- Museum Folkwang
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Museum Folkwang 
Established 9 July 1902 Location Essen, Germany Type Modern Art museum Director Dr. Hartwig Fischer Public transit access Rüttenscheider Stern Website www.museum-folkwang.de 
Exterior view of the museum's extension by British architect David Chipperfield (2010)
Interior view (2010)Museum Folkwang is a major collection of 19th and 20th century art in Essen, Germany. The museum was established in 1922 by merging the Essener Kunstmuseum, which was founded in 1906, and the private Folkwang Museum of the collector and patron Karl Ernst Osthaus in Hagen, founded in 1901.[1]
The term Folkwang derives from the name of the afterlife meadow of the dead, Fólkvangr, presided over by the Norse goddess Freyja.[2]
Museum Folkwang incorporates the Deutsche Plakat Museum (German poster museum), whose circa 340 000 posters from politics, economy and culture. Paul J. Sachs called it: "The most beautiful museum in the world".[3]
In 2007, David Chipperfield designed an extension.[4][5][6]
Contents
Collections
19th and 20th century
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Caspar David Friedrich, Woman before the Setting Sun (Frau vor untergehender Sonne), 1818-1820
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Edouard Manet, Faure as Hamlet, (Faure als Hamlet), 1877
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Pierre-Auguste Renoir, Lise with Umbrella, Lise mit Schirm, 1867
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Vincent van Gogh, Portrait of Armand Roulin, (Porträt des Armand Roulin), 1888
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Paul Gauguin:
Young girl with Fan (Junges Mädchen mit Fächer), 1902 -
August Macke, Hatshop, (Hutladen), 1914
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Franz Marc, Horse in a Landscape (Pferd in der Landschaft), 1910
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Paula Modersohn-Becker, The Painter with a Camellia Branch, Self Portrait (Die Malerin mit Kamelienzweig), 1907
Contemporary art
- Portrait of Vincent Nubiola by Joan Miró
Photography
Prints and drawings
German Poster Museum
Antique and Non-European art
History
The Museum Folkwang in the Nazi era
Ernst Gosebruch, director of the museum in the 1920s and 1930s, and earlier directors, had made the museum's collection of modern art into one of the leading collections in the world. However, when the National Socialists came to power in Germany in the early 1930s, they instituted a government-wide purge of what they termed "degenerate art", by which they meant abstract, cubist, expressionist, surrealist and impressionist art. In 1937, Joseph Goebbels created a commission headed by Adolf Ziegler whose mission was to purge all German government-owned museums of such "degenerate" works. The Museum Folkwang fell into the category of government-controlled institutions and was therefore part of the purge. Over 1 200 works of art were removed from the museum, part of over 17 000 works of art removed from museums throughout Germany. The Nazi government first organized a mass exhibition of this "degenerate" art—which, ironically, proved to be quite popular—and then began systematically selling the art to raise cash. Many works of art came into the possession of American and other collectors and museums. In the end, approximately 5 000 works of art deemed unsaleable were burned.[7][8]
The Museum Folkwang and the other museums affected have generally not tried to reclaim these works because at the time, the removal and sale of the works of art were legal under German law. The works of art were ultimately the property of the German government, which had the legal right to dispose of them as it saw fit.[7]
References
- ^ http://www.saatchi-gallery.co.uk/museums/museum-profile/Museum+Folkwang,+Essen/396.html
- ^ "History". Folkwang-uni.de. http://www.folkwang-uni.de/en/home/hochschule/about-folkwang/history/. Retrieved 24 August 2010.
- ^ "Introduction – Das schönste Museum der Welt – Museum Foklkwang bis 1933". Dasschoenstemuseumderwelt.de. 20 August 2010. http://www.dasschoenstemuseumderwelt.de/en/exhibition/introduction.html. Retrieved 24 August 2010.
- ^ "Blog Archive » Museum Folkwang by David Chipperfield". Dezeen. 3 February 2010. http://www.dezeen.com/2010/02/03/museum-folkwang-by-david-chipperfield/. Retrieved 24 August 2010.
- ^ Woodman, Ellis (19 February 2010). "David Chipperfield’s Museum Folkwang in Essen, Germany | Building Studies | Building Design". Bdonline.co.uk. http://www.bdonline.co.uk/buildings/david-chipperfield%E2%80%99s-museum-folkwang-in-essen-germany/3158321.article. Retrieved 24 August 2010.
- ^ "The new Museum Folkwang: RUHR.2010". Essen-fuer-das-ruhrgebiet.ruhr2010.de. http://www.essen-fuer-das-ruhrgebiet.ruhr2010.de/en/programme/re-designing-the-metropolis/structural-culture/the-new-museum-folkwang.html. Retrieved 24 August 2010.
- ^ a b "Degenerate Art", Philadelphia Museum of Art, accessed 20 September 2010
- ^ "Marc Chagall's Purim", Philadelphia Museum of Art, accessed 20 September 2010
External links
Coordinates: 51°26′30″N 7°00′15″E / 51.44167°N 7.00417°E
Categories:- Museums established in 1922
- Art museums and galleries in Germany
- Modern art museums
- Essen
- Museums in North Rhine-Westphalia
- 1922 establishments in Germany
- Art museum and gallery stubs
- North Rhine-Westphalia building and structure stubs
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