Museum information, 12 November 2008
Berlin was the focal point of the artistic avant-garde in the first few decades of the twentieth century. Paul Citroen, born in that same city in 1896, was right at the heart of these developments. Via the ‘Der Sturm’ gallery, and later as a student at the famous Bauhaus in Weimar, he came into contact with the major artists of his time, including Johannes Itten, László Moholy-Nagy, Paul Klee and Wassily Kandinsky. Citroen became chronicler, collector and propagandist of modern art.
When Citroen settled in the Netherlands in 1928, he continued to champion Modernism. In 1933, in conjunction with Charles Roelofsz he founded the Nieuwe Kunstschool in Amsterdam, along the same lines as the Bauhaus. His position as a teacher at the Art Academy in The Hague, which endured from 1935 until 1960, also enabled him to disseminate his modernistic views. In his own work, Citroen was primarily oriented toward portrait-painting, a genre which he engaged his whole life long and cherished as his specialism until his death in 1983.
Since 1971, the Province of Overijssel has been able to acquire more than 1500 paintings, drawing and prints by Paul Citroen. Some of these have been purchased, while others have found their way into the collection via the legacy of the artist, which is controlled by the Museum de Fundatie. Now, exactly 25 years after Paul Citroen’s death, this museum presents, in a strong co-operation with the Bauhaus-Archiv Berlin, the largest exhibition of his oeuvre that has ever been shown.
Publication
Paul Citroen (1896-1983): tussen modernisme en portret
Dörte Nicolaisen, Feico Hoekstra, Ralph Keuning
Published on the occasion of an exhibition held in 2008 in Zwolle (Museum De Fundatie – Paleis a/d Blijmarkt)
96 pp., 24 x 17 cm., 80 illustrations in color, hardbound
Zwolle (Waanders) 2008
ISBN-13: 978-90-400-8533-8