Georg Koppmann (1842 – 1909) | Historic Hamburg

DANIEL BLAU is pleased to present an exhibition of vintage photographs showing historic sites of Hamburg in 1883/84. These photographs were taken by Georg Koppmann shortly before the demolition of the sites ahead of the construction of the Speicherstadt.

 

Exhibition:
October 27 – December 3, 2020
11am – 6pm | mon – fri
Maximilianstraße 26, 80539 München

Set of 30 photographs; 17 on display

Schwarz Weiß

Daniel Blau is pleased to present an exhibiton uniting works in black and white by Neal and Leigh Fox, Karl-Heinz Schwind, Georg Baselitz, Antonius Höckelmann and John Lurie examining their engagement with line, shape and form.
 
 

Exhibition:
September 17 – October 20, 2020
11am – 6pm | mon – fri
Maximilianstraße 26, 80539 München

 
 

Li Osborne – Photographs of “Münchner Kammerspiele” from the 1920s

Margaret Bourke-White – Backstage Burlesque 1936

 

Exhibition:
July 30 – September 8, 2020 | Extended until September 15, 2020
11am – 6pm | mon – fri
Maximilianstraße 26, 80539 München

 
Daniel Blau is pleased to present Backstage and Kammerspiele – an exhibition comprising Margaret Bourke-White’s backstage photographs of burlesque dancers shown alongside the 1920s theatrical pictures of Li Osborne (1883-1968).

Bourke-White’s sensual photographs of Broadway burlesque performers give us a glimpse of New York’s entertainment world in the mid 1930s. The subjects of these striking photos are New York’s chorus girls and performers as they prepare their makeup and costumes and wait to go onstage. In one extraordinary picture we see three ballerinas of the Ballet Russe reclining in extravagant tutus as a fireman looks on. In other works we are privy to moments in the wings and beneath stage lights as the women perform for unseen audiences. The prints feature original captions and press stamps on the verso.

 

Margaret Bourke-White (1904 – 1971) is known for her pioneering photojournalism. She was born in New York City in 1904 and grew up in New Jersey. After studying science and art she became an industrial photographer, taking significant pictures of factories and architecture before joining prestigious magazines such as Fortune and LIFE as a photographer. She travelled and photographed extensively, covering major international events from World War II to the partition of India and Pakistan.

Performance and the human form are also the focus of the 1920s Kammerspiele pictures by German photographer and sculptor Li Osborne (née Luisa Friedericke Susanna Wolf). We are showing Osborne’s vintage pictures of imaginative Kammerspiele set designs – hand drawn and evocative visualisations – as well as performance stills from productions at the Kammerspiele theatre that capture the charisma and energy of individual performers and moments of action onstage.

 

By 1925 Osborne had to moved to Munich where she photographed cultural figures such as Bertolt Brecht. She emigrated to Switzerland in 1934 due to the rise of Nazism and later began a new career as a self-taught sculptor and moved to England where she worked under the name Louise Hutchinson-Wolf. The Kammerspiele was founded in 1906 in Schwabing as a private theatre troupe and later became Munich’s municipal theatre company. Falckenberg, the producer-director during Osborne’s time, was regarded as an authority on Expressionism in Germany during the Weimar Republic and produced many celebrated productions at the company including Brecht’s first staged play, Drums in the Night, in 1922.

 

Our exhibition shows two women artists’ perspectives on two very different performance contexts in the US and Germany in the years between the World Wars.
 
 
 

Download press info here

 
 
 

Grapes Lost and Found

 

Exhibition:
June 17 – July 21, 2020
11am – 6pm | mon – fri
Maximilianstraße 26, 80539 München

 
In a recent conversation I had with Billy Al Bengston (Link to Bio), he quoted his racing buddy: “If it only costs money, it’s cheap.” Being an avid collector myself (although not of Contemporary Art) my interpretation of his words is: It can take a lot of effort, time and money to track down a specific object. Sometimes it can take years and money can’t help.

 
We had an exhibition of large Lüpertz (Link to Bio) paintings from 1967-70 at Art Basel in 2005. The paintings were huge. The show looked stunning and was a great success. The painting “Weintrauben” did not find a place in the show of tree trunks, telegraph poles and tunnels and remained upstairs in storage to return with the other works to Germany after the fair. But it never arrived. We only realised it had gone missing about a year later when a loan request for the work came and we couldn’t locate it.

 
Now 15 years later a friend sends me this cryptic text message: “Dear Daniel, tell me, are you missing a grape painting? I hope you are well. Best wishes…”

 
It turns out that the crate with our label still on it mysteriously turned up in a private furniture warehouse in Munich. The owner of that warehouse is a friend of our friend. I thought “Great! The grapes are back.” But then the finder emailed: “How can I be sure you are the owner? I think I’d better go to the police.” Days of silence followed. The painting had vanished again. Then somebody within the city’s Lost and Found department called up. He had been referred to us by the Lenbachhaus, and wondered if we dealt in Lüpertz? “There is this painting someone found…”

I am sure that many of the artworks we enjoy today would have fascinating stories to tell, if only they could speak to us in words as well as with their beauty. I thought this lucky moment merited a presentation on the theme of flora and color.

 
Karl-Heinz Schwind (Link to Bio) was our first exhibition when we opened some 30 years ago. His works are pure energy.

 
Eugène Leroy (Link to Bio), who sometimes worked for several years on a painting before considering it finished, Don van Vliet, cult musician and painter and Billy Al Bengston, known for his tropical themes and vivid colors, are well known and do not need my introduction.

 
David Byrd is neither “Insider” nor “Outsider”. Having studied art after WWII under Amédée Ozenfant he only developed his mature style and produced his most defining body of work after he started working as an orderly at a hospital psychiatric ward, from 1958-88.
His paintings defy any of the “Isms” we usually like to apply to art we see; they stand apart from Pop, Realism or Expressionism. If anything I would refer to his work as New York Surrealism. Byrd’s works have an airy and somewhat evanescent quality, as if viewed through a milky glass.

 
Guerle and Nény were true self-taught artists who remained more or less in obscurity but whose visual languages are equally inspiring and distinctive as the better-known artists in our exhibition. They only came to my attention through writers like Hans Prinzhorn or Dr. Jean Lacassagne, who were interested in and propagated the artistic output of mentally insane or criminal individuals. Prinzhorn’s Bildnerei der Geisteskranken (Berlin 1922) and Albums du Crocodile by Lacassagne (Lyon 1939) have been rare sources of information on these fascinating artists.

 

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Giorgio Sommer – A Cast of Characters

 
 
Giorgio Sommer, one of the few German photographers widley known in Italy, studied business before moving to Rome to start a successful career in photography with Edmondo Behles. Sommer moved then to Naples and within a short time, had opened four studios. He was fascinated by Vesuvius and photographed the eruption of 1872 as well as the remains of the victims of the 79AD eruption.
 
 
Exhibition:
April 21 – May 26, 2020 !! Extended til June 2nd, 2020 !!
11am – 6pm | mon – fri
 
Maximilianstraße 26, 80539 München