In June, Deputy Director Jill Rullkoetter and I journeyed to Munich, Germany, for the opening of the exhibition Die Münchner Secession 1892–1914 at Museum Villa Stuck. As the first exhibition on the Secession in more than sixty years, the opening garnered large crowds and much interest in the press, signifying a new appreciation for the role the Secessionist painters played in laying the groundwork for the future Modern era in art.

This exhibition is of particular interest to the Frye because the majority of the paintings in our Founding Collection are by Munich-based artists, particularly from two generations: those of the older Künstlergenossenschaft, and the younger Secessionists. Three Frye paintings are loaned to the exhibition, and the accompanying catalogue, available in German or English, includes an essay, The Munich Secession and America, by Jo-Anne Birnie Danzker, director emerita of Museum Villa Stuck and one of the scholars who came to Seattle two years ago to study the Frye collections.

A Frye exhibition on the Munich Secession, The Munich Secession and America, curated by Birnie Danzker, will open in January 2009 and will display many of the works from European museums that are in the current Munich exhibition. We were pleased to represent the Frye as colleagues in this undertaking and excited to meet two great-granddaughters of Franz von Stuck.

They remember coming to the Villa to see their great-grandmother, Mary. When we were introduced, one of them noted that she had a photo of one of her great-grandfather’s paintings, Saharet, on the back of which was written: “Sold to C. Frye.” This is exciting new evidence of the Fryes’ presence in Munich and their habit of working directly with artists of the period.

Munich was an art center second only to Paris in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries and was the model for a series of “artistic secessions” that spread to Vienna, Berlin, and elsewhere. Secessions arose in response to disagreements with the artistic establishment—in Munich, the famed Künstlergenossenschaft of the Munich Academy of Art. The manifesto, captured by painter Max Liebermann’s quote, Die Secession ist eine Weltanschauung! (The Secession is a world view!), speaks to the breadth of this vision.

Because the vision of the Secessionists was broad and international, many styles and experimentations are evident in the exhibition, including Impressionism, Symbolism, and the Jugendstil that became the hallmark of the Vienna Secession in 1897.

Our Munich exhibition in January 2009 is a major undertaking that represents our commitment to enhancing appreciation of the Founding Collection. Through our collaboration with Museum Villa Stuck, we have strengthened our connection with an important sister institution. Both actions have increased our understanding of our Founders and their collecting vision.

Midge Bowman
Executive Director

This article originally appeared in the Fall 2008 edition of FRYE magazine.

Photo: Midge Bowman, Jill Rullkoetter, Jo-Anne Birnie Danzker in Munich, Germany.