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Georg Kolbe Museum

Georg Kolbe Museum
General information
Architectural style	New Objectivity
Town or city	Berlin-Westend
Country	Germany
Coordinates	52°30′35.8″N 13°15′17.5″E
Year(s) built	1928/1929
Design and construction
Architect(s)	Ernst Rentsch, Paul Linder

The Georg Kolbe Museum in Berlin is a museum focused on classical modernism and contemporary art and a research center for modern sculpture. It is located in the former studio building of the sculptor Georg Kolbe (1877-1947) at Sensburger Allee 25/26 in the Westend district and was opened in 1950. It is an important example of the Bauhaus-influenced architecture of the Neues Bauen movement of the 1920s in Berlin.

History

The museum owns the legacy of Georg Kolbe as well as a collection of sculptures and other works of art, mainly from the first half of the 20th century (e.g. Richard Scheibe, Rudolf Belling, Renée Sintenis, Hermann Blumenthal, August Gaul, Karl Schmidt-Rottluff, Ernst Ludwig Kirchner and Gerhard Marcks) as well as sculptor's drawings, an archive of artist's correspondence and a library. The museum is supported by the Georg Kolbe Foundation, which was founded in 1949 to preserve the artist's estate and make it accessible to the public. Since 1978, the museum has received a financial contribution from the state of Berlin on condition that works by other artists are also shown. In the same year, art historian Ursel Berger took over as director (until 2013). In 2008, Marc Wellmann joined as exhibition director (until 2013). From March 2013, art historian Julia Wallner from the Kunstmuseum Wolfsburg took over the management of the museum. In 2020, following the death of the artist's granddaughter, the museum received a comprehensive heritage of the artist, which, in addition to artistic works, primarily contains written documents and correspondence from the 1920s and 1930s, including letters from Alfred Flechtheim, Else Lasker-Schüler and Max Pechstein. In December 2022, cultural scientist and art historian Kathleen Reinhardt took over as director of the Georg Kolbe Museum in Berlin.

Architecture

The studio house ensemble that the sculptor Georg Kolbe had built by architects Ernst Rentsch and Paul Linder from 1928 to 1929 represents a significant example of Berlin architecture from the 1920s. The two cubic buildings, with their brick facades and distinctive window bands, enclose an idyllic sculpture garden. The sculptor Georg Kolbe collaborated with many architects, including Ludwig Mies van der Rohe, Walter Gropius, Bruno Taut, Hans Poelzig, and Henry van de Velde. For instance, Ludwig Mies van der Rohe placed Kolbe's sculpture "The Morning" in the Barcelona Pavilion, the German Reich's exhibition pavilion at the 1929 Barcelona International Exposition.

It is the only artist's house from the 1920s in Berlin that is accessible to the public as a museum. Georg Kolbe lived and worked here until his death in 1947. The damages caused during the bombing of Berlin in World War II primarily affected the former workshop area by Bauhaus architect Paul Linder, which was demolished in 1995 to make way for an extension.

In 1996, the extension designed by the AGP architects group was completed. Over three floors, two additional exhibition rooms and the museum's storage facilities were added. Between autumn 2015 and summer 2016, the historic sculptor's studio was renovated under the direction of Brenne Architects with funds from the Deutsche Klassenlotterie Berlin. The architectural firm specializes in heritage preservation projects (e.g., the Masters' Houses at the Bauhaus Dessau, the Academy of Arts, Berlin), and their work focused on reconstructing many of the original elements, restoring the original color schemes, and reviving the garden. In 2020/2021, the neighboring building was also restored to its historic state. Today, it houses the museum café Benjamine (named after Georg Kolbe's wife, who died young) and the museum's library.

Exhibition program

Until the 1990s, the main focus of the exhibition program was on pre- and post-war modernist sculpture. Contemporary art has since gained in importance. Established as a foundation for the development, preservation and communication of Kolbe's artistic legacy, the museum today sees itself as a place for encounters, exchange and research. With exhibitions and educational programs on classical modernism and contemporary art, the museum promotes a dialogue that links historical questions with the present. The museum houses an important collection of modern art from Georg Kolbe's artistic circle. Research into modernist sculptors in particular plays an important role in the museum's work. Other core themes of the museum are dance and photography as well as the architecture of Neues Bauen.

The Georg Kolbe Museum has shown solo exhibitions on Aristide Maillol (1996), Henry Moore (1998), August Gaul (1999), Wilhelm Lehmbruck (2000), Bernhard Heiliger (2000-2001), Wieland Förster (2005), Hermann Blumenthal (2006), Max Klinger (2007), among others, Antony Gormley (2007), Johannes Grützke (2007-2008), Anton Henning (2009), Werner Stötzer (2011), Renée Sintenis (2014), Hans Arp (2015), Auguste Rodin (2016), Emy Roeder (2019), Herman de Vries (2020), Thomas Schütte (2021), Mona Hatoum (2022) and Leiko Ikemura (2023).

Exhibitions (selection)

• 2001: Taking Positions: Untergang einer Tradition – Figürliche Bildhauerei und das Dritte Reich
• 2002: Wächserne Identitäten – Wachsplastik am Ende des 20. Jahrhunderts
• 2002: Die Gemeinschaft der Heiligen – Barlach und Marcks
• 2004/2005: Das letzte Bildnis – Totenmasken aus drei Jahrhunderten
• 2007: Die Macht des Dinglichen – Skulptur heute!
• 2008: Glamour! Das Girl wird feine Dame – Frauendarstellungen in der späten Weimarer Republik
• 2009: Romantische Maschinen. Kinetische Kunst der Gegenwart
• 2010: 1910 | FIGUR | 2010
• 2011: William Wauer und der Berliner Kubismus
• 2011: ABSTRAKT //// SKULPTUR
• 2012: TanzPlastik – Die tänzerische Bewegung in der Skulptur der Moderne
• 2012: BIOS – Konzepte des Lebens in der zeitgenössischen Skulptur
• 2013/2014: Renée Sintenis – Berliner Bildhauerin (2013/2014)
• 2014: Vanitas – Ewig ist eh nichts. Mit Tomas Saraceno, Paweł Althamer, Thomas Schütte, Daniel Spoerri, Dieter Roth, Alicja Kwade, Mona Hatoum (2014)
• 2015: Hans Arp – Der Nabel der Avantgarde
• 2016: Auguste Rodin und Madame Hanako. Der französische Bildhauer und die Emanzipationsgeschichte der japanischen Tänzerin
• 2017: Georg Kolbe – Im Netzwerk der Berliner Moderne
• 2017 Alfred Flechtheim. Kunsthändler der Moderne
• 2018: The First Generation. Female Sculptors of Berlin Modernism
• 2019: The Sensitive Man in Modern Sculpture
• 2019: Colourful Stones. William Tucker, Kai Schiemenz, Stefan Guggisberg
• 2019: Lynn Chadwick – Biester der Zeit (2019), in Kooperation mit Haus am Waldsee und Lehmbruck-Museum, Duisburg
• 2019: Asana Fujikawa / David Hockney. Figures of the Floating Worlds
• 2020: Modernism and Refuge – Georg Kolbes Sensburg as an Architectural Monument of the 1920s
• 2021: The Absolute Dance. Female Dancers in the Weimar Republic
• 2021/22 Thomas Schütte
• 2023: Tilla Durieux. A Witness to a Century and Her Roles

• 
  View of the house and studio of Georg Kolbe, 1928
• 
  View of the studio, around 1930
• 
  View of the garden, 1936
• 
  Exhibition view in the former sculptor's studio
• 
  The garden of the Georg Kolbe Museum
• 
  The sculpture park of the Georg Kolbe Museum

See also

• Museums and galleries in Berlin

Weblinks

• Compilation of images from Wikipedia Commons
• Website of the Georg Kolbe Museum
• Digital project on Georg Kolbe's sculptures in urban space
• Record in Iconic Houses
• Record in the Berlin Monument Authority (in German)
• Georg Kolbe Museum at the Deutsche Digitale Bibliothek

References

Category:Art museums and galleries in Berlin Category:Georg Kolbe Museum Category:Berlin building and structure stubs Category:Houses in Berlin Category:Houses in Germany