North German Gallery

Visitors take a journey through the past hundred years of German art in the North German Gallery, from the beginning of the 20th century up to the present day.

The adaption to North German artists is decisive for the character of the North German Gallery. The boundaries and opposites of the various artist generations of the 20th century are thematised.

The connection between art in the Rolf Horn Collection and the North German Gallery can be seen immediately from the outset: the first room treats expressionist artists. Art from the Weimar republic follows with the New Objectivity and surrealism. It was a decade of experiments with colours, forms and topics.

The experimental phase came to a halt with the beginning of the NS dictatorship. Several artists were banned from painting, for example Eduard Bargheer and Friedrich Karl Gotsch. A painting for the museum’s collection by the artist Hedda Pontoppidan, who lived just a few kilometres away from Schleswig in the north of Schleswig-Holstein for many years, originates from this period.

After the end of World War 2, the post-war generation tried to follow the earlier art from the Weimar Republic. The artists from this period include Richard Haizmann, Erich Hartmann, Carl Hilmers and Oskar Kehr-Steiner.

Fantastic innovations are incurred increasingly with the 1968 generation. Here, the artists from North Germany followed particularly realistic as well as equally socio-critical approaches.

The “North German Realists” such as Friedel Anderson, Tobias Duwe, Christoph Thiele or also Nikolaus Störtenbecker followed here.. This generation focussed primarily on everyday items and landscape motifs.

The new exhibition also addresses contemporary art. This is also represented here by Ingo Kühl and René Schoemakers, born in 1972.