margaret-cooter: Lazy Monday

22 June 2015

Lazy Monday - Brücke-Museum

Most museums are closed on Mondays, so we had a lazy morning (on our computers) and headed out to the Brücke-Museum in the afternoon. This involved catching the 115 bus from Freibellinerplatz - not difficult - and choosing a bagel at the Imbiss (snack bar) at the station. Bagels here come with all sorts of seedy embellishments, and a freshly made smoked salmon - with rocket and horseradish for kicks - cost all of 2 euro 60. Delicious. (Photo not available.)

It's a 500-metre walk from the Pücklerstrasse stop, excellently signposted, along quiet and very leafy streets -

This small but extremely pleasant museum was built in 1966 and is a low, airy, light-filled building. It has changing exhibitions based around the painters of the short-lived Brücke group (1910-13), and has published many books about them. There's also an excellent range of postcards for sale.

One current exhibition is on Otto Mueller (1874-1930), including lots of lithographs, in which he trained 1890-2, later studying fine art in Dresden and Munich. In 1937, 357 of his works were seized from German museums, considered to be "degenerate art".

Portrait of Madschka, Mueller's first wife (m.1905-21); they
remained friends throughout his subsequent two marriages

Self portrait with Irene Altmann; her father would not allow a marriage, and they
split up in 1921. The mask, made by Mueller, was in an adjacent case

Dunes in Sylt, 1921

Waldlandschaft, 1924. Mueller produced many colour lithographs in the 1920s;
the highpoint is his Zigeunermappe of 1927

Elsewhere, still lifes by Karl Schmidt-Rotluff - and some objects used in them -

Karton mit Wolle, 1927 (an unusual subject for a still life!)

Next door is Kunsthus Dahlem, opened this year and housed in the atelier built for the sculptor Arno Breker and opened in 1942. Since 1964, it has has had international sculptors in residence, and now is an exhibition venue for postwar modernism (1945-1961).