InformELLE Künstlerinnen der 1950er/60er-Jahre

In the organizer's words:

From 11.10.2024 to 26.1.2025, Hessen Kassel Heritage is paying tribute to "Informal Women Artists of the 1950s/60s" with a special exhibition in the Neue Galerie.

The exhibition takes a new look at Art Informel and presents female artists who played a key role in shaping this abstract movement. On display are 86 top-class works by 14 female painters and 2 female sculptors. The aim is to expand the art-historical canon to include long-overlooked positions of female artists.

Informel developed - parallel to Abstract Expressionism in the USA - to become the predominant art movement in Europe after the Second World War. Detached from classical principles of form and design, the open creative process was at the center of the works. Among the exhibits are discoveries such as the early work of Sarah Schumann, who also championed feminist art historiography as curator of the pioneering exhibition "Künstlerinnen International 1877-1977". Maria Helena Vieira da Silva, one of the most important female artists of the 20th century, is one of the few documenta artists from the very beginning. Two of the paintings presented were already on display at the first documenta exhibitions in Kassel. This is the first time that her informal oeuvre has been shown in a representative selection in Germany.

With works by Mary Bauermeister, Chow Chung-cheng, Helen Dahm, Natalia Dumitresco, Juana Francés, Sigrid Kopfermann, Maria Lassnig, Roswitha Lüder, Brigitte Meier-Denninghoff, Judit Reigl, Marie-Louise von Rogister, Christa von Schnitzler, Sarah Schumann, Soshana, Hedwig Thun, Maria Helena Vieira da Silva

Curator(s): Ulrich Etscheit, Dorothee Gerkens, Roland Knieg

The exhibition is a cooperation between Hessen Kassel Heritage, the Kunsthalle Schweinfurt and the Emil Schumacher Museum in Hagen, in collaboration with the Research Center Informal Art - Art History Institute of the University of Bonn.

The exhibition is made possible by the generous support of the Hessische Kulturstiftung, the Ernst von Siemens Kunststiftung, the Bareva Stiftung and the Museumsverein Kassel.