Projects of the Klassik Stiftung Weimar are funded by the European Regional Development Fund (ERDF) and the Free State of Thuringia, represented by the State Chancellery of Thuringia, Department of Culture and the Arts.
Deutsche Bank presents Klassik Stiftung Weimar with Lyonel Feininger's painting »Kopf in Architektur/ Head in Architecture« (1917) as a continuous loan
<link>Press photos
In a ceremony held today, 2 December 2014, Deutsche Bank has handed over Lyonel Feininger's painting »Kopf in Architektur/ Head in Architecture« (1917, oil on canvas, 96.5 x 80 cm) to Klassik Stiftung Weimar as a continuous loan for the Bauhaus Museum. This remarkable piece provides a significant impulse for the new Bauhaus Museum in Weimar and the upcoming Bauhaus centenary in 2019. The art loan also marks the continuation of the productive cooperation with Deutsche Bank, which began in 1993 with the successful exhibition »Bauhaus Artists«, featuring works from both institutions. »Feininger’s work is an excellent addition to the Bauhaus Museum's important collection. I am delighted that Deutsche Bank can contribute this art loan to the plans for the new museum building and make the painting accessible to the general public,« said Friedhelm Hütte, Global Head of Deutsche Bank Art.
The official handover of the Feininger painting coincides with a small presentation of other works by Feininger from the Bauhaus Collection of Klassik Stiftung Weimar in the Bauhaus Museum. In addition to the painting »Dröbsdorf« (1927, 100.4 x 125.7 cm), which was purchased for the Bauhaus Museum in Weimar in 1997, a selection of works on paper from the Graphic Art Collection will be shown, including two woodcuts and four nature sketches depicting scenes from the Weimar region. The Feininger presentation will be on display at the Bauhaus Museum until 25 January 2015.
Lyonel Feininger’s »Kopf in Architektur«
The painting »Kopf in Architektur/ Head in Architecture« originally belonged to the artist’s estate and was acquired by Deutsche Bank in 1981. The programmatic image depicts a Cubistic portrait of a man’s head, possibly an abstract self-portrait of Feininger himself. It is closely related to the »crystal motif«, which was highly topical at the time he painted it, a central metaphor in the fine arts with its connection to the »spirit« and »nature« motifs from Goethe and the Romantic period to the modern age. In April 1919, Walter Gropius referred to this motif in the Bauhaus Manifesto, saying that the new structure of the future »will one day rise toward heaven like the crystal symbol of a new faith«. Feininger’s famous woodcut depicting a Gothic cathedral, which he created for the cover of the Bauhaus Manifesto, symbolises this artistic form unifying architecture, painting and sculpture.
As one of the most influential instructors at the State Bauhaus in Weimar, Feininger will assume a prominent status at the new Bauhaus Museum in connection with the portrayal of the school and the instructors’ role for the students. In fact, shortly after Feininger took up employment at the school, a number of his works were displayed in the Oberlichtsaal of the main building at the end of June 1919. Feininger’s relationship to Weimar dates back to 1906, where he discovered his favourite subject, the village church in Gelmeroda, with which he achieved his artistic breakthrough in 1913. As a master at the State Bauhaus in Weimar and the director of the printing workshop, he played a decisive role in shaping the profile of the school of the avant-garde after 1919.
The Weimar State Art Collections – now under the curatorship of the Klassik Stiftung Weimar – and their director Wilhelm Köhler were strong supporters of the Bauhaus from the very beginning. At the end of 1923, Köhler opened an »Art of the Living« department at the Castle Museum featuring a presentation of contemporary art, largely comprised of loans from the Bauhaus artists. Feininger also participated in the exhibition with ten paintings, ten drawings and seven prints. The exhibition, which eventually became a Bauhaus exhibition, was unlike any other in Germany at the time, but was terminated in 1930 by the National Socialist and Thuringian Minister for Education and Cultural Affairs Wilhelm Frick in one of the first »Degenerate Art« campaigns. A nationwide campaign in 1937 resulted in the confiscation of Feininger’s last works. Today the Feininger Collection at the Klassik Stiftung Weimar comprises more than 180 works, including the paintings »Gelmeroda XI« (1928) and »Dröbsdorf« (1927). »With the outstanding painting »Kopf in Architektur« by Lyonel Feininger, which the Deutsche Bank has so generously provided us as a permanent loan, we can now show how Walter Gropius found an ideal instructor and artist in Lyonel Feininger for his newly established Bauhaus in Weimar. In the new Bauhaus Museum, Weimar’s residents and visitors will gain an impression of the extraordinary artistic quality which had converged at the Bauhaus in Weimar,« explains Prof. Dr. Wolfgang Holler, General Museum Director at Klassik Stiftung.
The Deutsche Bank Collection
Founded at the end of the 1970s, the Deutsche Bank Collection has grown into one of the most significant corporate collections of post-1945 drawings and photographs in the world. And paper – with its unique range of artistic applications – is the dominant medium in the Collection. The works span a broad spectrum, from preliminary notes for an artistic idea, to sketches, finished drawings, watercolours, collages and photographs. Today the 60,000 pieces of art can be found in 40 countries at 900 locations of the bank. Works of classical modernity are represented by a significant selection of exemplary illustrations and paintings by artists of Expressionism, New Objectivity and Dadaism. Impressive groups of works by Lyonel Feininger, Paul Klee and Oskar Schlemmer convey the ideas of the Bauhaus.
The new Bauhaus Museum in Weimar
The Klassik Stiftung Weimar will open a new Bauhaus Museum in 2018 to replace the existing museum provisionally installed at the Theaterplatz in 1995. Following an architectural competition which attracted worldwide attention, the jury selected the museum design by Prof. Heike Hanada with Prof. Benedict Tonon in summer 2012. It positions a clearly defined geometric, solitary structure at the edge of the Weimarhallenpark. The ground-breaking ceremony for the new museum is planned for the end of 2015.
For more information, visit:
<link>svdmzweb01.klassik-stiftung.de/neues-bauhaus-museum
<link http: www.deutsche-bank.de>www.deutsche-bank.de/kunst
<link http:>www.db-artmag.de
Curatorial tours on works by Lyonel Feininger
with Dr. Ulrike Bestgen, departmental head of the Bauhaus Museum
Saturday, 13 December 2014, 3 pm
Saturday, 3 January 2015, 3 pm
with Michael Siebenbrodt, curator of the Bauhaus Collection
Saturday, 6 December 2014, 3 pm
Saturday, 20 December 2014, 3 pm
Bauhaus-Museum Weimar
Theaterplatz 1 | 99423 Weimar