Erik Riedel

Apocalypse, the city, war, religion, the portrait, exile and existential trauma – Ludwig Meidner (1884–1966) is regarded as one of the outstanding artists of German Expressionism. With the accuracy of a seismograph he recorded in his pictorial and literary works the shocks which reverberated through his time. To mark the 50th anniversary of the death of the Jewish artist Ludwig Meidner attention has been focused on the works produced during his period of exile in London between 1939 and 1953 – sketchbooks, watercolours and charcoal and chalk drawings produced under the most difficult conditions. They represent an intense mixture of internal experience and contemporary commentary. With merciless directness and symbolic condensation the works tell of terror, isolation, persecution and destruction as well as a grotesquely absurd world which Meidner spotlighted in an idiosyncratic way, combining mockery with mordant humour and sarcasm with bizarre exaggeration.

English summary: Ludwig Meidner's Apocalyptic Landscapes are key works of urban Expressionism. Also in his portraits, he captures the spirit of the Expressionist era in an unsurpassed intensity. The catalogue raisonne documents the first phase of his work as a painter, which begins in Paris in 1906 and ends in the mid-1920s with his return to Judaism and immersion in religious subjects. German description: Ludwig Meidners Apokalyptische Landschaften gelten als Schlusselwerke des urbanen Expressionismus. Aber auch in seinen Portrats - insbesondere den zahlreichen Selbstportrats - gelingt es ihm, den Geist der expressionistischen Epoche in unubertroffen intensiver Weise einzufangen. Das Werkverzeichnis dokumentiert uber 200 Gemalde aus der ersten Phase seines malerischen Schaffens, die 1906 in Paris beginnt und Mitte der 1920er Jahre mit seinem Gang in die Stille endet. Pinsel und Palette kommen in den folgenden 25 Jahren nur selten zum Einsatz, unter anderem, weil ihm die Nationalsozialisten als judischem Kunstler Malverbot erteilen und spater im englischen Exil die materiellen Voraussetzungen fur das Malen in Ol fehlen.