Skip to Main Content

Adolph Menzel (1815-1905): Between Romanticism and Impressionism

September 15, 1996 – January 5, 1997
East Building, Upper Level, Northeast, North Bridge and Mezzanine, Northeast

Adolph Menzel, The Artist's Sister Emilie, 1851, black chalk and stumping with pastel on brown wove paper, corners pricked, Wolfgang Ratjen Collection, Purchased as the Gift of Ladislaus and Beatrix von Hoffmann, 2007.111.19

This exhibition is no longer on view at the National Gallery.

Overview: A survey of 41 paintings, 60 drawings and pastels, and 29 watercolors by the 19th-century German artist Adolph Menzel was chosen from public and private collections in Europe and North America. The exhibition was the first retrospective of works by Menzel, the leading artist in Berlin in the second half of the 19th century. The catalogue was the first major publication about Menzel's life in English.

Organization: The exhibition was organized by the National Gallery of Art, Washington, the Staatliche Museen zu Berlin, and the Réunion des musées nationaux/Musée d'Orsay, Paris. Curators for the exhibition were Claude Keisch, curator at the Alte Nationalgalerie in Berlin; Marie Ursula Riemann-Reyher, curator at the Kupferstichkabinett in Berlin; Henri Loyrette, director of the Musée d'Orsay in Paris; and Philip Conisbee, curator of French paintings at the National Gallery.

Sponsor: The exhibition was made possible in part by Mannesmann Capital Corporation. Additional support was provided by the Ministry for Foreign Affairs of the Federal Republic of Germany and by an indemnity from the Federal Council on the Arts and the Humanities.

Attendance: 101,230

Catalog: Adolph Menzel, 1815-1905: Between Romanticism and Impressionism, edited by Claude Keisch and Marie Ursula Riemann-Reyher. New Haven: Yale University Press, 1996.

Brochure: Adolph Menzel, 1815-1905: Between Romanticism and Impressionism, by Isabelle Dervaux. Washington, DC: National Gallery of Art, 1996.

Other Venues: Musée d'Orsay, Paris, April 15–July 28, 1996
Alte Nationalgalerie, Berlin, February 7–May 11, 1997

Menzel, Adolph
German, 1815 - 1905