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7 March - 13 May 2001
£6 (£4 concessions)
Supported by the Corporate Members of the National Gallery
Berlin is once again assuming its role as the capital of a reunited nation. Accordingly its great museums, formerly divided between East and West, are undergoing major renovation and reorganisation. As part of this process the Nationalgalerie is currently closed, and this has created a unique opportunity for the National Gallery in London to show a collection of its finest paintings.
The Nationalgalerie contains an incomparable collection of 19th-century German paintings, including masterpieces by Caspar David Friedrich, Karl Friedrich Schinkel, Adolph Menzel and Max Liebermann. It is also home to a distinguished group of French Impressionist and Post-Impressionist masterpieces by Edouard Manet, Claude Monet and Paul Cézanne. These pictures astonished all Berlin when they were adventurously acquired at the turn of the 20th century by its Director Hugo von Tschudi - against the wishes of the highly conservative Kaiser and even before many French museums were buying in the field.
The exhibition brings together 77 paintings by 19th- and early 20th-century masters. It begins with the sublime canvases of the Romantic painters early in the century, including seven great paintings by Friedrich. It continues with the brilliantly observed works of the naturalists at mid-century, including Carl Blechen and Eduard Gaertner, and ends with Impressionist and Post-Impressionist innovations in both Germany and France. Eleven paintings by Adolph Menzel, including his monumental depiction of modern labour, 'The Iron Rolling Mill (Modern Cyclops)' of 1872 - 5, constitute a mini-retrospective of this brilliant artist at the heart of the display. The exhibition ends with works by Max Beckmann and Lovis Corinth that startled Berlin viewers a century ago and ushered in a new age of Expressionism in German art.
The exhibition is a timely reminder of a period a century ago when Berlin, then the fastest-growing metropolis in Europe, was a vital and exciting centre for new art, as it is again today. It constitutes a survey of 19th-century German painting, traces the arrival of modernism in that country, and offers an overview of a remarkable institution that is a sister to London's own National Gallery. In London the exhibition is curated by Christopher Riopelle, and both he and the Director Neil MacGregor contribute to the accompanying catalogue, which includes essays by the Director of the Berlin Museums, Peter-Klaus Schuster, and essays and entries by the Nationalgalerie's leading curators. The exhibition is organised in collaboration with the National Gallery of Art, Washington, where it travels following its London showing.
December 2000
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