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Exhibition duration: 21.05– 21.09.2015

A constant rain all day in Munich yesterday, was a beautiful delight to enter Neue Pinakothek for the “Heroic and Idyllic”. This exhibition offers an insight into the wealth of a  newly acquired collection, with a display of around 100 selected images by the most famous photographers.        With a presentation by Dr Bernhard Maaz (general Director of Bavarian Museums) and Dr Herbert W.Rotto (curator of Neue Pinakotek).

The Neue Pinakothek has an outstanding collection of paintings evoking Italy’s legendary status as a focus of romantic yearning. Many of the paintings were acquired for the collection by its founder, King Ludwig I.  Last year, the Neue Pinakothek has also held an important collection of early photographs of Italian scenes;  some 9700 images in all, dating from the period between 1846 and 1900, which were purchased from Dietmar Siegert by the Pinakotheks-Verein, with the support from the Ernst von Siemens Kunststiftung and the Sparkassen-Finanzgruppe, and presented to the museum on permanent loan.(Neue Pinakothek press release)

The exhibition gives visitors an idea of the richness of this collection and offers them an opportunity to compare images of Italy in painting and photography. The presentation of the photographs continues in the galleries of the Neue Pinakothek.

In five of main galleries, the photographs are displayed in close proximity to paintings by the Nazarenes and other german artists in Rome and Italy. i.e.  Robert McPherson with Ludwig Richter, Fillippo Belli and Giuseppe Bruno with Theodor Leopold Weller.

Giuseppe Bruno “Moorish fountain near Taormina’, c.1880, albumen print

Filippo Belli (1836-1927), ‘Girl with Baskets’, c.1875, albumen print

Filippo Belli, (1836-1927),’Women drying beans’, c.1875, albumen print

In the area of genre scenes, the paintings of Friedrich Overbeck and Wilhelm von Schadow are paired up with early photographs by Giacomo Caneva and Enrico Béguin, whose female models exude the same aura of innocence and naturalness as the female figures of the Nazarenes.

Friedrich Overbeck (1789-1869), Vittoria Caldoni, 1821, oil on canvas

The Neue Pinakothek is one of my favorite museums in Munich and on rainy days I love to  have a glass of wine and have those beautiful views to the outside as well. The Neue soon  will close for renovation.

more on the exhibition here “Heroic and Idyllic”