Albrecht Dürer, Gabriele Münter @ Germany.info

Here's some art-related stuff I posted last week during my deskbound, digital-era day job:

"Jawlensky and Werefkin" (1908/1909) by Gabriele Münter, oil on cardboard, 32.7 x 44.5 cm, Städtische Galerie im Lenbachhaus (© Deutsche Bundespost/Wikimedia Commons)

(1) Intro. - The Week in Germany (=all about art! JA!)

(2) Albrecht Dürer

(3) Gabriele Münter 

(I had also recently posted this here on this blog.)

When in Munich, I highly recommend the Lenbachhaus, which is perhaps my favorite museum in Germany, and certainly one of my favorite art museums in the world. (OK, so I may not have seen, like, EVERY single art museum in the world, but THIS ONE is a real gem - if you like German Expressionism and the Blue Rider movement, you will LOVE this museum. I guarantee it. The Lenbachhaus is due to reopen after an extended period of renovation in 2013.)

Lauder Collection @ Neue Galerie New York

My favorite museum in Europe is the LENBACHHAUS in Munich, due to re-open after renovations in 2013.

Lenbachhaus redux

It houses a breathtaking collection of works by the early 20th-century Blue Rider (Der Blaue Reiter) group of German and Russian Expressionist painters that included Wassily Kandinsky, Franz Marc, Gabriele Muenter, Alexej von Jawlensky, Marianne von Werefkin, Lyonel Feininger and August Macke.

When I first visited the Lenbachhaus at the tender age of 20 I came as close as I ever have, at least in the non-romantic sense, to pure rapture.

German and Austrian art in America

Gustav Klimt - Portrait of Adele-Bloch Bauer I (1907) - Wikimedia Commons

My favorite museum in America is the NEUE GALERIE NEW YORK, for both the art it displays and its mission statement - to showcase 20th-century German and Austrian art with a view to re-establishing on this side of the Atlantic the pivotal role it has played in the cannon of modern art history.

Ronald S. Lauder, a billionaire businessman, philanthropist and art collector, promised art dealer Serge Sabarsky, who died in 1996, that he would realize their mutual dream of setting up such a museum in Manhattan.

It is a fitting testimony to a true friendship and to a deep love of art.

Art transcends everything

The Neue Galerie, which means "New Gallery" in German, serves to underscore that art - like nature - transcends everything, including all human-induced horrors. Sabarsky survived the Shoah by immigrating as a young man from his native Austria to New York City, where he lived a life dedicated to art.

Now his legacy has been immortalized through the Neue Galerie by Lauder, who has also been active at international level in the restitution of art looted by Germany's Nazi regime to its rightful heirs.

(Lauder has, for instance, hailed the jewel in the Neue Galerie's crown - Gustav Klimt's "Portrait of Adele-Bloch Bauer I" - as "our Mona Lisa.")

Lauder collection now on show at the Neue Galerie

I hope to return to New York soon to see a special show at the Neue Galerie exhibiting select works from Lauder's personal collection spanning several centuries and genres.

*** FYI this exhibition ENDS on APRIL 2, 2012 ***

I was so excited about the Neue Galerie's 10th anniversary and this exhibition that I wrote something about it during my "day job" which you can read here.

Cafe Sabarsky

On a more gastronomic note, an Austrian friend who visited the Neue Galerie with me in July 2007 confirmed that everything in the museum's cafe - from the coffee and cake to the newspapers to the beer and sausage - was authentically Austrian.

I can confirm that it was all super delicious.

I can also confirm that I did not want to leave the museum's book store, ever.

Neue Galerie New York on Facebook

Stealing Klimt - A Film by Jane Chablani

"Degenerate Art": The Fate of the Avant-Garde in Nazi Germany (LACMA)