For the first time, the MKdW is centring an exhibition around its collection of prints. The focus is on the period between 1890 and 1930 – years that were particularly fruitful for printmaking, which was rediscovered as a medium of individual artistic expression at that time. This resulted in a great deal of diversity in terms of motif and aesthetics. Prints also played an important role in self-marketing and opening up new circles of customers in the case of artists like Max Liebermann, Edvard Munch and Emil Nolde.
As in the field of painting, the image of the sea and coast also underwent a transformation in printmaking: etchings by Liebermann and Maximilien Luce transfer the shimmering play of colour and light in (late) impressionism to the black-and-white visual aesthetic. Depicting atmospheric phenomena and capturing evocative moments in a sketch-like manner were the main priority. Among the younger generation of artists – such as Munch, Nolde, Otto Mueller or Max Kahlke – the experience of nature became increasingly individualised and is depicted in a fantastically heightened form. It became possible to experience nature as a paradise, a lost Garden of Eden or a powerfully mystical place.
A predilection for narrative additionally finds expression in a few series of prints, for example, in the pictures based on Theodor Storm’s The Rider on the White Horse, where the landscapes surrounding North Frisia’s dykes become the scene of an existential drama.
A selection of contemporary positions represented by Are Andreassen, Marie-Louise Exner and Henrieke Strecker enter into a dialogue with the works from the collection and expand their vision to include current perspectives.
