- Museum Gunzenhauser
The Museum Gunzenhauser is a
museum andart gallery located inChemnitz ; third largest city of Saxony, Germany. It contains 2,459 works by 270 modern artists of the 20th century that have been collected by the art dealer Dr. Alfred Gunzenhauser. The Museum Gunzenhauser was inaugurated inDecember 2007 in the presence of the German PresidentHorst Köhler and is one of the most important museums of Modern Art in Germany.Building's history
The museum's building was constructed between 1928 and 1930 in the New Objectivity style as the former headquarter of the "Sparkasse Chemnitz" ("Savings and loan association of Chemnitz") and was one of the first high-rise buildings in Chemnitz [ Georg Dehio: "Handbuch der Deutschen Kunstdenkmäler – Sachsen II – Regierungsbezirke Leipzig und Chemnitz". Deutscher Kunstverlag, Berlin 1998, S. 125 ISBN 3-422-03048-4] . Fred Otto (1883–1944), head of the municipal planning and building control office between 1925 and 1944, purposely abandoned decorative elements and used bright, beige-coloured
travertine for the facades. Thus, the building shows its balanced proportions and clear structure to good effect. The building's aesthetic centre is the former tills' hall, which is lighted by a glass roof. During the renovation, the architectVolker Staab took advantage of the existing building's potential and minimized the use of structural addition and interventions.Exposition
The collection's main component are numerous works of
Expressionism . The exhibition consists of works byErnst Ludwig Kirchner ,Erich Heckel andKarl Schmidt-Rottluff . They attended school in Chemnitz and participated in the expressionist groupDie Brücke . The museum also contains the second largest collectionclarifyme of works byAlexej von Jawlensky andGabriele Münter , who were members ofDer Blaue Reiter . There are works of several other artists likeChristian Rohlfs ,Paula Modersohn-Becker andHelmut Kolle . Furthermore, the museum has pictures ofMax Beckmann drawn in the 1930s and 1940s. From theWeimar Republic period there are works byKarl Hubbuch ,Franz Radziwill ,Alexander Kanoldt ,Georg Schrimpf andGustav Wunderwald . 110 paintings originate fromConrad Felixmüller . The exhibition's centrepiece is the largest collectionclarifyme of 290 pieces byOtto Dix . The first self portrait drawn with oil in 1912, early paintings from the period of the art college inDresden ("Dresdner Kunstgewerbeschule"), importantAquarelle s undGouache s from the period of theFirst World War as well as considerable works of the 1920s and the late work. From the period after theSecond World War many works originate fromWilli Baumeister ,Fritz Winter ,Ernst Wilhelm Nay ,Bernard Schultze andEmil Schumacher as well as fromKarl Hofer ,Johannes Grützke ,Horst Antes ,Klaus Fußmann ,Karl Horst Hödicke andRainer Fetting [Ingrid Mössinger (Herausgeber): Kunstsammlungen Chemnitz, Museum Gunzenhauser, Verlag Prestel, 2007, ISBN 3-791-33841-2 ] .References
External links
* [http://www.gunzenhauser-museum.de Museum Gunzenhauser]
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