We had intended coming to this gallery but thought time had got away from us. We’re so glad we managed to fit it in. All of the galleries have been wonderful, including this one. It was designed by Bauhaus pioneer Ludwig Mies van der Rohe and only reopened last year after a six year, $164 million (US) refurbishment. It has a very sleek exterior.
With a huge forecourt that extends around the whole building, bare apart from a few large sculptures including this one.
And this one, on the other side.
It’s dedicated to art of the 20th century, with lots of German modernist art. Evening over Potsdam, 1930. By Lotte Laserstein was displayed outside the main gallery. Love the colour, the expressions and postures of the figures.
Inside there was a Georges Braque, Still Life with Glass and Newspaper, 1913. Given I’d recently seen his work in Melbourne I couldn’t resist.
And a Picasso from the same cubist period.
And an earlier Picasso, Woman Sitting in an Armchair, 1909.
But from then on I was swept up by the German painters. I really liked Ernst Kirchner. This is his Potsdamer Platz, 1914. I love the colour and sense of movement and danger.
This is his Portrait of Erna Schilling, 1913.
And his Self-Portrait with a Girl, 1914/1915. Not keen on the anonymity of the girl but love the colours.
This is Jakob Steinhardt’s The City, 1913.
Georg Grosz, Nocture (Berlin-Südende), 1915.
Another Ernst Kirchner, Belle-Alliance-Square in Berlin, 1914.
And this is Kirchner’s portrait of Max Lieberman, 1926. The accompanying note tells us that each artist embodies an epoch. Lieberman is the most important German Impressionist painter, Kirchner stands for Expressionism. Lieberman supported Kirchner when as President of the Prussian Academy of Arts he invited Kirchner to partake in exhibitions at the academy. Lieberman was 78 when Kirchner visited him in his home.
This is Karl Schmidt-Rottluff, Self-Portrait with Monocle, 1910. I love the vibrant colour.
This is Walter Gramatté, Portrait of Rosa Schapire, 1920. I love the spiky character that is implied in this painting – this woman would stand no nonsense!
Not many women artists included here, but here’s one. Irma Stern, Portrait of Lancelot Hogben, 1925.
Back to Ernst Kirchner, Studio Corner, 1919/1920.
I don’t quite understand the accompanying note on this painting. It’s by Conrad Felixmüller and is titled The Speaker No. 1 Otto Rühle, 1920 but with this in parenthesis (Replica of the artisst from 1946). Maybe the original painting was in 1920 and the artist repainted the same thing in 1946.
This is Georg Grosz, Grey Day 1921. Strange title for this painting.
We are now post World War I. This is Flanders Field by Otto Dix, painted in 1934-1936.
And here is another painting about Flanders. The periods in which both these were painted is interesting. This is Flanders (Where To In This World?) by Franz Radziwell, 1940-1950.
There were other paintings depicting the aftermath of World War I but they were too gruesome for me. Instead here are two portraits by Oskar Kokoschka, first Portrait of Bessie Bruce, 1910.
And The Austrian Architect Adolf Loos, 1901. I seem to have gone back in years as well, but I think I was just following the galleries around. It was beautifully curated with themes in each of the rooms explained via notes on the walls but I didn’t take photos of those.
Here’s a painting by Vassily Kandinsky – just because I recognise him. This is Sketch (Rider) 1909. Interesting because it is not in the same style that for which he is famous. Great colours.
This is Revolution (Fighting on the Barricades) by Ludwig Meidner, 1912/1913. I wonder what revolution he has in mind.
In the next room I was in for a surprise. This painting of a person called Harry Graf Kessler, 1906 is painted by Edvard Munch. So elegant and urbane.
And this is part of a frieze by the same artist for Max Reinhardt’s Theatre in Berlin. It has an interesting history; acquired in 1930 and exhibited at the Kronprinzen-Palais until 1936 it was confiscated in 1937 as ‘degenerate’, appropriated by Göring in 1940 and then in a private collection in Oslo. It was reacquired in 1997.
There was a whole wall of this – about fifteen paintings I reckon. This give you an idea, a more familiar Munch style than the portrait of Harry I think.
And here is a link to the Alte Nationalgalerie. This is Georg Kolbe’s painting The Golden Island is based on Arnold Böcklin’s The Island of the Dead which we admired there and which is in this blog here. The accompanying note says: These idyllic scenes tell of a passage to another world. Their figures seem to be longing for something but longing for what?
Finally in this gallery there was another section celebrating the work of an artist called Sascha Wiedernhold 1904-1962. He was starting to be recognised after first exhibiting in 1925 but his work was suppressed during the Nazi period and he retrained as a bookseller. His paintings were rediscovered in the early 1960s. They are exuberant, brilliantly coloured paintings. This is Archers from 1928.
Jazz Symphony, 1927.
Dancers 1926. We thought they were great.
And final, final, this is Josef Albers, Homage to the Square: Within a Thin Interval, 1967. This was created roughly around the same time as the designs for the Neue Nationalgalerie. Josef Albers was deputy director of the Bauhaus in 1930. He fled to the United States in 1933. It can be viewed as complementary to the museum’s architecture.The square shapes the Neue Nationagalerie’s entire spatial geometry: the upper hall is a square, as are the ceiling panels, flooring and base plates used both in and outside the museum. It reminded me, and Joe of the movie The Square which was wonderful!
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