrals, 1921

Max Beckmann

Self-Portrait with Bowler Hat, 1921

Max Pechstein

Somali Dance (Somalitanz), 1910

Edvard Munch, designer

The Sick Girl: The Artist's Sister, 1896
No Image Available

Ernst Barlach, designer

The First Day, 1921

Oskar Kokoschka

Untitled, 1908

Oskar Kokoschka, designer

Untitled, 1908
No Image Available

Karl Schmidt-Rottluff, designer

Head of a Woman, 1921

Käthe Kollwitz, designer

Poverty, 1893-1897
No Image Available

Erich Heckel, designer

Beim Vorlesen, 1914

Erich Heckel

Am Strand (At the Beach), 1923

Reinhold Rudolf Junghanns, printmaker

Portrait of Emmy Hennings, ca. 1913

Käthe Kollwitz

The Prisoners, 1908

Edvard Munch

The Day After, 1894
No Image Available

Christian Rohlfs, designer

Two Figures, 1921
No Image Available

Ernst Barlach, designer

Dance of Death, 1921
No Image Available

Gerhard Marcks, designer

Owl, 1921

Max Beckmann, designer

Portrait of a Woman, early 1900s- mid 1900s
No Image Available

Oskar Kokoschka, designer

The Principle, ca. 1918

Franz Marc

Antilope (The Antelope), 1912

Käthe Kollwitz

Study for Unemployed; verso: Self-Portrait and Standing Woman, ca. 1910
No Image Available

Paul Klee

Columbarium of the Ochsenfrosch Family (Urnenstatte der Familie Ochsenfrosch), 1894-1944

Franz Marc

Two Horses, 1912

Max Beckmann, designer

The Negro, 1922
No Image Available

Oskar Kokoschka, designer

Crucifixion, 1916
No Image Available

Lovis Corinth

DAS LEBEN DES GOTZ VON BERLICHINGEN, VON IHM SELBST ERZAHLT, 1919-1920

Paul Klee

Small Summerhouse, 1932

Wassily Kandinsky

Orange, 1923
No Image Available

Georg A. Mathey, designer

Cirque de Paris, 1922

Ludwig Meidner, designer

Portrait of Isa, 1922
No Image Available

Erich Heckel, designer

Im Atelier, 1922/1923
No Image Available

Ernst Barlach

An die Freude, 1927
No Image Available

Edvard Munch, designer

Head of a Tiger, 1908
No Image Available

Emil Nolde, designer

Hamburg Pier, 1910
No Image Available

Paul Klee, designer

Garten der Leidenschaft, 1913

Ernst Ludwig Kirchner

Sailboat at Fehmarn (Segelboote Bei Fehmarn), 1914

Paula Modersohn-Becker, designer

Sitzende Alte, 1899
No Image Available

Erich Heckel, designer

Self-Portrait, 1917

More objects +

Exhibition Checklist

Expressionist Visions : Prints and Drawings from the Museum's Collection

December 4, 1992 - January 24, 1993
View Checklist PDF

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