CONRAD FELIXMÜLLER
Printmaking
A homage to the 125th birthday
May 20 - June 30, 2022

In the 1910s and 1920s, the Dresden artist Conrad Felixmüller (1897-1977) was one of the best-known and most successful young painters in Germany. His early work is part of the canon of German Expressionism and has been published in numerous books on the subject. Felixmüller is considered one of the most important representatives of the second generation of German Expressionism. The years between 1920-25 were his most creative period.

His oeuvre includes circa 2,500 paintings, drawings and graphic prints in which the human being is the main subject. He did not necessarily create his graphic prints and paintings simultaneously, rather the graphic prints often preceded the paintings. A very talented draftsman, the artist translated the drawing into the graphic medium, so that it functioned as a kind of "preliminary study".

Felixmüller was a child prodigy. Already at the age of 15, the worker's son was admitted to the Kunstakademie Dresden (Dresden Art Academy). In addition to the regular study of painting, Felixmüller autodidactically also acquired knowledge of etching, copper and steel engraving, and the woodcut. After graduating from the academy in 1915, Conrad Felixmüller immediately ventured into self-employment and became a successful freelance painter in Dresden. His work, striking and expressive and soon lead to his breakthrough: in 1915 Ludwig Meidner introduced him to the Berlin artist circle around the "Sturm" gallery owner Herwarth Walden. As a result, he spent much time in Berlin and Meidner's studio, where he painted and made numerous contacts with Expressionist artists. Friendships develop with Otto Dix, Carl Sternheim and Franz Pfemfert, whose magazine "Die Aktion" he illustrated. He also formed an intimate friendship with Böckstiegel, who became his brother-in-law. Herwarth Walden presented his works in his famous gallery Der Sturm as did Hans Goltz in his gallery in Munich. In 1918 he married Londa von Berg, who gave birth to their son Lukas Felix Müller in the same year. Financially, Conrad Felixmüller benefited from the support of the Wiesbaden art collector Heinrich Kirchhoff, for whom he created Familienbildnis Kirchhoff  (1920, Museum Wiesbaden).

In January 1919, Felixmüller founded the avant-garde Dresden Secession Group 1919, in which Otto Dix and Peter August Böckstiegel also became members.

For a painting that is now lost, he was awarded the Sächsische Staatspreis, the so-called "Rome Prize," which enabled the winner to travel to Rome to study ancient and Renaissance art. His request to be allowed to use the scholarship instead for study trips to the Rhine coalfield - the Ruhr area - and to the Saxon coalfield was granted. Through his brother, who began training as a mining engineer in Chemnitz in 1919, his interest in this landscape awakened. He decided to portray the coal and steel industry with the human fates connected to it. He produced sensitive studies of the milieu with powerful portrayals of figures emanating political commitment. They are not so much political indictments with revolutionary demands, but more empathetic portraits.

Felixmüller's works from the coal-mining district represent the culmination of his highly independent Expressionism with its focus on social themes. He created about 12 graphic prints with this theme, in addition to paintings and numerous pen and ink drawings. As early as 1923, the National Gallery in Berlin showed an extensive exhibition of his depictions of miners.

One of his tragic heroes is the "Kohlenbergarbeiter” (Coal Miner -color lithograph, 1920), emerging from a blue-gray haze, his skin blackened by coal dust, his large eyes glaring. His imposing figure completely dominates the image, and yet there are visible traces that hard work has left on him. Felixmüller depicts the miner filled with inner dignity despite adverse living conditions.

The artist saw himself as a socially critical expressionist whose art work powerfully reflects scenes of everyday life. In the course of the 1920s, he increasingly turned to motifs of the family (Self-Portrait with Wife, 1920/Beloved Wife, 1921/, Nursing Mother, 1921). However, his works from these years also illustrate his political interest: from 1919 to 1924 he was a member of the KPD (Assembly Speaker, 1920). The National Socialists also denigrated his works as degenerate and banned him from exhibiting his work. After the war, Felixmüller held a teaching position at Martin Luther University in Halle/Saale from 1949 to 1962. He died on March 24, 1977 in Berlin-Zehlendorf.