100 Years of the Folkwang: How Expressionism Shaped a Museum

It all began with Karl Ernst Osthaus. In 1902, he founded a museum of the same name, the Folkwang, in Hagen. Six years later, it impressed with an exhibition of its own collection, which was always on the pulse of the times. Osthaus bought works by Vincent van Gogh, Paul Gauguin, Ferdinand Hodler and Edvard Munch very early on. His keen interest in modern art movements led him to turn to Expressionism and win over representatives of the Brücke and Blauer Reiter groups or artists such as Oskar Kokoschka and Egon Schiele - the museum was considered extremely open-minded. At the same time, Ernst Gosebruch took over as director of the municipal museum in Essen in 1912. The two museum directors were spiritually connected: Osthaus died in 1921, and the museum in Essen bought up his collection, turning it into today's Museum Folkwang in 1922.

Beginning August 20, the Museum Folkwang takes up this narrative, which seems preformulated, with Expressionists at the Folkwang, and also tells how things continued after its founding - how the house prospered, for example, through Ernst Ludwig Kirchner. Despite expected happy endings, the exhibition delves into a dark chapter of German history and provides information on how National Socialists initially defamed Expressionist art as »degenerate«, destroyed the museum, and how it rose again. 250 works take on the role of storytellers. Anyone interested can delve into the history of the Expressionist-influenced collection until January 8, 2023.