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Georg Kolbe Museum
Address:
Sensburger Alley, 25
Georg-Kolbe-Museum is located in
the studio-building of the sculptor Georg Kolbe in a delightfully
green area on the western edge of Berlin. The museum is really
unique not only because it contains precious collection of European
figurative sculptures of the 20th century, but also because
today it is still the only artist's studio in Berlin being used
as a museum.
Georg Kolbe (1877-1947) is one of the most famous German sculptors
of the first half of the 20th century. Kolbe concentrated on
the autonomous nude, which in fact set him apart from the traditional
commissions of the 19th century, with their often gross eroticism,
fussy naturalism and nationalistic pathos. The body was seen
for the first time as means of expression in its own right and
was no longer used to represent mythological subjects or the
politics of the day. Kolbe had created his generally lyrical
girls' figures in the period up to 1927, but after the tragic
death of his wife Benjamine he produced male figures expressing
grief and loneliness. He then turned his attention to the heroic
body in an attempt to overcome his personal unhappiness. Despite
this purely personally motivated shift in Kolbe's sculpture,
the Nazis celebrated Kolbe's new muscular ideal as the archetype
of the racially pure human being.
Gorge Kolbe was an outstanding portraitist - the fact, the series
of wonderful sculptural portraits of his contemporaries is witness
of.
Among his most famous works are "Dancer" (1911 - 1912),
monument to Heinrich Heine (1913), "Adagio" (1923),
monument to Beethoven (1927 -1947) and others.
Kolbe commissioned his studio buildings in Sensburger Alley
directly after the death of his wife. He wanted to be close
to her grave in the cemetery in Heerstrasse (in fact he could
see it from his roof-top terrace) and to get away from the hustle
and bustle of the city center.
Three years after the death of the sculptor the studio buildings,
designed by architect Ernst Rentsch, was given over to the museum.
The extensive collection of the museum features not only the
sculptures by Georg Kolbe, but also works by other outstanding
sculptors of the 20th century, including Ernst Barlach, Rudolf
Belling, Hermann Blumenthal. August Gaul, Hermann Haller, Max
Klinger, Emy Roeder, Ren?e Sinteni, among them.
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