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Artists living in Germany and its neighboring countries from 1840 to1940 experienced massive social upheaval and political unrest, an environment that dramatically informed their art.

Artists living in Germany and its neighboring countries from 1840 to1940 experienced massive social upheaval and political unrest, an environment that dramatically informed their art.

Throughout this extended period of tumult, German artists consistently produced alternating and opposing images of idealized fantasy worlds and intense, often bitter observations of reality. The continuity between strains of 19th- and early 20th-century art is evident in “Romantic Dreams | Rude Awakenings: Northern European Prints and Drawings, 1840–1940,” on exhibit April 8 through July 10 at the Ackland Art Museum.

Concurrently the museum, at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, will display “DE-NATURED,” an exhibit of German art from later time periods. For more information, see http://uncnews.unc.edu/content/view/4436/66/ .

“Romantic Dreams | Rude Awakenings” begins with late Romanticism and Symbolism, both movements expressive of human consciousness and the inner state of the mind. Sketches of life by various Realists are followed by Expressionist works with alternating visions of dreamlike worlds and intensely emotional observations of reality. The show ends with the penetrating social and visual acuity of the New Objectivity movement in the 1920s and the utopian artists of the Bauhaus school of art and design.

Drawn largely from the Ackland’s own collection, “Romantic Dreams | Rude Awakenings” presents more than 75 prints and drawings by masters including Adolf Menzel, Max Liebermann, Max Klinger, Käthe Kollwitz, Lovis Corinth, Ernst Ludwig Kirchner, Emil Nolde, Otto Dix, George Grosz, Wassily Kandinsky, Paul Klee, Max Beckmann and others.

Rounding out the show are a number of works by Northern European artists closely associated with the traditions of German-speaking Europe, including Edvard Munch, Jan Toorop and others.

The exhibition reveals the depth of the Ackland’s holdings in this area. Other works in the exhibition are on loan from the North Carolina Museum of Art in Raleigh, the Rare Book Collection in UNC’s Wilson Special Collections Library and several private collections.

Timothy Riggs, The Ackland’s curator of collections, organized the exhibition. A schedule of related programs is available online at www.ackland.org.

The exhibition was made possible by the BIN Charitable Foundation and the William Hayes Ackland Trust.

Note: For more information or images, contact Emily Bowles, director of communications at the Ackland, at esbowles@email.unc.edu or  (919) 843-3675.
Images:
Emil Nolde, German, 1867–1956. “Head of a Woman III,” 1912 woodcut. Ackland Fund. © Nolde Stiftung Seebüll, Germany (the foundation that owns the reproduction rights to this image):  http://uncnews.unc.edu/images/stories/news/arts/2011/nolde_300px.jpg

Adolf Menzel, German, 1815–1905. “A Cellist at Hofgastein,” 1874 graphite. Ackland Fund. http://uncnews.unc.edu/images/stories/news/arts/2011/menzel_cellist300px.jpg

News Services contact: LJ Toler, (919) 962-8589

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