HAMBURG.- In 1919 quite accurately 1 million people are living in Hamburg. 42.000 men do not return from the battles in World War I. The economy lies fallow, large payments to the victorious powers arrest development and often, the urban population is starving. But looking at the art at that time, the approximately one and a half decades between war and National Socialism, one seems to sense another reality. Of course many artists are hinting at poverty and misery, but overall an atmosphere of hope and change prevails. The best known example is Bauhaus with its future-oriented suggestions for a new form of art and design. Even in Hamburg young artists develop new ways of life, plan monuments of the future and show a metropolis full of beauty and rhythm. In the exhibition „Hamburg in the Twenties. Views and Visions”, the Museum für Kunst und Gewerbe Hamburg (MKG) shows more than 40 views of the city, architectural visions and artistic interpretations paired into seven groups of works. The different approaches to escape from reality and to create a new and better world yield surprising yet moving images of Hamburg in the Twenties. The exhibition shows drawings, gouaches, lithography, metal prints, woodcuts and silhouettes from the time between 1919 and 1934.

Max Gerntke, partner of the architecture firm Esselmann and Gerntke, develops powerful and colourful visions of the future and designs, among others, a new pavilion at the Alster, which was actually executed. In his famous metal prints, Rolf Nesch transforms the bridges of Hamburg into poetic sculptures. The Expressionist Heinrich Stegemann has his lonely figures swaying in front of an urban setting. In his series of prints, Karl Gröning constructs cubistic forms for yet to be built warehouse districts. In contrast, Paul Helms interprets a newly erected trading station in his woodcuts very realistically and in great detail. Willy Davidson however, is not interested in the beauty of Hamburg’s brickwork, but rather gives a new and expressive power to anonymous buildings by the means of earthly-brown colours. Bridges and port motifs inspire silhouette artist Georg Hempel to small rhythmic compositions in black paper.

An exhibition with works from the Collection Hamburger Sparkasse. Approximately 350 objects from this collection, especially by artists from Hamburg Secession, are at the MKG as a permanent loan.