Museum Penzberg commemorates the painter Joseph Mader: our excursion tip!

Created: 04/03/2022, 10:07 am

By: Katja Kraft

An early work: "The Yellow Birds" was painted by Joseph Mader in 1933. Then came the Nazi era - and the artist was pushed aside.

© VG Bild Kunst Bonn 2022

Joseph Mader (1905-1982) belongs to the so-called "lost generation" - those artists whose careers were destroyed by the Nazi era.

High time to remember him and them all.

The Penzberg Museum is now doing it with an exhibition: worth seeing!

Imagine: a third-rate Picasso prints show, without originals.

And the booth is full.

How many fantastic exhibitions are missed by those only lured by well-known names.

The 20th century alone is full of exciting artistic positions.

But the 20th century in particular is also shaped by the National Socialist era.

For young artists born around the turn of the century, this was not only a personal but also a professional catastrophe.

As for Joseph Mader (1905-1982), to whom the Museum Penzberg – Campendonk Collection is now dedicating a show.

In his first own studio in Munich: Joseph Mader around 1930. © Private collection Joseph Mader estate

Born in Landshut, he is an example of the "lost generation".

The term was coined by art historian Rainer Zimmermann when, in 1980, he publicized around 400 artists who had fared like Mader.

At the beginning of the thirties he was at the beginning of his career.

After training as a graphic artist at the Munich School of Applied Arts and studying painting at the Cologne Werkschulen, he gained a foothold in the art world, had his first small exhibitions and made contacts with museums.

Then came the seizure of power by the National Socialists - and suddenly a complete change in art politics.

Mader and his colleagues had to ask themselves: am I conforming or am I distancing myself?

Can I continue to work or will my art be ostracized?

Museum Penzberg Collection Campendonk likes to go on treasure hunts

The Penzberger Haus likes to focus on topics that lie dormant on the fringes of art history.

Therefore, not only to show well-known names, but also to (re)discover things that have been forgotten, that have been pushed aside.

Museum director Diana Oesterle curated the show with Angelika Grepmair-Müller, Felix Billeter and Maximilian Mader, the artist's grandson, in a very revealing way.

It is not just a retrospective, but a biographical search for clues.

Through Mader's graphics and images, especially through their dialogue with works by contemporaries and role models, she provides information about the time in which Mader moved and about what moved him internally.

Hundreds of letters that his son diligently transcribed and digitized tell of this.

Quotations from it float on the walls of the rooms.

Max Beckmann's influence cannot be overlooked in Joseph Mader's works such as "Night Scene" (1952).

© VG Kunst Bonn 2022

One can understand that one of the most influential figures for the painter was Max Beckmann (1884-1950), even without the words of praise about Beckmann in Mader's correspondence.

He was visibly fascinated by the way he composed the picture.

This strong compression, the nesting of objects that sometimes go beyond the scope of zooming into the action;

he adopts this in his work.

In 1934 Mader took part in a competition: the painting of the Hofgarten facade in Munich was advertised.

But Mader's draft is rejected.

He writes to his wife Cäcilie that the path of dictatorship has now also been trodden in art.

All that remains is to resist by holding on to your inner feelings.

The artist makes ends meet for himself and his family with church furnishings.

Often they don't know how to get through the next day.

The uncompromising nature of his artistic existence is impressive.

Also, maybe even more so, the support of his wife, who never pushed him to give up.

The ZEN 49 group wanted radical change after the Nazi era

When the war ends, everything is different again.

Again the question: Can we continue as before?

Groups like ZEN 49 deny this.

Completely new forms would have to be found.

Pure abstraction, away from the heroic images of the Nazi era.

But Mader remains true to the representational.

Every day he walks through the Isar meadows around Moosburg, where the family ended up.

His nature pictures hang in the last exhibition room.

In "Waldtümpel am Abend" (1972) it shimmers with late summer harmony.

The picture was exhibited in the Haus der Kunst and was immediately sold.

A last, long-awaited success of an unjustly forgotten.

Until June 19 at Museum Penzberg, Am Museum 1, Penzberg;

Tue.-Sun.

10am-5pm.

More information is available here