August Macke

Museum Ludwig, located in Cologne, Germany, houses a collection of modern art. It includes works from PopArt, Abstract and Surrealism, and has one of the largest Picasso collections in Europe. It also features many works by Andy Warhol and Roy Lichtenstein. Kasper König is current director of... the museum. The museum emerged in 1976 as an independent institution from the Wallraf-Richartz Museum. That year the chocolate magnate Peter Ludwig agreed to endow 350 modern artworks - then valued at $45 million - and in return the City of Cologne committed itself to build a dedicated "Museum Ludwig" for works made after the year 1900. The recent building, which was designed by architects Peter Busmann and Godfrid Haberer opened in 1986. The new building first became home to both the Wallraf Richartz Museum as well as Museum Ludwig. In 1994 it was decided to separate the two institutions and to place the building on Bischofsgartenstrasse at the sole disposal of Museum Ludwig. The building is surrounded by the Heinrich-Boll-Platz, a public square designed by Dani Karavan.
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The Lenbachhaus in Munich contains an art museum and is part of Munich's "Kunstareal" . The Lenbachhaus was built as a Florentine-style villa for the painter Franz von Lenbach between 1887 and 1891 by Gabriel von Seidl. Some of the rooms of the villa still have kept their original design. The city... of Munich acquired the building in 1924, and today, the Lenbach Haus houses the city's gallery. The Lenbachhaus was expanded 1927-1929 by Hans Grässel and again 1969-1972 by Heinrich Volbehr and Rudolf Thönessen. The latest wing was closed to the public in 2009 to allow the expansion and restoration of the Lenbachhaus by Norman Foster. Construction started May, 2009, and the scheduled reopening is November, 2011. Currently, the house is not accessible to the public. The architect has decided to place the new main entrance on Museumsplatz in front of the Propylaea. The gallery contains a variety of works by Munich painters and contemporary artists, in styles such as The Blue Rider and New Objectivity.
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Der Blaue Reiter was a group of artists from the Neue Künstlervereinigung München in Munich, Germany. The group was founded by a number of Russian emigrants, including Wassily Kandinsky, Alexej von Jawlensky, Marianne von Werefkin, and native German artists, such as Franz Marc, August... Macke and Gabriele Münter. Der Blaue Reiter was a movement lasting from 1911 to 1914, fundamental to Expressionism, along with Die Brücke which was founded the previous decade in 1905. Wassily Kandinsky, Franz Marc, August Macke, Alexej von Jawlensky, Marianne von Werefkin, Gabriele Münter, Lyonel Feininger, Albert Bloch and others formed the group in response to the rejection of Kandinsky's painting Last Judgement from an exhibition. Der Blaue Reiter lacked an artistic manifesto, but it was centered around Kandinsky and Marc. Paul Klee was also involved. The name of the movement is the title of a painting that Kandinsky created in 1903, but it is unclear whether it is the origin of the name of the movement, as Professor Klaus Lankheit learned that the title of the painting had been overwritten.
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German Expressionism refers to a number of related creative movements beginning in Germany before the First World War that reached a peak in Berlin, during the 1920s. These developments in Germany were part of a larger Expressionist movement in north and central European culture in fields such as... architecture, painting and cinema. Among the first Expressionist films, The Student of Prague , The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari , The Golem: How He Came Into the World , Destiny , Nosferatu , Phantom , Schatten , and The Last Laugh , were highly symbolic and stylized. The German Expressionist movement was largely confined to Germany due to the isolation the country experienced during World War I. In 1916, the government had banned more foreign films in the nation. The demand from theaters to generate films led film production to rise from 25 films to 130 films . With inflation literally on the rise, Germans were attending films more freely because they knew that their money's worth was constantly diminishing.
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