Bristol Hannover Council
Visit to the Royal Academy: Making modernism
** A group of BHIC members travelled up to London on March 25 to see the Royal Academy exhibition of four modernist painters – Paula Modersohn-Becker, Käthe Kollwitz, Gabriele Münter and Marianne Werefkin. The four were women artists, mainly German or living in Germany in the first half of the 20th century.
We were fortunate to have a pre-briefing from Colin Evans before the event which helped us all to place modernism in its historical context. The paintings were all interesting and worth seeing.
Gabriele Münter, Portrait of Anna Roslund, 1917
Inevitably some artists made more of an impact than others. The most famous of the four, Käthe Kollwitz, was perhaps least well-represented, although the quality of her drawings of figures was high.
The revelation for many was the lesser-known Russian artist Marianne von Werefkin (born Marianna Vladimirovna Veryovkina) whose expressionistic paintings of landscapes and figures were striking and recollected the work of Edvard Munch. All in all a very successful outing.
IAN TURNER
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