Top Event
from Kandinsky to Campendonk
The Berlin Kupferstichkabinett has an important collection of modern art, including important Expressionist works. In 2025, a special exhibition will be dedicated to the artist network ‘Der Blaue Reiter’ for the first time.
Image gallery
August Macke, „Landschaft mit hellem Baum“, 1914, 22,2 x 30,9 cm
Franz Marc, „Ruhende Pferde“, 1912, Farbholzschnitt, 17 x 22,9 cm (Druck)
Wassily_Kandinsksy_Zwei_Reiter_vor_Rot_27e355d53d
In spring 2024, graphic works by important representatives of German Expressionism were shown in the Kupferstichkabinett in the exhibition ‘Die gerettete Moderne’.
From 1 March to 15 June 2025 , the special exhibition ‘Kosmos Blauer Reiter’ will focus in particular on the artists associated with the editorial group founded in Munich in 1911.
Although the National Socialist confiscation programme ‘Degenerate Art’ in 1937 resulted in painful losses at the National Museums, including graphic works, these were at least partially compensated for after 1945 through acquisitions.
In addition to Franz Marc and Wassily Kandinsky, the founders of the Blaue Reiter, August Macke and Heinrich Campendonk in particular are represented with many works.
The Blue Rider
The pictorial cosmos of the Blue Rider stands for the liberation of colour and form and thus for the path to abstraction.
However, in their struggle for a new art, the protagonists of Der Blaue Reiter were not only concerned with the European, especially French art of their time.
They also focussed on the creative potential of religious folk art, for example, so it is hardly surprising that the art of the Blue Rider exhibited great stylistic diversity.
As some of Gabriele Münter's works show, printmaking in the Blauer Reiter also drew on the applied field of poster art.
The fact that drawing and printmaking not only played an important role for Franz Marc and Wassily Kandinsky is demonstrated by the exhibition they organised in Munich at the beginning of 1912 entitled ‘Der Blaue Reiter. Black and White’, in which Ernst Ludwig Kirchner, Natalia Goncharova and Emil Nolde took part.
Their participation symbolised the Blue Rider's desire for artistic openness and networking, although its activities came to an early end two years later with the outbreak of the First World War.
The exhibition
- around 60 watercolours, drawings and prints
- 20 comparable works by other female artists
- further works on loan
The exhibition at the Berlin Kupferstichkabinett introduces the Blauer Reiter cosmos in seven chapters.
The focus is on the spiritual dimension of Wassily Kandinsky's art, the “French spirit” in August Macke “s watercolours and drawings and Franz Marc”s experience of nature, which is linked to his empathy with animals.
In contrast to Marc's Expressionism, the exhibition includes realistic depictions of animals by his contemporaries Wilhelm Kuhnert and August Gaul.
The interweaving of the art of drawing and poetry in the form of painted postcards in turn characterises the correspondence between Franz Marc as the ‘Blue Rider’ and the poet Else Lasker-Schüler (‘Prinz Jussuff’).
With Heinrich Campendonk, the Berlin gallery Der Sturm - opened in spring 1912 with an exhibition of the Blue Rider - finally came into focus.
Its owner, Herwarth Walden, also published the magazine of the same name, in which Campendonk was soon prominently represented with his woodcuts alongside Oskar Kokoschka and Jacoba van Heemskerck, who was influenced by Der Blaue Reiter.
If you want to experience even more Expressionist art, you can visit the "Kosmos Kandinsky" exhibition at the Museum Barberini in Potsdam at the same time.
Additional information
Opening hours:
Wed 10:00 - 17:00 Uhr
Thu10:00 - 17:00 Uhr
Fri 10:00 - 17:00 Uhr
Sat 11:00 - 18:00 Uhr
Sun 11:00 - 18:00 Uhr
Participating artists
Heinrich Campendonk
Robert Delaunay
Alexej von Jawlensky
Wassily Kandinsky
Paul Klee
Oskar Kokoschka
Alfred Kubin
Else Lasker-Schüler
Franz Marc
August Macke und Gabriele Münter – sowie weiteren Arbeiten von Jutta Damme
Sonia Delaunay
André Derain
Natalja Gontscharowa
August Gaul
Jacoba van Heemskerck
Erich Heckel
Ernst Ludwig Kirchner
Wilhelm Kuhnert
Emil Nolde und Max Pechstein.
