American Artists in Munich. Artistic Migration and Cultural Exchange
Processes
International conference of the research group Forschungen zur
Künstlerausbildung / Research on the Formation of Artists in cooperation
with the Terra Foundation for American Art and with support of the Amerika
Haus München e.V.

October 9-11, 2007

http://www.zikg.eu/americanartists/

In 2003, a number of institutions in Munich decided to found an informal
research group on the history of the Academy of Fine Arts in Munich. Current
members of the research group are: Akademie der Bildenden Künste (Prof. Dr.
Walter Grasskamp, Dr. Birgit Jooss); Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität,
Institut für Kunstgeschichte (Prof. Dr. Frank Büttner, Prof. Dr. Hubertus
Kohle), Institut für Kunstpädagogik (Prof. Dr. Wolfgang Kehr);
Zentralinstitut für Kunstgeschichte (Dr. Christian Fuhrmeister, Prof. Dr.
Wolf Tegethoff); Universität der Künste Berlin (Prof. Dr. Wolfgang Ruppert).
For the upcoming event, Susanne Böller M.A. (Städtische Galerie im
Lenbachhaus) has been co-opted.

Following the three conferences held since 2005, the research group now
looks forward to hosting American Artists in Munich. Artistic Migration and
Cultural Exchange Processes in cooperation with the Terra Foundation for
American Art and with support of the Amerika Haus München e.V. This
symposium again aims at exploring the phenomenon of artistic migration and
transfer in a case study. In particular, we wish to investigate the
attraction of the self-proclaimed \"Kunststadt\"/\"City of the Art(s)\" for
American Artists from the mid-19th century to World War I and beyond: Who
came, when, and why?

Speakers will look at the general influences on the decision of a place of
study, which depended not just on the attractiveness of a city and its art
institutions, but also on the students' own cultural background. What was
the significance of the American artistic community in Munich? How did
leading compatriots shape the growing artists' colonies in Bavaria? What, in
particular, prompted the Americans to come to Munich: The academy's renown
in teaching technical skills, or rather the city's bustling art scene? To
what extent did the change in genre (from history to landscape painting)
contribute to Munich's attractiveness, as opposed to Düsseldorf, which had
basically been the Americans' first choice until the mid-19th century? How
influential was, finally, the appeal of Paris as an avant-garde center in
debasing the training in Munich as old-fashioned and traditional?

We also hope to learn more about how the Munich school and its protagonists
became known in the United States. Existing studies of American painters in
Munich focus on leading representatives from the peak of the movement in the
early 1870s and 1880s, when the realism of the returning artists' paintings
caused something of a sensation in the American "art world". However, to do
justice to this complex phenomenon, it must be investigated in its
multi-faceted entirety, taking into account the development of styles and
genres over more than half a century, experienced by approx. 420 American
students - who formed indeed one of the largest groups of
non-German-speaking students enrolled at the Academy -, and also by the
unknown number of American artists who studied elsewhere in town, since
numerous private schools and studios offered valuable alternatives.
Consequently, the conference will not be limited to students of the academy.

Following the holistic approach adopted for the previous conferences, the
papers will not only indicate what the artists received in Munich, but also
how they in turn fuelled the city\'s artistic life. Another interesting
topic is the way in which American artists transformed the results of their
stay in Munich upon return to their native country; it is precisely this
dual or bifocal perspective which seems best suited for an analysis of this
give-and-take of cultural exchange.

Program

Tuesday, October 9
Short Welcome

4.45 p.m.
Walter Grasskamp, research group

Greetings

Consul General Eric Nelson, U.S. Consulate General Munich

Toni Schmid, Bavarian State Ministry of Sciences, Research and the Arts

Hans-Georg Küppers, City of Munich, Department of Arts and Culture

Veerle Thielemans, Terra Foundation for American Art

Nikolaus Gerhart, Rector of the Academy of Fine Arts, Munich

Klaus Benesch, Bavarian American Academy, Munich

Keynote Lecture

6.15 p.m.
Hollis Clayson, Northwestern University, Evanston, IL
\"Voluntary Exile and Cosmopolitanism in the Transatlantic Arts Community,
1870-1914\"

Reception at the Amerika Haus

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Wednesday, October 10
Session "Inspiration and Exchange - Models of Artistic Training"
Session Chair: Veerle Thielemans, Terra Foundation for American Art, Giverny

9.15 a.m.
Susanne Böller, Lenbachhaus, Munich
"American Students at the Munich Academy 1850-1920"

10.00 a.m.
Ursula Frohne, University of Cologne
"'A kind of Teutonic Florence.' Cultural and Professional Aspirations of
American Artists in Munich"

:: Coffee break ::

11.15 a.m.
Kathleen Curran, Trinity College, Hartford, CT
"Why Munich (and Why Not Paris)? American Architecture and the Formation of
Modern Institutions"

12.00 noon
Ekkehard Mai, Wallraf-Richartz-Museum, Cologne
"The impact of the Art Academy in Düsseldorf on the Evolution of American
Art"

:: Light lunch ::

2.15 p.m.
Michael Quick, George Inness Catalogue Raisonné, Santa Monica, CA
"Frank Duveneck and the German-Americans in Munich"

3.00 p.m.
Eric Rosenberg, Tufts University, Medford, MA
"J. Frank Currier, Munich and the Anxious Status of American Art ca. 1880"

3.45 p.m.
Response: Christof Mauch, Amerika-Institut, LMU Munich
followed by a short final discussion of the session

:: Coffee break ::

Session "Attraction, or: What could be found in Munich in the 19th century?"
Part I
Session Chair: Hubertus Kohle, research group

4.30 p.m.
Helmut Heß, Richard-Stury-Stiftung, Munich
"Making Art and Money. Art Publishers and American Artists in Munich: A
Profitable Liaison"

5.15 p.m.
Graham C. Boettcher, Birmingham Museum of Art, Birmingham, AL
"Nicola Marschall: An Alabama Artist in Munich"

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Thursday, October 11
Session "Attraction, or: What could be found in Munich in the 19th century?"
Part II
Session Chair: Hubertus Kohle - continued

9.15 a.m.
Nathan J. Timpano, Florida State University, Tallahassee, FL
"Der Märchenkönig & the American Imagination: Understanding the Medieval
and
the Exotic in the Early Works of William Merritt Chase"

10.00 a.m.
Katherine Manthorne, Graduate Center, City University of New York, New York
"Bavarian Beginnings of Eliza Greatorex: Munich - New York Dynamic in the
1870s"

10.45 a.m.
Response: Birgit Jooss, research group
followed by a short final discussion of the session

:: Coffee break ::

Session "Beyond Attraction: Frictions in Appropriating or Exporting Munich"
Session Chair: Walter Grasskamp, research group

11.30 a.m.
André Dombrowski, Smith College, Northampton, MA
"Wilhelm Leibl in Paris: International Realism During the Late Second
Empire"

12.15 p.m.
Diane Radycki, Moravian College, Bethlehem, PA
"American Women Artists in Munich, or Die Frauen ohne Schatten"

:: Light lunch ::

2.30 p.m.
Herbert Molderings, Ruhr-University Bochum
"Art, Science and Technology - Marcel Duchamp in Munich 1912"

:: Coffee break ::

3.45 p.m.
Frank Mehring, Free University Berlin
"'The Unfinished Business of Democracy': Transcultural Confrontations in the
Portraits of the German-American Artist Winold Reiss"

4.30 p.m.
Asta von Buch, Technical University Berlin
"A German View of the American Wild West: A Mosaic by Winold Reiss in
Cincinnati Union Terminal, 1931-1933"

5.15. p.m.
Jane Milosch, Renwick Gallery, Smithsonian American Art Museum, Washington,
D.C.
"Grant Wood in Munich: Three Critical Months in 1928"

6.00 p.m.
Response: Christian Fuhrmeister, research group
followed by a short final discussion of the session

The two and a half day conference will take place in the lecture hall of the

Amerika Haus München e.V.
Karolinenplatz 3
80333 München
Germany

The official language of the conference is English.

Attendance is free of charge. For technical reasons, however, we kindly
request a registration - please send a short e-mail to
americanartistszikg.eu or fax a short note to
+ 49 (0) 89 289 27 607
or call
+ 49 (0) 89 289 27 556
or
+ 49 (0) 89 289 27 557
or
+ 49 (0) 89 2180 3239.

In addition to the Terra Foundation for American Art (cooperation partner),
we are grateful to the following institutions for their kind support:
Amerika Haus München
Landeshauptstadt München, Kulturreferat Bayerisches Staatsministerium für
Wissenschaft, Forschung und Kunst
Bayerische Amerika Akademie

Please consult http://www.zikg.eu/americanartists/
for further information.