Modernism in Frankfurt/M 1919–1933

At the beginning of the 1920s, an unprecedented program of political, cultural, architectural and design renewal was launched in the city of Frankfurt/Main, which went down in cultural history under the name “Neues Frankfurt” (“New Frankfurt”). During the Weimar Republic, the city developed into an archetype of the modern metropolis, which received recognition far beyond the borders of Frankfurt. Today the Bauhaus is considered by many to be the cradle of modernity. But the famous art and design school was not the only focal point of new design in Germany and Europe. By the 1920s, Frankfurt established itself as a world-famous center of the avant-garde equivalent to the Bauhaus.

The exhibition Modernism in Frankfurt/M 1919-1933 proves emphatically that the New Frankfurt is not limited to the well-known housing program initiated by the lord mayor Ludwig Landmann and the architect Ernst May or the legendary “Frankfurt kitchen” by Margarete Schütte-Lihotzky. From the second half of the 1920s, the urban utopia encompassed a universal claim in fashion, interior, industrial, product and communication design. The applied and free arts penetrate all areas of human life with new forms and concepts. In conjunction with the accelerated industrialization and the expansion of municipal areas, the New Frankfurt strives for no less lofty a goal than to shape a new urban society.

Decisive factors are the resurrected trade fair, the municipal building construction office and the Frankfurt School of Art and Design, which undergoes a major reorientation under its director Fritz Wichert who appoints many well-known protagonists including Adolf Meyer and Christian Dell from the Bauhaus in Weimar or Max Beckmann and Willi Baumeister. But also other associations and interest groups committed to the new design as well as a considerable number of private entrepreneurs contribute to modernism along the Main River.

With more than six hundred objects, sketches and models, photographs, films and audio recordings, the exhibition will paint a multifaceted picture of Frankfurt`s emergence into modern design that is distinguished by an optimistic outlook and a cosmopolitan mind-set. It will introduce better and lesser known protagonists of Modernism in Frankfurt, acquaint visitors with the creative networks and reveal the connections to and differences from the Bauhaus. And it will bring home the realization that, if the Bauhaus was modernism’s academy, Neues Frankfurt was its workshop.

Exhibited works by the following architects, designers and artists:
Philipp Albinus (1884–1957), Nadine Auth (*1988), Willi Baumeister (1889–1955), Ella Bergmann-Michel (1895–1971), Ilse Bing (1899–1990, Max Bittrof (1890–1972), Anton Brenner (1896–1957), Max Bromme (1878–1974), Johannes Cissarz (1873–1942), Hermann Collischonn (1865–1945), Franz Delavilla (1884–1967), Christan Dell (1893–1974), Walter Dexel (1890–1973), Martin Elsaesser (1884–1957), Werner Epstein (1903–1987), Hans Flesch (1896–1945), Oskar Fischinger (1900-1967), Gisèle Freund (1908–2000), Laura J Gerlach (*1980), Albert Fuß (1889–1969), Walter Gropius (1883–1969), Erika Habermann (1903–1993), Josef Hartwig (1880–1955), Elisabeth Hase (1905–1991), Ninni Hess (1882-1942), Carry Hess (1889–1957), Lucy Hillebrand (1906–1997), Paul Hindemith (1895–1963), Marta Hoepffner (1912–2000), Margarethe Klimt (1892–1987), Rudolf Koch (1876–1934), Ferdinand Kramer (1898–1985), Grete Leistikow (1893–1989), Hans Leistikow (1892–1962), Richard Lisker (1884–1955), Ernst May (1886–1970), Olav Metzel (*1952), Adolf Meyer (1881–1929), Robert Michel (1897–1983), Ludwig Mies van der Rohe (1886-1969), Leberecht Migge (1881–1935), Liselotte Müller (1906–1990), László Moholy-Nagy (1895-1946), Peter Rasmussen (1897–1935), Lilly Reich (1885–1947), Paul Renner (1878–1956), Karl Röhl (1890–1975), Richard Schadwell (dates unknown), Ernst Schoen (1894–1960), Margarete Schütte-Lihotzky (1897–2000), Franz Schuster (1892–1972), Kurt Schwitters (1887-1948), Ernst Schwitters (1918-1996), tatcraft (Tim Fleischer and Fabian Winopal), Joachim Warnecke (1900–1988), Fritz Wichert (1878–1951), Albert Windisch (1878–1967), Paul Wolff (1887–1951)

Director: Matthias Wagner K

Curators: Grit Weber, Annika Sellmann, Klaus Klemp, Matthias Wagner K

Press contact: Dorothee Maas, Annie Buenker, T +49 69 212 32828 / presse.angewandte-kunst@stadt-frankfurt.de

The exhibition is carried out with support from the German Federal Cultural Foundation within the framework of Bauhaus 100, the Hessian Ministry of Science and Art, and the Department of Culture of the City of Frankfurt. The exhibition catalogue was produced with support from Speyer’sche Hochschulstiftung.