Roman Zieglgänsberger – författare

Friedrich Vordemberge-Gildewart (1898-1962), an artist associated with many contemporary greats, and Ilse Leda (1906-1981), a dancer, dance teacher and choreographer, met at a time when the international avant-garde of constructive, non-representational abstraction and thus of new approaches to photography, film and dance was arriving in Hanover. Both were deeply impressed by the grand utopia of a world improved by clarity of design and beauty. They adopted these principles for themselves – also as an expression of their ideas and work – through the times of upheaval, their emigration to Amsterdam, and their arrival at a very personal art of formal reduction and brilliant colours, lightness and enduring humanity. Sensitive texts and impressive contemporary photographs reveal the couple’s respectful coexistence: on an equal footing, supporting and inspiring each other. Dancing images and artistic dance – in conjunction with clear aesthetics in both art and life. Look inside Publication to mark Friedrich Vordemberge-Gildewart’s 125th birthday New evaluation and recognition of dancer, dance teacher, and choreographer Ilse Leda The lives of two artists in photos from the 1920s/1930s taken by Lázló Moholy-Nagy (including the discovery and fresh attribution of three previously anonymous photos), Hugo Erfurth, Lore Feininger, Albert Renger-Patzsch. Kurt Schwitters, Käte Steinitz, Paul Citroen, Theo van Doesburg etc. Exhibition: Museum Wiesbaden, September 26, 2025 to February 8, 2026

As a central artist of early modernism, Alexej von Jawlensky (born in Torshok, Russia, in 1864, died in Wiesbaden in 1941) considerably expanded the possibilities of painting. Based on an expressive, colorful appropriation of the world, by reducing form and intensifying color, he made his pictures an expression of an immaterial and spiritual truth. Despite the great individuality of his path, his work continues to give important inspirations to painting until today with respect to color, the serial, and the spiritual. The exhibition and catalogue present an exemplary selection of some seventy paintings and drawings and trace the development of the three big topics of "face, landscape, and still life," to which Jawlensky dedicated himself in his work. Look inside

Werner Graeff – painter, graphic artist, typographer, photographer and sculptor – is an important Bauhaus artist and a significant representative of Constructivism in Germany. Prompted by his friend Mies van der Rohe he wrote his moving autobiography “Hürdenlauf durch das 20. Jahrhundert” (The Obstacle Race of the 20th century), which this volume publishes for the first time with a representative selection of texts. Werner Graeff ( 1901 – 1978 ) was a student at the Bauh aus in Weimar and from 1921 a member of the De Stijl Dutch artists’ group. Together with Willi Baumeister he was also closely associated with the “ring neue werbegestalter” founded in 1927 by Kurt Schwitters. At an early stage he focused much of his attent ion on film and photography, but in 1951 after his return to the Ruhr region from exile in Switzerland he once again increasingly devoted himself to his work as an independent artist. Illustrated with a large number of paintings, pictograms, multiples, dra wings and graphic works from the artist’s estate, this volume leads the reader through Graeff’s life and works and is at the same time a fascinating journey through the German art history of the 20 th century.

Anyone who thought they knew the Blue Rider well will be set straight by this volume: now it’s the women of this artists’ group who take centre stage.This publication celebrates their significant contribution to the avant-garde alongside their courage in defying social conventions by describing thirteen fascinating artist biographies that are well worth discovering.Gabriele Münter and Marianne von Werefkin have entered the canon of German modernism, but who were their fellow women artists? Through individual portraits and wide-ranging essays, this book recounts how the women of the Blue Rider group fought for artistic independence even in the most adverse of circumstances, creating international networks and pursuing their own artistic methods. More than 150 works show their revolutionary approach to art and its distinct way of engaging with the world.