“The creative boldly approaches the unknown.” Willi Baumeister and his network

12 November 2023 – 4 February 2024
Museum Gunzenhauser

**Willi Baumeister**, *Taru-Turi*, 1954. Oil with synthetic resin and sand on hardboard 54 x 65 cm
Kunstsammlungen Chemnitz – Museum Gunzenhauser
Property of the Gunzenhauser Foundation
© VG Bild-Kunst, Bonn 2023

The exhibition reflects the entire spectrum of Willi Baumeister’s (1889-1955) artistic oeuvre. Baumeister was an exceptional artist in many respects. His artistic path was characterised by constant change and renewal. One of his specialities was his ability to use a wide variety of media for his purposes at a time when a strict, classical separation of artistic genres still prevailed.

Hannelore Paflik-Huber and Hans Dieter Huber (curators of the exhibition): “Baumeister—this visionary of abstraction—is worth to be rediscovered. We are showing him as a masterful networker of his time.”

From today’s perspective, Willi Baumeister can be characterised as a “social hub.” He was an excellent networker throughout his life, establishing important international contacts very early on in his artistic career, which he was largely able to maintain during the Second World War. His circle of friends included Hans Arp, Hanna Bekker, Max Bill, Robert Delaunay, Sonja Delaunay-Terk, Karl Otto Götz, Camille Graeser, Alexej von Jawlensky, Wassily Kandinsky, Paul Klee and Oskar Kokoschka. But his extensive contacts in architecture (such as Le Corbusier, Alfred Roth and Richard Döcker) and in the world of commercial art (Ella Bergmann-Michel, Robert Michel, Kurt Schwitters and others) also proved to be extremely fruitful for the wide-ranging development of an essentially intermedial oeuvre that was not limited to painting.

**Willi Baumeister**, *Bild mit Muschelform*, 1932. Oil and sand on canvas, 80,5 x 64,5 cm Kunstsammlungen Chemnitz – Museum Gunzenhauser Property of the Gunzenhauser Foundation
© VG Bild-Kunst, Bonn 2023. Photo: Kunstsammlungen Chemnitz/PUNCTUM/Bertram Kober

Together with the Domnick Collection in Nürtingen the Museum Gunzenhauser in Chemnitz owns the third largest public collection of Willi Baumeister paintings in Germany after the Staatsgalerie Stuttgart. Today, the collection comprises 39 works from the artist’s various stylistic phases. This collection, which has never been shown in its entirety before, offers an ideal starting point for a large-scale Willi Baumeister exhibition dedicated to this exceptional artist and all of his work phases and media, his art theory and artistic attitudes. The show has a particular focus on the visualisation of works from artists’ estates that have rarely been shown to date. The exhibits are supplemented by items on loan from other museums.

Furthermore, a wide-ranging selection of films, letters, postcards and photographs sheds light on the artist as a cultural-political cosmopolitan, advocate of abstract art and exceptional university teacher. Supplementary documents and artworks by third parties illustrate the high esteem in which he was held.

**Willi Baumeister,** *Bauchige. Vase in Vogelform no. 1*, 1955. Ceramics, 27 x 20 cm. Private collection
© VG Bild-Kunst, Bonn 2023. Photo: Archiv Baumeister im Kunstmuseum Stuttgart

Next to works by Willi Baumeister, the following artists are presented in the exhibition: Max Ackermann, Gerhard Altenbourg, Hans Arp, Hanna Bekker, Ella Bergmann-Michel, Karl Bohrmann, Peter Brüning, Carlfriedrich Claus, Le Corbusier, Lily Hildebrandt, Adolf Hölzel, Marta Hoeppfner, Johannes Itten, Alexej von Jawlensky, Wassily Kandinsky, Ida Kerkovius, Franz Krause, Fernand Léger, Charlotte Mayer-Posenenske, Kasimir Malevich, László Moholy-Nagy, Otto Meyer-Amden, Robert Michel, Gonn Mosny, Margarete Oehm-Baumeister, Amédée Ozenfant, Oskar Schlemmer, Kurt Schwitters, Hermann Stenner, Ludwig Wilding.