A JOURNEY OUT OF DARKNESS

Did you managed to go and see the collection of German expressionist art at New Walk Museum?  It was an excellent exhibition and how these works of art came to Leicester makes an interesting story.

In 1941, the Museum's director, Trevor Thomas met Telka Hess.  Thomas immediately recognised the importance of her  art collection.  At that time expressionist works of art had been vilified and outlawed by Hitler and his regime.  Thomas worked towards staging a major exhibition in Leicester in 1944 and brought over 60 works from the Hesse collection.  Thomas also secured the release of Tekla's son, who had been interned by the British Government and appointed him as Art Assistant at the museum.  The story of the Hesse collection is still shrouded in mystery, but four important paintings were purchased for the Museum from the 1944 exhibition:  Franz Marcs' ‘Red Woman', Lyonel Feininger's ‘Behind the Church', Emil Nolde's ‘Head with Red Black Hair' and Max Pechstein's ‘The Bridge at Erfort'.

Franz Marc's ‘Red Woman' is on of the Senior Curator of Art, Simon Lake's favourite pictures.  It shows a vision of humanity living in harmony with nature. Other works Simon particularly likes are the woodcuts from the Die Brucke group of artists because of their direct and pure force of expression.

There were about 300 paintings in this exhibition that  have travelled ‘out of  the darkness' of the War years to a more enlightened time.

Helen Pettman.