Burcu Dogramaci

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September 26, 2014

Munich; Florine Stettheimer at Lenbachhaus Kunstbau

Sept 27, 2014-January 4, 2015

A beautiful evening at the preview of the exhibition of the artist Florine Stettheimer (1871-1944) at Lenbachhaus Kunstbau.

published photo @ Portrait of Myself, 1923 Art Properties, Avery Architectural & fine Arts Library, Columbia University of the City of New York

A rare and beautiful exhibition indeed of major paintings by Florine Stettheimer; paintings that all belong to public collections in US, mostly in collections of Univirsities; a rare show and first time shown in Europe her work.

The exhibition features a representative selection of major paintings made after 1915 that exemplify her mature signature style. A second focus is on her creations for the stage: numerous drawings, maquettes, and figurines illustrate her vision for the ballet Orphée of the Quatz’z’Arts and the opera Four Saints in Three Acts. The artist Nick Mauss dedicates a space to Stettheimer’s poetry. The artist herself never showed her paintings in a white cube, and the stage designer Kathrin Frosch was brought in to create an exhibition setting inspired by Stettheimer’s art of the theatrical interior. (Lenbachhaus’ press release)

photos@VK

Matthias Mühling, director of Lenbachhaus

She designed her own furniture – a decorative commode, for instance, with a rounded form and fluted edges and a light, prop-like character. The International Style of architecture, which had been feted in architect Philip Johnson’s exhibition at New York’s Museum of Modern art in 1932, promoting the uncompromising modernism of European architects such as Le Corbusier, Ludwig Mies van der rome, and Walter Gropius, was antithetical to Stettheimer’s aesthetic. Her romantic, fantastical interior is like a dream space, as far removed from the dark, opulently decorated family home associated with her mother as from the modernists’ Love of clean lines and their aversion to soft furnishings. (from Kirsty Bell’s book “The Artist’s House”