Exhibition: 2 September to 3 October 2020
Opening: Tuesday, 1 September, 6 pm
So there it was, the huge canvas: in the attic of an old Dresden townhouse, carefully rolled and jacked up. The outrageously modern oil studies and photos of women lolling in the shallow Mediterranean fuelled our curiosity. The small-format composition sketch gave us an idea. The feast for the eyes as we unrolled the colourful canvas in a Berlin restorer's studio surpassed every expectation: before us rose - centimetre by centimetre - a one-eyed giant against a dazzling blue Riviera sky, white mountains of clouds, as light as the radiant incarnation of the frightened beauties, whose physical presence does not show enraptured sea creatures, but women in the here and now. Their playground: an irritatingly shimmering, rhythmically abstracted water landscape in front of sun-glowing Cyclopean cliffs.
From 2 September, Grisebach is delighted to present the exhibition "King Kong comes from Dresden. The rediscovery of the painter Max Pietschmann" from 2 September. The leitmotif of the show is a major work by the artist that was thought to have been lost, the monumental oil painting "Polyphemus' Fish Migration" (380 x 260 cm). Paintings, photographs and letters from his estate will also be on display.
Max Pietschmann (1865 - Dresden - 1952) studied at the Academy of Fine Arts in Dresden from 1883. A travelling scholarship enabled him to attend the Académie Julien in Paris in 1889. He then worked for two years in Italy, in Rome and above all in Sicily. His major work "Polyphemus", created here, shows the enormous creative power of his early years: a mammoth work, as self-confident, powerful and avant-garde as the international art scene of his time. The "inspiring fever", according to the novelist Robert Musil, which "suddenly arose throughout Europe from the oily spirit of the last decades of the 19th century", had infected the young talent. With insatiable curiosity, Pietschmann absorbed both the new and the old and imbued the legend-soaked landscape of Sicily with his very own pictorial inventions in free literary adaptation and proverbial mythical creativity. The presentation and honouring of "Polyphemus" at the World's Fair in Chicago in 1893 marked the first high point of his career.
With his mystifying view of nature, the artist is in the tradition of Arnold Böcklin and Max Klinger and is considered a representative of German Symbolism. As a leading member of the progressive "Goppelner Kreis", he took Plainair painting in Dresden to a new level and was instrumental in preparing the Secession, founded in 1893, of which he became deputy chairman in 1899. His creatively powerful interpretations of current national and international influences of Symbolism, Impressionism and early Art Nouveau established Pietschmann's role as an important protagonist of the "new direction of painting" in Dresden. Together with artists such as Oskar Zwintscher, Richard Müller, Hans Unger and Sascha Schneider, he belonged to the "phalanx of strong artists who signified Dresden's art at the turn of the century" (Kuno v. Hardenberg, 1928).
Symbolism as a Europe-wide art movement of early modernism is celebrating its comeback these days. With the rediscovery of this early major work, Pietschmann is once again at the forefront!
The exhibition was curated by Dr Anna Ahrens, Frida-Marie Grigull and Luca Meinert.
Opening
Tuesday, 1 September 2020, 6 pm
Grisebach, Fasanenstraße 25, 10719 Berlin
Exhibition
2 September to 3 October 2020
Mon. to Fri. 10 am to 6 pm, Sat. 11 am to 4 pm