NEW COLLECTION DISPLAY OF MODERN ART
Important new accessions of modern art have provided fresh impetus for a new collection display and highlight the varied elements at play in the art of the early 20th century. In the Expressionist section of the Pinakothek der Moderne, Ferdinand Hodler’s Student at Jena and Edvard Munch’s Woman in Red Dress herald the new dawn in 20th century art. For the first time, an entire room is devoted to the traumatic experiences of ‘Apocalypse and the First World War’, which also integrates two Expressionist works – The Red Christ by Lovis Corinth as well as Dead Christ from Wilhelm Gerstel – into the Christian tradition of the Passion. The spectrum of art from the 1920s and 1930s has been expanded through important loans, of which Max Beckmann’s Self-Portrait in bronze from 1936 and Wilhelm Lachnit’s Woman with Rose from the same year are particularly striking. Encompassing both the ‘degenerate’ and the conformist, the art from the Nazi period (1933–1945) is presented in its own room for the first time. One of the galleries devoted to the Fohn endowment will present a selection of excellent works on paper by artists ranging from Egon Schiele to Paul Klee, which originate from the museum’s collection of so-called ‘Degenerate Art’. These works from the Fohn endowment were confiscated by the Nazis from public museums as part of their Degenerate Art Action, and were exchanged by the artists Sophie and Emanuel Fohn for their own collection of 18th and 19th art, thereby saving the modernist works from being sold off or destroyed.