Conrad Felixmüller

Works from the Wilke Collection in our Permanent Exhibition

The painter and printmaker Conrad Felixmüller was born 125 years ago in Dresden. Hans-Jürgen Wilke, his last printer, worked with him from 1970 until his death in 1977. Wilke’s extensive collection of prints illustrates how Felixmüller, who lived through two world wars and several political systems, unfolded a great artistic diversity. People always remained his central theme.

Felixmüller was only 18 when he set up trade as a freelance artist in Dresden. After the First World War he adopted Expressionism as his cause, publishing prints and essays in left-wing magazines such as “Der Sturm” and “Die Aktion”. He exhibited frequently in German museums and galleries. When his revolutionary hopes failed to materialise, he withdrew from political activity, gradually turning his back on his early Expressionist period.

Under the Nazi regime he was banned from the art world because of his earlier political views. Many of his works were stigmatised as “degenerate”. In the GDR, his art again clashed with official state policy, causing him to leave for West Berlin in 1967 and make his home in the Zehlendorf district.