Northern German Impressionism meets Pop Art
What is gathered in private art collections usually remains reserved for the collector’s own four walls. This exhibition offers a rare glimpse into two North German private collections, whose range spans from 19th-century art to the present day. Alongside paintings, numerous pastels, watercolours, drawings and prints are on display – delicate works on paper to which both collectors devote a particular passion. The exhibition brings together art from Schleswig-Holstein with works by significant Danish artists and international positions of modernism.
Among the artists represented are Ludwig Dettmann, Hans Peter Feddersen, Otto Heinrich Engel, Emil Nolde, Dorothea Maetzel-Johannsen, Käte Lassen, Michael Arp, Klaus Fußmann, as well as Friedrich Mißfeldt, Rudolf Behrend and Heinrich Blunck.
The selection is complemented by works by Danish artists such as Carl Locher, Michael Ancher, Christoffer Wilhelm Eckersberg and Carl Holsøe, as well as by international icons such as Andy Warhol, David Hockney and Günter Fruhtrunk. As different as the two collections are, they are united by a shared passion for realistic contemporary art.
Both collectors are also professionally involved in art and design. They collect not according to market value or completeness, but according to personal preference. Each work tells its own story and recalls encounters, discoveries or special moments in life. In this way, a collection reflects the collector’s own interests and experiences over the years.
These individual preferences also shape this exhibition. While one collection focuses on Northern German Impressionism and the art of around 1900, the other looks towards international modernism, with a particular interest in the Pop Art and Op Art of the 1960s and 1970s.
In this engaging dialogue, unexpected connections emerge between regional landscape painting and the colour-intensive visual worlds of post-war modernism.
Collecting is one of humanity’s oldest cultural activities. It preserves memories, creates a sense of orientation, and motivates the addition of further objects to a collection. This exhibition invites visitors to get to know two distinctive collector personalities, while sharing in the joy of seeing, discovering and collecting.
