With the exhibition “Von Kollwitz bis Richter II: Neuerwerbungen – Schenkungen – Neuentdeckungen” the Osthaus Museum builds on the successful exhibition “Von Kollwitz bis Richter. Schäte auf Papier aus dem Osthaus Museum”. While the previous exhibition focused on the museum’s unique collection history, this follow-up exhibition now also highlights works that have been added to the collection over the past two years.

A major focus of the exhibition is on new acquisitions and donations from the Folkwang network associated with Karl Ernst and Gertrud Osthaus. Among the works never before exhibited are, for example, a nude drawing by Moissey Kogan—who was particularly supported by Karl Ernst Osthaus and his wife and was murdered in Auschwitz in 1943 as a victim of the Shoah—and linocuts by the artist Johannes Auerbach, who created the tomb for Osthaus, which is now located in the gardens of Villa Hohenhof in Hagen. In 1921, his linocuts were published by the Folkwang-Verlag in Hagen. Since then, his works have not been on display in Hagen. It is therefore a stroke of luck for the Osthaus Museum and the history of the Hagen Impulse that five prints by the former Bauhaus student found their way into the Hagen collection in 1926, partly as a donation and partly as an acquisition from the estate of Adalbert Colsman, the brother of Gertrud Osthaus.

Another focal point is the art of the 1960s and 1970s, which has been enriched by valuable donations. Thus, with Op Art light, mirror, and kinetic objects, works of concrete art on paper, and donations from the artistic circle of the Neue Deutsche Welle, a panorama emerges of an era marked by social and artistic upheaval and transformation—an era that is part of our recent past.

In the current exhibition, works on paper, paintings, and objects—most of which are being shown for the first time—that have been added to the collection over the past two years through acquisitions, donations, or permanent loans engage in a dialogue with highlights from the collection as well as new discoveries by the curatorial team.