Collection

One of the statutory tasks of the Kunstverein Bremerhaven von 1886 e.V. is the acquisition of works of art. This task, which is quite unusual for an art association, was already defined when the association was founded. It is still justified today, as Bremerhaven does not have a municipal art museum. The Kunstverein performs the task of collecting on behalf of the city and has amassed a representative art collection over more than one hundred years, which could be easily compared with larger public collections.

The foundation was laid by a bequest from Bremen. In 1908, the wife of Bremen’s honorary consul Edwin Adalbert Oelrich bequeathed 34 paintings to the Kunstverein Bremerhaven, including works by such important 19th century artists as Carl Maria Nikolaus Hummel, Wilhem de Gruyter and Oswald Achenbach.

This quality and the international orientation of the estate determined the further collecting activities of the association. In addition to works by regional artists, the association also acquired and collects works of contemporary German and international art. Unfortunately, some of the older works were lost during the Second World War. However, paintings by Otto Modersohn and such remarkable acquisitions as a picture by Dora Bromberger from the interwar period have been preserved. The collection of works by Worpswede artists was later expanded through acquisitions. Paintings by Paula Becker-Modersohn, Heinrich Vogeler and Fritz Overbeck were thus added to the collection.

However, the financial scope was always too limited for comprehensive art-historical collecting activities. Nevertheless, the “Worpsweders” were supplemented after 1945 with paintings by Richard Oelze, Hans Mayboden and Albert Schiestel-Arding. With a structural painting by Karl Fred Dahmen, another important contemporary of the time was added.

With the end of informal painting and against the backdrop of the new concrete art, a continuous collecting activity began again at the end of the 1960s. The Kunstverein acquired works from the Group Zero circle: Gerhard von Graevenitz, Raimund Girke, Klaus Staudt and Raimer Jochims should be highlighted here.

The Kunstverein continued its collecting activities of the 1970s and 1980s with works by a generation of artists who were no longer so much in the tradition of pre-war German art, but rather influenced by the American art scene. It purchased works by Franz Erhard Walther, Ulrich Rückriem, Jürgen Partenheimer, Gerhard Richter and Blinky Palermo. The purchase of a painting by Friedemann v. Stockhausen also took place during this period.

While many museums could not dare to purchase young artists out of consideration for their audience, the Kunstverein has always had to try to recognize high-quality young artists at an early stage and acquire their works, which were financially affordable and yet exemplary for contemporary art. This attempt coincides with the Kunstverein’s aim of showing its members the latest positions in art. With this intention, sculptures and paintings by Stephan Balkenhol, Karin Kneffel, Henk Visch, Norbert Schwontkowski and Andreas Slominski have been purchased in recent years. Examples of even more recent positions include Gregor Schneider and Ceal Floyer.

For a long time, these more than 100 years of collecting activity remained largely hidden from the public. Only recently have the results been made accessible to the public. Since March 2, 2008, the Kunstverein has been presenting individual works and groups of works from the collection in changing arrangements in the Kunstmuseum Bremerhaven, which was built especially for this purpose.