Excerpts from an interview with Jo-Anne Birnie Danzker, Frye Foundation scholar and curator of the exhibition The Munich Secession and America, on the history and importance of this art movement. Click here to read the entire interview.

Tell us a little bit about the significance of the Munich Secession.

The Munich Secession was committed to excellence in all areas of artistic endeavor and, above all, to an international and multidisciplinary approach to art. It was the first of the Secession movements in Europe to “secede” or break-away from the conventions of nineteenth century salon painting and salon-style exhibitions.  Read More »

Why this exhibition at the Frye?

The present exhibition at the Frye Art Museum, The Munich Secession and America, is multi-layered and tells several stories at the same time. It highlights, of course, the extraordinary accomplishments of the Munich Secession. It also reveals the fascinating history of key works in the Frye Founding Collection, and the fine differences between the Munich Secession and the Munich Künstlergenossenschaft.  Read More »

What will visitors experience when they come to the Frye to see this exhibition?

This is an exhibition constructed on story-telling. Visitors can choose to just look at the wonderful paintings and enjoy them. If, however, they want to learn more about the paintings, and about the artists, and the complex debates in which they were engaged, there are labels next to each and every work which tell fascinating stories.  Read More »

Can you give us an example of new research on the Founding Collection you have uncovered as a result of working on this exhibition?

Instead of looking at the masterpieces of the Frye Founding Collection as isolated works of art, as paintings of sheep or as rather plain landscapes, we are able to see them in a new context, as important experiments pointing the way, for example, towards abstraction and expressionism.  Read More »

Tell us about some of the important loans that are coming from Europe.

One of the most important figures in the exhibition is a co-founder of the Munich Secession, Fritz von Uhde, who experimented with very different styles and artistic concerns throughout his career. Through the very generous support of the Bayerische Staatsgemäldesammlungen, Munich, Neue Pinakothek, we are able to show a study for one of the most controversial works he painted, The Ascension of Christ (Himmelfahrt Christi), 1897, which was strongly criticized because the suspended figure of Christ was, according to its critics, too naturalistic and failed to convey the transcendence of the event.  Read More »

Why is the catalogue such an important publication for US audiences?

This book brings together the very latest research of some of the leading German scholars for the first time. Above all, it proposes a way of looking at the Munich Secession according to categories such as Symbolism, Impressionism, and Jugendstil.  Read More »

What impact does the Munich Secession have on contemporary German artists?

After the Second World War many intellectuals and artists in Germany turned away from Secessionist art, indeed away from all German art prior to 1910 and often looked towards America. This is why the exhibitions organized by the Museum Villa Stuck on the Munich Secession (and on the Gruppe SPUR) were so important in Germany. The present exhibition at the Frye provides yet another perspective – this time from America one hundred years ago – and opens many very exciting doors for re-thinking Modernism.  Read More »

Jo-Anne Birnie Danzker, Frye Foundation scholar and curator of The Munich Secession and America, will give a gallery talk on Saturday, April 4 at 2 pm.