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An American in Europe: The Photography Collection of Baroness Jeane
von Oppenheim from the Norton Museum of Art 2/24/2001 - 4/29/2001 This exhibition features approximately 132 European photographs selected from the extensive collection of 680 prints that Baroness Jeane von Oppenheim gave to the Norton Museum of Art in 1998. The exciting presentation includes the work of several prominent pre-war European photographers published in Alfred Stieglitz's groundbreaking magazine Camerawork; a very significant group of modernist photographers working in Germany and other parts of Europe between the two World Wars; an important circle of innovative photographers working in the immediate post-war era, as well as the avant-garde generation of photographers that has recently emerged in Europe. This exhibition traces influential photographic movements from the beginning of the 20th century to the present day. Bauhaus artists coming to prominence just after the First World War explored innovative and often iconoclastic processes such as photogram exposures, collage effects, photo-montage techniques, and abstracted imagery. These revolutionary directions are evident in images produced by Lucia Moholy, Kattina Both and Lotte Jacobi. Fascinated with plant life, Ernst Fuhrmann did not photograph himself, but his close friends Albert Renger-Patzsch and Lotte Jacobi operated the camera while Fuhrmann closely supervised. Some of Fuhrmann's collaborative efforts have the look of scientific documentation while others take on more fanciful appearances. August Sander's 'portrait types' that document a range of German citizenry are much better known than the landscape studies of Cologne environs that he began producing when socially-charged imagery was curtailed by a Nazi regime. The von Oppenheim collection includes European artists of diverse origins. André Kertész, a Hungarian working in Paris from 1925 to 1936, contrasted the ephemeral promises of advertising with the everyday realities of life. In addition, the Russian Alexander Rodchenko's well-known images revealing this contain odd angle and dramatic viewpoints - this artist's trademark use of unusual perspective. Following the Second World War, the Neue Sachlichkeit or New Vision artists focused on contemporary subject matter and the technical capabilities of the camera. Later, Berndt and Hilla Becher advanced the objective tradition of Neue Sachlichkeit photography by repetitively recording factory buildings and mechanical structures, symbols of an industrial landscape marginalized in a world of rapidly advancing technology and emerging corporate economies. Other artists emerging in Germany of the 1960s, such as Sigmar Polke and Gerhardt Richter, turned to photography as a primary source of imagery for their large-scale, media-influenced paintings. Baroness Jeane Wahl von Oppenheim is an American collector who lives in Cologne, Germany and Palm Beach, Florida. Born in New York City and trained in art history at Connecticut College, New London, she married Baron Alfred von Oppenheim in 1962. By 1968, Baroness von Oppenheim began collecting photography in out-of-the-ordinary places, such as antiquarian booksellers and flea markets. Buying what she liked, von Oppenheim developed a particular taste for and discriminating expertise in European photography of the 20th century. Von Oppenheim started the photography department of the Wallraf-Richartz Museum in Cologne and has given her expertise as well as parts of her collection to the adjoining Museum Ludwig. She has been an important figure within the vibrant art world of Germany since the 1970s, and is currently on the Board of the Museum Ludwig, the Wallraf-Richartz Museum, and the Kunstverein, all in Cologne. An American in Europe: The Photography Collection of Baroness Jeane von Oppenheim from the Norton Museum of Art opened at the Museum für Angewandte Kunst Köln, Germany. While in Cologne, this past fall, the exhibition was featured at Photokina, the world's leading photographic equipment fair. After it leaves the Norton Museum of Art, the exhibition will travel to The Columbus Museum of Art, Ohio; the Frye Art Museum, Seattle, Washington; and the Mead Art Museum, Amherst, Massachusetts. A 167-page, illustrated, soft-cover catalogue of the exhibition, which contains scholarly essays by Dr. James Burke and Baroness Jeane von Oppenheim, is available in the Museum Store. A checklist, bibliography and biographies of the photographers are included. The local presentation of this exhibition is generously funded in part through the corporate sponsorship for Women & Co., a member of Citigroup.  |
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The Norton Museum
of Art is a major cultural attraction in Florida.
The Museum is internationally known for its distinguished permanent
collection featuring
19th and 20th century European and American art, Chinese, contemporary art and photography.
From its founding the Norton has been famous for its masterpieces
of 19th century and 20th century painting
and sculpture by European artists such as Brancusi, Gauguin, Matisse,
Miró, Monet, Picasso
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Pollock and Sheeler.
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