The Collection Osmers From Archipenko to ZERO   10.12.2022 – 26.03.2023

The Collection Osmers: From Archipenko to Zero

Through their passion for art and their enjoyment of the direct exchange with artists, the collectors Franz Osmers and Mechthild Wantia-Osmers have assembled an extensive collection of sculptures and three-dimensional works, paintings, drawings and prints.

The collection ranges from the early twentieth century to the present and includes major artists such as Alexander Archipenko, Max Ernst, Hans Hartung, Ioannis Avramidis, Henry Moore, Daniel Spoerri and Rebecca Horn. Larger groups of works by Gustav Seitz, Karl Hartung, Gerhard Marcks, Constantin Jaxy and the Zero artists Otto Piene, Günther Uecker and Heinz Mack demonstrate the collectors’ special interest in sculptural works in relation to space.

Since the late 1970s, Franz Osmers has been involved in the Kunstverein in various functions and has enriched the collection of the Kunsthalle Bremen with numerous gifts including major works by David Hockney, Günther Uecker and Norbert Kricke. With this extensive exhibition, the Kunsthalle Bremen is honouring this outstanding commitment by presenting the Osmers Collection to the public for the first time.

The works on display are a selection from the couple’s wide-ranging collection and identify issues that interest them: the depiction of the human figure between abstraction and representational art and the dynamic interaction of light and form.

 

(Fig. exhibition overview: David Hockney, The Brooklyn Bridge, November 28, 1982, gift of Franz Osmers, Bremen 2003, Kunsthalle Bremen – Der Kunstverein in Bremen, © David Hockney | Fig. above: Zero works in the exhibition, works by Günther Uecker, © VG Bild-Kunst, Bonn 2022, photo: Marcus Meyer Photography)

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