Brücke zur geistigen Welt - Meisterwerke des Expressionismus

In the organizer's words:

At the beginning of the last century, a number of artists and artist groups set out to develop a new art that emphasized intense personal expression. Turning their backs on conservative bourgeois society and rejecting the outdated traditions of state-sponsored art academies
state-sponsored art academies, they turned to boldly simplified or distorted forms and strong, sometimes discordant colors.

The broad term "Expressionism" encompasses these artistic expressions of the period before and after the First World War, which were considered avant-garde at the time. They reflect a time of intense social and aesthetic change. The founding of the artists' group "Brücke" on June 7, 1905 in Dresden is considered the birth of Expressionism. The name "Brücke" expresses the youthful eagerness of the four founding members - Ernst Ludwig Kirchner, Fritz Bleyl, Erich Heckel and Karl Schmidt-Rottluff - to move into a new future. Under the leadership of Wassily Kandinsky and Franz Marc, "Der Blaue Reiter" was founded in Munich in 1911 as a loose association of painters. They shared an interest in abstract forms and the symbolic association of colors, which they believed had spiritual values.

In addition to these two large groups of artists, there are also a number of artists who pursued individual paths in their search for expressionist forms of expression. They are all united by their intensive exploration of printmaking techniques and their specific creative possibilities.

The woodcut, with its rough furrows and jagged lines, has become known as the outstanding artistic technique of Expressionism, but the Expressionists also revolutionized the formal language of etching and lithography. The exhibition offers a comprehensive overview of German Expressionism. It presents around 130 woodcuts, linocuts, etchings and lithographs, supplemented by selected paintings and sculptures by 17 leading artists. All the works come from an important German private collection and are being presented to the public in this form for the first time.