The exhibition

         In three comprehensive chapters, the exhibition dealt with the development and impact of the “legend of van Gogh” in Germany. How did it come about that van Gogh became so popular, especially in Germany? Who championed his oeuvre and how did artists respond to it? The exhibition presented van Gogh as a pivotal figure for the art of the German avant-garde. It made an important contribution to understanding the development of art in Germany at the beginning of the twentieth century. Some epochal precursor exhibitions such as the 1990 van Gogh and the Modern Movement presented by the Museum Folkwang Essen and the van Gogh Museum Amsterdam and  the 2006/07 show van Gogh and Expressionism, staged jointly by the van Gogh Museum and the Neue Galerie New York, serve as reference for this updated evaluation of new sources. Reviews of the Städel exhibition 2019 saw it as one of the finest shows on the artist in recent years (other than those at the Amsterdam museum dedicated to the painter) elegant, with a strong story line.[2] This exhibition presented around 50 works by van Gogh, either acquired by German collections or exhibited in Germany before the First World War. These were presented alongside 70 works by later German artists, painted up until the 1920s under the influence of the Dutch master. They exemplify van Gogh’s influence and impact on the subsequent generation. These include works by well-known artists such as Max Beckmann, Ernst Ludwig Kirchner, Alexej von Jawlensky, Paula Modersohn-Becker or Gabriele Münter as well as others whose artistic positions could be rediscovered, including Peter August Böckstiegel, Theo von Brockhusen, Heinrich Nauen or Elsa Tischner-von Durant. They visually illustrated his impact on early 20th century art in Germany. The Städel is an appropriate venue for Making van Gogh, since it was the first German public museum to acquire his works. Very early on, in 1908, it bought the painting Farmhouse in Nuenen and the drawing Peasant Woman planting Potatoes (both from 1885). Following extensive research the Städel exhibition was able to provide a strong display emphasizing the scope of Germany’s pre-1914 van Gogh holdings. These were mainly presented in the first section of the show, giving an excellent overview of the development of van Gogh’s work.[3]

The book

         The catalogue-book itself is divided into three main sections. The first is devoted to the emergence of the myth surrounding him as person, the second focuses on his impact on German artists, and the third analyses his painting style. The catalogue entries are interwoven into these main sections and essays.
The principal curator of the show, Alexander Eiling, convincingly describes in detail how van Gogh’s works did attract more attention than is generally assumed in France and the Netherlands between 1888 and 1905, testified by van Gogh’s letters and other valuable sources on exhibitions and the art market.[4] Less than 15 years after his early death 1890, van Gogh was perceived in Germany as one of the most important precursors of modern painting. His art was collected unusually early and his exceptional life and work attracted broad and lasting public interest. This is due to the strong commitment of a woman, van Gogh’s sister-in-law Johanna van Gogh-Bonger, the early manager of his artistic and written estate, whose involvement has recently been the focus of a long-term research project by the van Gogh Museum and they have published a biography. [5] She displayed astonishing foresight in creating the van Gogh “brand” by exhibitions and publishing activities. The documents detailing her negotiations with art dealers and collectors show the degree to which, with her comprehensive access to almost his entire artistic oeuvre, she controlled the market for van Gogh’s works and influenced their pricing. The involvement of art dealers such as Josef Brakl and Heinrich Thannhauser in Munich, Marie Held in Frankfurt, Hermann Holst of the Kunstsalon Emil Richter and Ludwig Gutbier of the Galerie Ernst Arnold in Dresden helped in shaping this, but first and foremost, however, came the commitment and efforts of legendary Berlin gallery owner Paul Cassirer, on behalf of the German and French avant-garde in general and van Gogh in particular. Between 1901 and 1914, Cassirer mounted some fifteen exhibitions of the Dutch artist’s work and was responsible for the majority of the sales to German collectors. The presentations often travelled to several venues. By 1914 there was an enormous number of works by van Gogh, around 150 in total, in private and public German collections. At the same time, German artists began to vigorously examine and follow his works. van Gogh’s painting became a model and a substantial source of inspiration in particular for the young Expressionists. The emergence of modernism in Germany is hardly conceivable without his art. Felix Krämers „A German Love Story“ presents in an overview the long journey recognition took from the first exhibition in Germany when van Gogh was virtually unknown in 1901, to the wave of exhibitions and acquisitions by pioneering galleries, collectors and German museums, alongside the published echoes in reviews and the importance of differentiated evaluation of the artist by famous art historians and art critics and lastly the influence of the first publication of his letters.

         Elena Schroll in the chapter van Gogh in the Network of Modernism portrays clearly the networks relevant for the posthumous reception of van Gogh and introduces some of the patrons such as Willy Gretor and Maria Slavona, Julius Meier-Graefe, Bruno and Paul Cassirer, Count Harry Kessler and including Henry van de Velde. Whereas van Gogh’s works were initially sold above all to private persons, public collections began to acquire them also. The Folkwang Museum in Hagen (Karl Ernst Osthaus), museums in Bremen, Dresden, Frankfurt, Cologne, Magdeburg, Mannheim, Munich and Stettin. Through acquisitions, publications and exhibitions, they had an influence on van Gogh’s steadily mounting recognition and his becoming established in Germany.

         Stefan Koldehoff‘s entry on van Gogh and his collectors in Germany, Heike Biedermann‘s reflections and research about the reception of van Gogh’s works in Dresden, and Joachim Kaak‘s description of the new type of art, a new milieu: Hugo von Tschudi, Rudolf Meyer-Riefstahl and Vincent van Gogh. All these essays contribute to draw a larger framework about the context of van Gogh‘s reception and they individually deliver extensively detailed insights into their topics.

         Alexander Eiling in his second essay shows very comprehensively how the German artists, especially the German Expressionist Milieu, answered to van Gogh in diverging and different analytical artistic perspectives and pictorial approaches and a certain connectivity to his motifs. The admiration sometimes created misunderstandings, for example Otto Dix, Walter Ophey or Max Pechstein who took up van Gogh's sun paintings, the energetic symbol of seasonal change and renewal and transformed them into something opposite.
One element missing in the brilliant presentation is the unanswered question as to what extent the young van Gogh was also influenced by German painting as he admired the work of Max Liebermann.

         The very knowledgeable contribution of long-term van Gogh specialist Roland Dorn about publishing van Gogh 1891 – 1921 is of great value, as he traces in depth the early successful attempts to illustrate van Gogh’s coloration in the closest possible details during the first years when fine art publishing houses emerged and a whole range of new printing and reproduction procedures were invented. „Colour – its materiality, its interaction with the brushwork on the canvas, with other paintings on the wall or as “décoration” in the room – was, during the final years of his life, the pivot van Gogh’s works revolved around. The fragility of such sweeping concepts became evident as soon as artistic recognition was joined by commercial success“. The intellectual superstructure of his late works faded – it was never actually transparent – van Gogh’s treatment of colours, brushwork and subject became increasingly important. Roland Dorn also demonstrates the modern diagrammatic approach of van Gogh‘s concept as his intention to create ensembles was noticeable at most only in a rudimentary way  e.g .in uncommon canvas sizes such as the “double squares” and “squares” characteristic of his last months in Auvers.

         This book provides a good introduction for a broad audience and makes an interesting contribution to the history of van Gogh's reception. It also gives very well researched explanations about the shifting awareness of how van Gogh was received, providing new insights and elucidating the important commitment of the female early promoter of van Gogh‘s work.  Although the essays are of a high quality, the picture-based exhibition panels or „subtexts“ interwoven between the essays lack related clarity. The haptic quality of the book and the quality of its reproductions could not be assessed.

         The overall digital concept and the podcast accompanying the exhibition and catalogue are highly recommendable, for example the podcast closely connected to the contributions of Iris Schmeisser and Anna Huber to the catalogue on the subject of The portrait of Doctor Gachet: A Frankfurt Story. 
See the podcast: https://www.staedelmuseum.de/en/podcast-finding-van-gogh.[6]