Lenbachhaus

The Lenbachhaus (German: [ˈlɛnbaxˌhaʊs]) is a building housing an art museum in Munich's Kunstareal.

Lenbachhaus

The building
New modern wing of the Lenbachhaus

The Lenbachhaus was built as a Florentine-style villa for the painter Franz von Lenbach between 1887 and 1891 by Gabriel von Seidl and was expanded 1927-1929 by Hans Grässel and again 1969-1972 by Heinrich Volbehr and Rudolf Thönessen. Some of the rooms have kept their original design.

The city of Munich acquired the building in 1924 and opened a museum there in 1929. The latest wing was closed to the public in 2009 to allow the expansion and restoration of the Lenbachhaus by Norman Foster; the 1972 extension was demolished to make way for the new building. The museum reopened in May 2013. The architect placed the new main entrance on Museumsplatz in front of the Propylaea. The new facade, clad in metal tubes made of an alloy of copper and aluminum, will weather with time.[1]

The gallery contains a variety of works by Munich painters and contemporary artists, in styles such as the Blue Rider and New Objectivity.

Munich painters

Starting already with late Gothic paintings, the gallery displays masterpieces by Munich artists such as Jan Polack, Christoph Schwarz, Georges Desmarees (Countess Holstein 1754), Wilhelm von Kobell, Georg von Dillis, Carl Rottmann (Cosmic stormlandscape 1849), Carl Spitzweg (Childhood Friends, ca. 1860), Eduard Schleich, Carl Theodor von Piloty, Franz von Stuck (Salome 1906), Franz von Lenbach (Self Portrait with His Wife and Daughters 1903), Friedrich August von Kaulbach, Wilhelm Leibl (Veterinarian Reindl in the Arbor ca. 1890), Wilhelm Trübner and Hans Thoma.

Works by members of the Munich Secession are also on display. The group was founded in 1892, and includes artists such as the impressionist painters Lovis Corinth (Self-portrait with skeleton 1896), Max Slevogt (Danae 1895) and Fritz von Uhde.

German Schools of Painting and Barbizon

In 2012, the Christoph Heilmann Foundation, Munich, and the Lenbachhaus agreed to cooperate closely; in the process, around one hundred works were handed over to the Lenbachhaus. In addition to the Munich school of painting, the Dresden Romanticism and the Berlin school and the Düsseldorf school of painting are also shown in characteristic individual examples; the first portrayal of Barbizon's painters in France is particularly important. The Lenbachhaus now has got a major work by Gustave Courbet, who first appeared in 1851 in an exhibition in Munich next to paintings of Théodore Rousseau.

The Blue Rider
Franz Marc, The Tiger 1912
Wassily Kandinsky, Gorge Improvisation 1914

The Lenbachhaus is most famous for the large collection of paintings by Der Blaue Reiter (The Blue Rider), a group of expressionist artists established in Munich in 1911 which included, among others, the painters Wassily Kandinsky (Impression III (Concert) 1911), Gabriele Münter (Still Life with St. George 1911), Franz Marc (Blue Horse I 1911), August Macke (Promenade 1913), Marianne von Werefkin (Self Portrait I ca. 1910), Alexej Jawlensky (Portrait of the Dancer Alexander Sacharoff 1909), Alfred Kubin (The Male Sphinx ca. 1903), and Paul Klee (Föhn Wind in Franz Marc's Garden 1915). Münter donated 1,000 “Blue Rider” works to the museum on her 80th birthday.[1]

New Objectivity

Artists of the New Objectivity like Christian Schad (Operation 1929) and Rudolf Schlichter (Bertolt Brecht ca. 1926) are exhibited in several rooms.

Contemporary art

The museum gives a very profound view of international contemporary art with works by Franz Ackermann, Dennis Adams, Christian Boltanski, Monica Bonvicini, James Coleman, Thomas Demand, Olafur Eliasson, Valie Export, Dan Flavin, Günther Förg, Günter Fruhtrunk, Rupprecht Geiger, Isa Genzken, Liam Gillick, Katharina Grosse, Michael Heizer, Andy Hope 1930 (Andreas Hofer), Jenny Holzer, Stefan Huber, Asger Jorn, Ellsworth Kelly, Anselm Kiefer, Michaela Melian, Gerhard Merz, Maurizio Nannucci, Roman Opałka, Sigmar Polke, Arnulf Rainer, Gerhard Richter, Michael Sailstorfer, Richard Serra, Katharina Sieverding, Andy Warhol, Georgia O'Keeffe, Lawrence Weiner and Martin Wöhrl, as well as artists of the Viennese Actionism. Art installations were added with the opening of the new building, such as a sculpture from Olafur Eliasson. The Lenbachhaus strengthened its investment especially in the oeuvre of Joseph Beuys considerably by acquiring numerous works of art, such as Zeige deine Wunde (Show your wound) 1974/75.

Young artists are promoted in exhibitions in the affiliated Kunstbau above the Subway Station Königsplatz.

Stephanie Weber curated a solo show of Mark Boulos and film series of Charles Simonds and Christoph Schlingensief, all the while commissioning performances by Tom Thayer and C. Spencer Yeh and adding to the collection works by Vito Acconci, VALIE EXPORT and Martha Rosler. Since starting at Munich's Lenbachhaus in September, she's been hard at work on a retrospective of Polish-born feminist artist Lea Lublin that opens this summer.[2]

On July 26th, 2017 a Paul Klee painting titled Swamp Legend (1919), seized by Nazis as "degenerate" art in the 1930s, has reached a settlement. The city of Munich, where the work is on view at The Lenbachhaus museum, will keep the painting, but the heirs of the original owner will be reimbursed for the value of the masterpiece, estimated between 2-4 million ($2.33-4.65 million). (Artnetnews, Sarah Cascone)

References
  1. Catherine Hickley (May 8, 2013), Norman Foster Turns Munich Villa Into Home for Kandinskys Bloomberg.
  2. "25 Women Curators On the Rise - artnet News". Retrieved 2015-09-12.

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