July 4 to October 5, 2014
MKM Museum Küppersmühle for Modern Art

Willi Baumeister (1889 – 1955) is without question one of the most important German artists of the post-war period and one of the most important representatives of abstract painting. With around 100 works, the retrospective “Willi Baumeister International” at the MKM Museum Küppersmühle not only provides an insight into the painter’s extensive oeuvre, but also traces his international network of gallery owners, collectors, artists and art historians using numerous photographs from the Baumeister archive.

Few artists are as closely associated with the German post-war period as Willi Baumeister. His role as an advocate of abstract painting in the 1950s and his work as an art theorist have cemented this image for decades. However, Baumeister’s reduction to his significance as an influential German post-war artist falls short of the mark. With the exhibition “Willi Baumeister International”, the MKM presents Baumeister as an internationally active artist.

The exhibition at the Museum Küppersmühle begins with an extensive presentation of private photographs from the Baumeister archive at the Kunstmuseum Stuttgart, which provide an in-depth look at Willi Baumeister as a person and his numerous international contacts with gallery owners, art historians and artists. The development of his work is then presented in reverse chronological order from his late work to his beginnings as an art student in Stuttgart. The focus is on selected central groups of Baumeister’s works, starting with the late Montaru paintings and the Africa series and ending with the wall paintings of the 1920s, with which Baumeister achieved his international breakthrough. They provide an overview of the development of his work and are also evidence of his international reputation.

Credits: Willi Baumeister International, MKM 2014 © Stiftung für Kunst und Kultur e.V., Photo: Georg Lukas, Essen