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Conquest of the Street
Title: Le Signal. Station Saint Lazare, 1877
Artist: Claude Monet (French 1840-1926)
Medium: Oil on Canvas
Dimensions: 65.5 x 82 cm
Permanent Collection: Niedersächsisches Landesmuseum Hannover
Image Courtesy: Schirn Kunsthalle, Frankfurt
From Monet to Grosz
Schirn Kunsthalle
Frankfurt, Germany
through September 3, 2006
Germany meets France outside the soccer pitch in an exhibit exploring the German Expressionist movement and the French Impressionists as they delved
into urban themes. City life exudes from many an artists' canvas.
Max Hollein, Director of the Schirn says, “In conjunction with the exhibitions ‘A View for the People. Art for All’ and ‘Pierre Bourdieu: The Algerian War and Photography’
presented concurrently in the Haus der Kunst in Munich and in the Deichtorhallen Hamburg respectively, ‘The Conquest of the Street.
From Monet to Grosz’ constitutes a common project that – under the title ‘Art and Democracy’ – centers on the emergence of modern society.
Styles such as French Impressionism and German Expressionism not only revealingly analyzed life in the new cities but also made it come alive visually.
Based on a great variety of significant works the exhibition reflects the individual’s difficult position within the new urban structures.
Jean-François Raffaëlli
Title: Les Champs-Élysees, 1903
Artist: Jean-François Raffaëlli (French 1850-1924)
Medium: Oil on Canvas
Dimensions: 65.5 x 81.5 cm
Inv. 907.09.219
Photographer: Christian Devleeschauwer
© Musée des beaux-arts de Reims
Image Courtesy: Schirn Kunsthalle, Frankfurt
Jean-François Raffaëlli began his career on stage in the Parisian Lyric theater. He trained in Gerome's studio and his first Salon showing was in 1870. He was among
the artists who patronized Cafe Guerbois. It was at Degas' insistence that Raffaëlli was included in the 1890 and
1891 Impressionist exhibits. His palette was darker
than the others normally associated with Impressionism, while later in his career he would lighten it. Some believe that this artist's depictions
of Parisian slums were a genre unto itself.
Maximilien Luce
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Title: Rue Mouffetard, Paris, 1886-1888
Artist: Maximilien Luce (French 1858-1941)
Medium: Oil on Canvas
Dimensions: 32.7 x 40.7 cm
Courtesy Carmen Thyssen-Bornemisza Collection on loan at the Museo Thyssen-Bornemisza
© VG Bild-Kunst, Bonn 2006
Image Courtesy: Schirn Kunsthalle, Frankfurt
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Born to a poor Parisian family Maximilien Luce, who began his artistic career training as a wood worker, apprenticed to Eugène Froment, an engraver. Impressionism
was a strong influence upon his painting. With Camille Pissarro, Georges Seurat and Paul Signac he joined them, forming an art movement that was known as Neo-Impressionism.
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It was Pissarro that brought him to the attention and under the influence of anarchist writers. He was part of the Trial of Thirty and suffered a brief term in prison for his
actions. His work was infused with realism.
Ludwig Meidner
Title: U-Bahn-Bau in Berlin-Wilmersdorf, 1911
Artist: Ludwig Meidner (German 1884-1966)
Medium: Oil on Canvas
Dimensions: 70 x 86 cm
Courtesy Stiftung Stadtmuseum Berlin
© Ludwig Meidner-Archiv, Jüdisches Museum der Stadt Frankfurt am Main
Image Courtesy: Schirn Kunsthalle, Frankfurt
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Meidner was not a fan of urbanization, seeing it as a blight on nature through suppression. He described it as "eerily
menacing". Early in his career
he struggled financially until Max Beckmann recommended that he receive a monthly stipend from an anonymous donor.
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Title: Strasse mit Passanten bei Nachtbeleuchtung, 1926/27
Artist: Ernst Ludwig Kirchner (German 1880-1938)
Medium: Oil on Canvas
Dimensions: 87 x 68 cm
Permanent Collection: Museum Frieder Burda, Baden-Baden
© (for works by Ernst Ludwig Kirchner) by Ingeborg & Dr. Wolfgang Henze-Ketterer, Wichtrach/Bern
Image Courtesy: Schirn Kunsthalle, Frankfurt
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Meidner did not dissociate from German
Expressionism, though others did, at the time of profound change in Germany following the First World War. He fled his homeland in 1939, not returning until the early 1950s.
Georg Grosz
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Title: Die Strasse, 1915
Artist: Georg Grosz (German 1893-1959)
Medium: Oil on Canvas
Dimensions: 46 x 36 cm
Courtesy Staatsgalerie Stuttgart 2006
© VG Bild-Kunst, Bonn 2006
Image Courtesy: Schirn Kunsthalle, Frankfurt
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Grosz was a leading member of the German Dada movement. Using his talent with pen and ink he did much to illustrate the Weimar Republic of the 1920s; corrupt businessmen,
ignored wounded soldiers, a heavy vice trade and more. Grosz was rabidly anti-Nazi and left Germany, emigrating to the USA in 1932. His later work softened in subject matter and portrayal.
It is his earlier works that are considered his best.
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The exhibition has works by Kurt Albrecht, Pierre Bonnard, Honoré Daumier, Louis-Auguste Girardot, George Grosz, Hans Hartig, Childe Hassam, Maximilien Luce, Victor Marec, Charles Marville,
Maxime Maufra, Ludwig Meidner, Moriz Melzer, Adolph Menzel, Ludwig Mies van der Rohe, Max Missmann, Claude Monet, Adolphe Moreau-Nélaton,
Paul Paeschke, Camille Pissarro, Jean-François Raffaëlli, Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec and others.
Conquest of the Street
From Monet to Grosz
Schirn Kunsthalle : Frankfurt, Germany:
through September 3, 2006
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