Gauguin, van Gogh bis Dali
Yesterday, Andrea and I went to the Hypo Kunsthalle for the current exhibition of paintings from the Museum Folkwang in Essen (which was the first modern museum in Germany). Although the exhibition is named after the three big painters Gauguin, van Gogh and Dali, a lot of other artists were present as well. In fact, there was only one (albeit very nice) painting by Dali and only few by Gauguin and van Gogh.

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Lyonel Feininger, 'Gelmeroda IX'

However, as I have been to Dali exhibitions before, I was rather pleasantly surprised. There were a lot of Nolde, Kandinsky, Picasso and Klee paintings amongst many others from the Brücke (e.g. Schmidt-Rottluff) and Blauer Reiter (e.g. Marc) connections, as well as other french and german impressionists and expressionists. Many of those were really stunning and beautiful, some of them I saw already elsewhere. The ones we liked most were 'Hutladen' by Macke, 'Der Rote Turm von Halle' by Kirchner and 'Gelmeroda IX' by Feininger.

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Ernst Ludwig Kirchner, 'Der rote Turm von Halle'

Besides the paintings, there were also a lot of contemporary sculptures and, surprisingly to me, sculptures and other pieces of art from old cultures like Egypt, China, Japan, Greece and Papua-Neuginea. Sometimes they blended nicely into the surrounding art, sometimes they looked a bit like they were used to fill up the exhibition space.

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August Macke, 'Hutladen'

After doing one tour, Andrea and I decided to go through the Kunsthalle again and have another look at the paintings we liked most. There really are some great paintings there and I have to say I enjoyed it a lot as I have not been to an art gallery in a while.