The August-Macke-Haus or August Macke House is a museum in Bonn, Germany, opened in 1991, dedicated to the expressionist painter August Macke. It is located in Macke's former home, where he lived from 1911 to 1914. The museum displays reconstructed interiors and houses temporary exhibitions, usually focusing on Expressionism. In the August-Macke-Haus, Macke's studio has been restored, including furniture from his Tegernsee days. A basic archive of Rhenish Expressionism is available in addition to a reference library.
On October 5, 1909, August Macke married his long-time girlfriend, Elisabeth Gerhardt. The couple first lived on Tegernsee, then moved to Bonn. Macke painted continuously, was increasingly finding his direction and urgently needed a studio. This was set up in the attic of the house of his mother-in-law, Sophie Gerhardt, built in 1877–1878, at Bornheimer Strasse 88 (now 96); the renovation was carried out according to plans by the Bonn architect Hermann Schmitt. The father-in-law, the entrepreneur Carl Heinrich Gerhardt, had bought the house in 1884 as his company's archive and furnished it for the purpose. He died in 1907. In February 1911 Macke moved into this house with his wife and son Walter. The studio was Macke's first and only. The few years when was able to work there turned out to be his most productive. The artist completed more than 400 paintings while living in the house. He also often painted his surroundings, the view from the house, the streets and the garden. At the time, Macke had made relatively long journeys to know better modern painting, innovative artists and new surroundings. In the place where he now lived, he welcomed people like Franz Marc, Max Ernst, Guillaume Apollinaire, Robert Delaunay, Gabriele Münter and Paul Klee. With Franz Marc, Macke painted the large mural Paradise on the studio wall in 1912. It was dismantled in 1980 and is now in the Westphalian State Museum of Art and Cultural History in Münster. It was replaced by a copy in the original size, now on display in the Macke Museum.
Paradise (1912), the mural by August Macke and Franz Marc
In 1914, shortly after the start of the World War I, Macke was killed in action in France at the age of 27. After two years, his widow married a friend of her husband's, Lothar Erdmann. She lived with him and Macke's two sons (Erdmann's two children would come later) in the same house until 1925, when she moved to Berlin. The house was then rented, but not the studio. Her second husband died in Sachsenhausen concentration camp in 1939. Elisabeth returned to the house in 1948 and set up in the studio, in which she lived until 1975, before moving back to Berlin, where she died in 1978.
A bronze plaque commemorating August Macke was attached to the house in the presence of the students who had suggested it and Ms. Erdmann-Macke in 1972 and still hangs there.
The house, which had not been listed until then, was acquired by a building contractor from Berlin who wanted to gutt the house and convert it into a restaurant, after the above-mentioned mural had been translocated. Margarethe Jochimsen, chairwoman of the Bonner Kunstverein, founded a citizens' initiative to put the house under a preservation order and thus prevent the renovation. In 1989 the association "August Macke Haus" was founded, which became responsible for the museum's artistic program. In the same year the house was taken by the state of North Rhine-Westphalia and the sponsor and building contractor Herbert Hillebrand bought it to be properly renovated, to have Macke's studio restored and open to the public.
On September 26, 1991, the August-Macke-Haus was officially opened in the presence of the then Prime Minister of North Rhine-Westphalia, Johannes Rau. Margarethe Jochimsen was the founding director. The financial sponsor of the house, the "August Macke Haus der Sparkasse Bonn Foundation", was founded in 1994.[1]
Bonn is a federal city in the German state of North Rhine-Westphalia, located on the banks of the Rhine. It has a population of over 300,000. About 24 km (15 mi) south-southeast of Cologne, Bonn is in the southernmost part of the Rhine-Ruhr region, Germany's largest metropolitan area, with over 11 million inhabitants. It is a university city, was the birthplace of Ludwig van Beethoven and was the capital of West Germany from 1949 to 1990. Bonn was the seat of government of reunited Germany from 1990 to 1999.
August Robert Ludwig Macke was a German Expressionist painter. He was one of the leading members of the German Expressionist group Der Blaue Reiter. He lived during a particularly active time for German art: he saw the development of the main German Expressionist movements as well as the arrival of the successive avant-garde movements which were forming in the rest of Europe. As an artist of his time, Macke knew how to integrate into his painting the elements of the avant-garde which most interested him. Like his friend Franz Marc and Otto Soltau, he was one of the young German artists who died in the First World War.
Gert Heinrich Wollheim was a German expressionist painter later associated with the New Objectivity, who fled nazi Germany and worked in the United States after 1947.
The Kunstmuseum Bonn or Bonn Museum of Modern Art is an art museum in Bonn, Germany, founded in 1947. The Kunstmuseum exhibits both temporary exhibitions and its collection. Its collection is focused on Rhenish Expressionism and post-war German art. It is part of Bonn's "Museum Mile".
The Beethoven House in Bonn, Germany, is a memorial site, museum, and cultural institution serving various purposes. Founded in 1889 by the Beethoven-Haus association, it studies the life and work of composer Ludwig van Beethoven.
Emil Schumacher was a German painter. He was an important representative of abstract expressionism in post-war Germany.
Gustav Wunderwald was a German painter of the New Objectivity style, and a theatrical set designer.
Monika Kropshofer is a German painter and photographer. Since the middle of the year 2000 Kropshofer has gained renown through her large-format painted landscape and architecture photographs which were created as a result of her many work journeys and stays in Europe, Africa und Asia.
Egon Wilden was a German painter and set-designer.
Elisabeth Erdmann-Macke was a German writer who focused on memoirs of her time as the wife of the expressionist painter August Macke, who had portrayed her more than 200 times. He died in World War I. Later, she lived in Berlin with her second husband, Lothar Erdmann, who died in a concentration camp during World War II. She saved Macke's paintings and copies of his letters by moving them from her house in Berlin before it was bombed in 1943.
Karl Hermann Dietrich Lothar Erdmann was a German journalist. During the Weimar Republic he was the editor of the trade union theory organ Die Arbeit. He was a main supporter of the turning away of trade unions from social democracy at the end of the Republic. Despite his rapprochement with National Socialism, he died after maltreatment in the Sachsenhausen concentration camp.
Margarethe Jochimsen, née Müller, was a German curator, art critic and museum director.
Hildegard Reinhardt is a German translator and art historian.
Dietrich Erdmann was a German composer and university lecturer.
Portrait with Apples, also known as Elisabeth with Apples, is an oil-on-canvas painting executed in 1909 by the German Expressionist painter August Macke. It shows his wife Elisabeth Gerhardt and was created shortly after their wedding. Macke had studied the work of the Fauve artists during his honeymoon in Paris, and the painting shows their influence. It marks the beginning of his public artistic appreciation. The work belongs to the collection of the Städtische Galerie im Lenbachhaus, in Munich.
The Donkey Rider is a watercolor created in 1914 by the German Expressionist painter August Macke. It was created during the art-historically significant trip to Tunisia that he took with fellow painters Paul Klee and Louis Moilliet in April 1914. The watercolor is now in the collection of the August-Macke-Haus in Bonn.
Large Bright Showcase is an oil-on-canvas painting by the German artist August Macke, executed in 1912. It is held at the Sprengel Museum in Hanover.
The Kunstmuseen Krefeld is an art museum in Krefeld, Germany. It is particularly dedicated to modern and contemporary art. Three houses constitute the museum—the Kaiser Wilhelm Museum, Haus Lange and Haus Esters. Since the late 1950s, the museums have risen to international prominence. Katia Baudin, former deputy director of the Museum Ludwig in Cologne, has headed the museums since 1 September 2016.
References
↑ Margarethe Jochimsen, "Das August-Macke-Haus in Bonn: Ein Stück bundeshauptstädtischer Kulturpolitik", in Kritische Berichte, Band 16, Nr. 3/1988 (German), ISSN 0340-7403
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