Kestner Gesellschaft (Kestner Society) is an art institution in

Hanover Hanover (; german: Hannover ; nds, Hannober) is the capital and largest city of the German state of Lower Saxony. Its 535,932 (2021) inhabitants make it the 13th-largest city in Germany as well as the fourth-largest city in Northern Germany ...

, Germany, founded in 1916 to promote the arts. Its founders included the painter Wilhelm von Debschitz (1871–1948). The association blossomed under the management of and , pioneering modern art. After World War II, took over the management in 1947, followed by . In 1997 the Kestner Gesellschaft moved into new premises at Goseriede 11, the former site of the Goseriede Aquatic Center. The new gallery is next to the Hannoversche Allgemeine Zeitung, Hanover's newspaper. The institution hit the headlines in 2005 when it exhibited a mud house created by Spanish artist Santiago Sierra featuring a room with mud floor reminiscent of Hanover's Maschsee, an artificial lake. From 2015 to 2019, institution’s first female director was Christina Végh. The current director is Adam Budak, who took on the position in November 2020.

History

In 1916, with World War I raging, the Kestner Gesellschaft was founded by citizens of Hanover, among them Hermann Bahlsen, August Madsack and

Fritz Beindorff Fritz originated as a German nickname for Friedrich, or Frederick (''Der Alte Fritz'', and ''Stary Fryc'' were common nicknames for King Frederick II of Prussia and Frederick III, German Emperor) as well as for similar names including Fridolin ...

. Their goal was to bring internationally renowned and innovative artists and their current works to Hanover. The first exhibition representing the starting point for this concept in 1916 consisted of Max Liebermann's new work. The first director, Paul Küppers, stated at the time that the aim was to present artworks which "do not simply function as a relaxing amusement but instead have a stimulating and – if necessary – provocative and scandalizing effect". In 1936, the Kestner Gesellschaft was closed under pressure from Hitler's

Nazism Nazism ( ; german: Nazismus), the common name in English for National Socialism (german: Nationalsozialismus, ), is the far-right totalitarian political ideology and practices associated with Adolf Hitler and the Nazi Party (NSDAP) i ...

. The director at the time,

Justus Bier Justus (died on 10 November between 627 and 631) was the fourth Archbishop of Canterbury. He was sent from Italy to England by Pope Gregory the Great, on a mission to Christianize the Anglo-Saxons from their native paganism, probably arri ...

, a Jew, presented artists

Erich Heckel Erich Heckel (31 July 1883 – 27 January 1970) was a German painter and printmaker, and a founding member of the group ''Die Brücke'' ("The Bridge") which existed 1905–1913. His work was part of the art competitions at the 1928 Summer ...

Gerhard Marcks Gerhard Marcks (18 February 1889 – 13 November 1981) was a German artist, known primarily as a sculptor, but who is also known for his drawings, woodcuts, lithographs and ceramics. Early life Marcks was born in Berlin, where, at the age of 18, ...

, Christian Rohlfs and August Macke – artists who were featured in the notorious

Degenerate Art Degenerate art (german: Entartete Kunst was a term adopted in the 1920s by the Nazi Party in Germany to describe modern art. During the dictatorship of Adolf Hitler, German modernist art, including many works of internationally renowned artists, ...

exhibition in Munich only one year later. Soon after the war, the new Kestner Gesellschaft was opened in the Warmbüchenstraße in 1948 by Hanoverians with service to the public in mind, among them Hermann Bahlsen,

Wilhelm Stichweh Wilhelm may refer to: People and fictional characters * William Charles John Pitcher, costume designer known professionally as "Wilhelm" * Wilhelm (name), a list of people and fictional characters with the given name or surname Other uses * Mount ...

Bernhard Sprengel Dr. Bernhard Sprengel (17 April 1899 – 22 January 1985) was a German chocolate manufacturer and modern art collector. Life Sprengel studied at the Goethe school and later took courses in political science. In May 1919 he became one of the fir ...

and Günther Beindorff, the director of the company

Pelikan Pelikan Holding AG is a German manufacturing company of writing, office and art equipment. Credited with the invention of the differential-piston filling method, the original company was founded in Hanover in 1838 before it went bankrupt and ...

. In the 1990s, this building could no longer meet the high technical demands of modern exhibition operations, and the Kestner Gesellschaft looked for a new location. The former Goseriede Aquatic Center in the centre was chosen, and a team of internationally selected architects designed and oversaw the transformation into a modern exhibition house. The list of artists whose works have been exhibited during the 75-year history – excluding the years of closure – reads like a "Who's Who" in the history of 20th- and 21st-century art, among them

Paul Klee Paul Klee (; 18 December 1879 – 29 June 1940) was a Swiss-born German artist. His highly individual style was influenced by movements in art that included expressionism, cubism, and surrealism. Klee was a natural draftsman who experimented ...

(1920),

Wassily Kandinsky Wassily Wassilyevich Kandinsky (; rus, Василий Васильевич Кандинский, Vasiliy Vasilyevich Kandinskiy, vɐˈsʲilʲɪj vɐˈsʲilʲjɪvʲɪtɕ kɐnʲˈdʲinskʲɪj; – 13 December 1944) was a Russian painter a ...

(1923),

El Lissitzky Lazar Markovich Lissitzky (russian: link=no, Ла́зарь Ма́ркович Лиси́цкий, ; – 30 December 1941), better known as El Lissitzky (russian: link=no, Эль Лиси́цкий; yi, על ליסיצקי), was a Russian artist ...

(1923) and

Kurt Schwitters Kurt Hermann Eduard Karl Julius Schwitters (20 June 1887 – 8 January 1948) was a German artist who was born in Hanover, Germany. Schwitters worked in several genres and media, including dadaism, Constructivism (art), constructivism, surrealism ...

(1924), both friends of the Kestner Gesellschaft, Joan Miró (1952, 1956, 1989),

Jean Dubuffet Jean Philippe Arthur Dubuffet (31 July 1901 – 12 May 1985) was a French painter and sculptor. His idealistic approach to aesthetics embraced so-called "low art" and eschewed traditional standards of beauty in favor of what he believed to be a ...

(1960),

Marcel Duchamp Henri-Robert-Marcel Duchamp (, , ; 28 July 1887 – 2 October 1968) was a French painter, sculptor, chess player, and writer whose work is associated with Cubism, Dada, and conceptual art. Duchamp is commonly regarded, along with Pablo Picasso ...

and Horst Janssen (1965),

Pablo Picasso Pablo Ruiz Picasso (25 October 1881 – 8 April 1973) was a Spanish painter, sculptor, printmaker, ceramicist and Scenic design, theatre designer who spent most of his adult life in France. One of the most influential artists of the 20th ce ...

(1973, 1993),

Wolf Vostell Wolf Vostell (14 October 1932 – 3 April 1998) was a German painter and sculptor, considered one of the early adopters of video art and installation art and pioneer of Happenings and Fluxus. Techniques such as blurring and Dé-coll/age are c ...

(1977),

Andy Warhol Andy Warhol (; born Andrew Warhola Jr.; August 6, 1928 – February 22, 1987) was an American visual artist, film director, and producer who was a leading figure in the Art movement, visual art movement known as pop art. His works explore th ...

(1981 as his first retrospective in Germany, 2001) Jean-Michel Basquiat (1986 as the youngest at age 25, 1989), Georg Baselitz (1987),

Joseph Beuys Joseph Heinrich Beuys ( , ; 12 May 1921 – 23 January 1986) was a German artist, teacher, performance artist, and art theorist whose work reflected concepts of humanism, sociology, and anthroposophy. He was a founder of a provocative art mov ...

(1975, 1990),

Richard Prince Richard Prince (born 1949) is an American painter and photographer. In the mid-1970s, Prince made drawings and painterly collages that he has since disowned. His image, ''Untitled (Cowboy)'', a rephotographing of a photograph by Sam Abell and ...

(1991),

Rebecca Horn Rebecca Horn (born 24 March 1944, in Michelstadt, Hesse) is a German visual artist, who is best known for her installation art, film directing, and her body modifications such a''Einhorn'' (Unicorn) a body-suit with a very large horn projecting ve ...

(1978, 1991, 1997), Antoni Tàpies (1962, 1998),

Jonathan Meese Jonathan Meese (born January 23, 1970 in Tokyo) is a German painter, sculptor, performance artist and installation artist based in Berlin and Hamburg. Meese's (often multi-media) works include paintings, collages, drawings and writing. He also ...

(2002),

Thomas Ruff Thomas Ruff (born 10 February 1958) is a German photographer who lives and works in Düsseldorf, Germany. He has been described as "a master of edited and reimagined images". Ruff shares a studio on Düsseldorf's Hansaallee, with fellow German ...

(2003),

Peter Doig Peter Doig ( ; born 17 April 1959) is a Scottish painter. One of the most renowned living figurative painters, he has settled in Trinidad since 2002. In 2007, his painting ''White Canoe'' sold at Sotheby's for $11.3 million, then an auction rec ...

(2004), Rochelle Feinstein, (2016/17), James Richards, (2016/17) and Annette Kelm (2017). In 2017, the third edition of the collection , which is collectively curated on a five-year-cycle by the three institutions Kestner Gesellschaft, Kunstverein Hannover and

Sprengel Museum Hannover Sprengel is a surname. Notable people with the surname include: * Hermann Sprengel (1834–1906), chemist * Karl or Carl Sprengel (1787–1859), botanist * Kurt Sprengel (1766–1833), botanist * Christian Konrad Sprengel (1750–1816), teacher an ...

, took place. Under the heading "Produktion. Made in Germany Three", the exhibition focused on the conditions of producing art in Germany. As participating institutions, the Schauspiel Hannover , the Festival Theaterformen, and the KunstFestSpiele are contributing the first time.

Kestner Gesellschaft at the Goseriede

The House

In 1997, the Prime Minister of Lower Saxony,

Gerhard Schröder Gerhard Fritz Kurt "Gerd" Schröder (; born 7 April 1944) is a German lobbyist and former politician, who served as the chancellor of Germany from 1998 to 2005. From 1999 to 2004, he was also the Leader of the Social Democratic Party of Germa ...

, inaugurated the new facilities of the Kestner Gesellschaft at Goseriede 11. Simultaneously, the Munich ''

Abendzeitung The Abendzeitung (''"Evening Paper"''), sometimes abbreviated to AZ, is a liberal morning tabloid newspaper from Munich, Germany. A localized edition is published in Nuremberg. The paper is published six days a week; the masthead of the Saturday ...

'' declared the remodelled exhibition facility "Germany’s most beautiful exhibition house." The remodelling of the former Goseriede Aquatic Center into an up-to-date exhibition house not only incorporates the high technical demands of modern exhibition operations but also preserves and showcases the ''

Jugendstil ''Jugendstil'' ("Youth Style") was an artistic movement, particularly in the decorative arts, that was influential primarily in Germany and elsewhere in Europe to a lesser extent from about 1895 until about 1910. It was the German counterpart of ...

'' features of this historic landmark. With its five halls on two levels, the house has at its command more than 1,500 square meters of exhibition surface.

History of the House

From 1902 to 1905 the Hanoverian chief city architectural commissioner, Carl Wolff, oversaw the construction of the Goseriede Aquatic Center. The middle section of the public bathing facility was destroyed in 1943 during the Second World War, and later rebuilt from 1947 to 1953. After the reopening, the pool remained in use until 1982. In the same year, the city placed the beautiful ''Jugendstil'' façade under protection as a monument. In 1990 the Madsack publishing company purchased the building, offering the sections of the former women's pool area, entrance hall and all adjoining rooms to the Kestner Gesellschaft for its use. An international architectural competition was launched in 1992 in search of an innovative design for the space with the support of the

Norddeutsche Landesbank The Norddeutsche Landesbank Girozentrale (abbreviated NORD/LB) is a German Landesbank and one of the largest commercial banks in Germany. It is a public corporation majority-owned by the federal states of Lower Saxony and Saxony-Anhalt with its he ...

. Chaired by Prof. Peter P. Schweger, the jury awarded the first prize to the Hanoverian architects Kai-Michael Koch, Anne Panse and Christian Hühn. In collaboration with the curators of the Kestner Gesellschaft, their design was developed further into an elegant and dynamic amalgamation of modern architectural elements. The prize of the Association of German Architects of the State of Lower Saxony was awarded to the building in 1998.

Exhibition spaces

Each of the five halls at Kestner Gesellschaft has its own unique dimensions and atmosphere. Able to accommodate diverse exhibition concepts, the spaces can be transformed with high-tech equipment including a close-meshed and invisible network of electrical connections in the floors, walls and ceilings. The lateral galleries in the Halls II and III can be closed off to create smaller exhibition spaces. The total of twelve entrances into the Claussen Hall may be used to create different orientations of projects and viewers. In planning for the building renovations, care was also taken to create the necessary infrastructure for the careful transport and handling of artworks to and within the halls, with direct access to the exhibition spaces via loading dock. Due to ceiling-high gates on the ground- and upper-floors along with a large elevator, pieces arrive safely and easily into the exhibition halls.

Kestnereditions

Since 2003, Kestnereditions are being released related to every exhibition. The works, which include graphic art, photography and other art forms, are offered exclusively for members of the Kestner Gesellschaft in limited editions.

Exhibitions until 1936

Exhibitions from 1948 until 1995

Emil Nolde Emil Nolde (born Hans Emil Hansen; 7 August 1867 – 13 April 1956) was a German-Danish painter and printmaker. He was one of the first Expressionists, a member of Die Brücke, and was one of the first oil painting and watercolor painters of th ...

1948 *

1949, 1965, 1979, 1994 *

Max Beckmann Max Carl Friedrich Beckmann (February 12, 1884 – December 27, 1950) was a German painter, draftsman, printmaker, sculptor, and writer. Although he is classified as an Expressionist artist, he rejected both the term and the movement. In the 1920s ...

1949 * Werner Gilles 1949 *

1949 * Fernand Léger 1949 * Fritz Winter 1951 *

Walter Gropius Walter Adolph Georg Gropius (18 May 1883 – 5 July 1969) was a German-American architect and founder of the Bauhaus School, who, along with Alvar Aalto, Ludwig Mies van der Rohe, Le Corbusier and Frank Lloyd Wright, is widely regarded as one ...

1951 * Marino Marini 1952 * Werner Gilles 952 *

Alexander Camaro Alexander Camaro (actual name Alphons Bernhard Kamarofski: 27 September 1901 – 20 October 1992) was a German artist (painter) and dancer. Life Alphons Bernhard Kamarofski was born and grew up in Breslau (as Wrocław was known before) 1 ...

1952 * Joan Miró 1952, 1958, 1990 * Ewald Mataré 1952 * Hans Uhlmann 1953 *

1953 *

Karl Hartung Karl may refer to: People * Karl (given name), including a list of people and characters with the name * Karl der Große, commonly known in English as Charlemagne * Karl Marx, German philosopher and political writer * Karl of Austria, last Austrian ...

1953 * Henry Moore 1953 *

Eduard Bargheer Eduard Bargheer (25 December 1901 – 1 July 1979) was a German painter and printmaker. His early oeuvre had a close affinity to Expressionism. Life and work Eduard Bargheer was born in Finkenwerder, Hamburg as son of Karl Bargheer, a prim ...

1953 *

Emy Roeder Emy Roeder (30 January 1890 – 7 February 1971) was a modern German sculptor born in Würzburg, Germany. During the first third of the twentieth century she was one of a number of women that were associated with the German Expressionist movement ...

1953 * Fritz Grasshoff 1954 *

Saul Steinberg Saul Steinberg (June 15, 1914 – May 12, 1999) was a Romanian-American artist, best known for his work for ''The New Yorker'', most notably '' View of the World from 9th Avenue''. He described himself as "a writer who draws". Biography S ...

1954 * Hans Arp 1955 *

André Masson André-Aimé-René Masson (4 January 1896 – 28 October 1987) was a French artist. Biography Masson was born in Balagny-sur-Thérain, Oise, but when he was eight his father's work took the family first briefly to Lille and then to Brussel ...

1955 * Marc Chagall 1955, 1985 * K.R.H. Sonderborg 1956 *

Hans Hartung Hans Hartung (21 September 1904 – 7 December 1989) was a German-French painter, known for his gestural abstract style. He was also a decorated World War II veteran of the Legion d'honneur. Life Hartung was born in Leipzig, Germany into an ar ...

1957 * Gustave Singier 1957 *

Theo Eble Theo Eble (1899–1974) was a Switzerland, Swiss Painting, painter. References

* 20th-century Swiss painters Swiss male painters 1899 births 1974 deaths 20th-century Swiss male artists {{Switzerland-painter-stub ...

1958 *

Maria Elena Vieira da Silva Maria Helena Vieira da Silva (13 June 1908 – 6 March 1992) was a Portuguese Abstract art, abstract painter. She was considered a leading member of the European abstract expressionism movement known as Informalism, Art Informel. Her works featu ...

1958 * Bruno Goller 1958 *

Jean-Paul Riopelle Jean-Paul Riopelle, (October 7, 1923 – March 12, 2002) was a Canadian painter and sculptor from Quebec. He had one of the longest and most important international careers of the sixteen signatories of the ''Refus Global'', the 1948 manif ...

1958 * Julius Bissier 1958 *

Alfred Manessier Alfred Manessier (5 December 1911, Saint-Ouen – 1 August 1993, Orléans) was a non-figurative French painter, stained glass artist, and tapestry designer, part of the new School of Paris and the Salon de Mai. Biography Manessier was born am ...

1959 *

Ben Nicholson Benjamin Lauder Nicholson, OM (10 April 1894 – 6 February 1982) was an English painter of abstract compositions (sometimes in low relief), landscape and still-life. Background and training Nicholson was born on 10 April 1894 in De ...

1959 *

Woty Werner The word(s) of the year, sometimes capitalized as "Word(s) of the Year" and abbreviated "WOTY" (or "WotY"), refers to any of various assessments as to the most important word(s) or expression(s) in the public sphere during a specific year. The Ge ...

1959 *

Hann Trier Hann Trier (1 August 1915 in Düsseldorf – 14 June 1999 in Castiglione della Pescaia in Tuscany) was a German artist, best known for his giant ceiling painting in the Charlottenburg Palace. He was married to the sociologist Renata Mayntz and wa ...

1959 *

Kenneth Armitage William Kenneth Armitage (18 July 1916 – 22 January 2002) was a British sculptor known for his semi-abstract bronzes. Life Armitage was born in Leeds on July 18, 1916, the youngest of three children studied at the Leeds College of Art and t ...

1960 * William Scott 1960 *

Hans Reichel Hans Reichel (10 May 1949 – 22 November 2011) was a German improvisational guitarist, experimental luthier, inventor, and type designer. Career Reichel was born in Hagen, Germany. He began to teach himself violin at age seven, playing in the ...

1960 *

Pierre Soulages Pierre Jean Louis Germain Soulages (; 24 December 1919 – 26 October 2022) was a French painter, printmaker, and sculptor. In 2014, President François Hollande of France described him as "the world's greatest living artist." His works are hel ...

1961 * Etienne Hajdu 1961 *

Joseph Fassbender Joseph Fassbender (Faßbender) (14 April 1903, in Cologne – 5 January 1974, in Cologne) was a German painter and draughtsman. Life and art During the 1920s Fassbender was trained in painting by Richard Seewald at the Kölner Werkschulen. S ...

1961 *

Emil Schumacher Emil Schumacher (29 August 1912 in Hagen, Westfalen – 4 October 1999 in San José, Ibiza) was a German painter. He was an important representative of abstract expressionism in post-war Germany. In 2009 the Kunstquartier Hagen was inaug ...

1961 *

Victor Pasmore Edwin John Victor Pasmore, CH, CBE (3 December 190823 January 1998) was a British artist. He pioneered the development of abstract art in Britain in the 1940s and 1950s. Early life Pasmore was born in Chelsham, Surrey, on 3 December 1908. He ...

1962 * Edwin Scharff 1962 * Jean Bazaine 1963 * Zoltan Kemeny 1963 *

Sam Francis Samuel Lewis Francis (June 25, 1923 – November 4, 1994) was an American painter and printmaker. Early life Sam Francis was born in San Mateo, California,

1963 * Serge Poliakoff 1963 * Kumi Sugai 1963 * Gregory Masurovsky 1963 *

Victor Vasarely Victor Vasarely (; born Győző Vásárhelyi, ; 9 April 1906 – 15 March 1997) was a Hungarian-French artist, who is widely accepted as a "grandfather" and leader of the Op art movement. His work entitled ''Zebra'', created in 1937, is consid ...

1964 * Paul Jenkins 1964 * Heinz Battke 1964 * Hundertwasser 1964 *

Richard Oelze Richard Oelze (June 29, 1900 – November 26, 1980) was a German painter. He is classified as a surrealist. Life He was born in Magdeburg. As of 1914, Oelze attended the School of Decorative Arts in Magdeburg, where he was trained as a lithograph ...

1964 *

Alfred Kubin Alfred Leopold Isidor Kubin (10 April 1877 – 20 August 1959) was an Austrian printmaker, illustrator, and occasional writer. Kubin is considered an important representative of Symbolism and Expressionism. Biography Kubin was born in Bohemia ...

1964 * Paul Eliasberg 1965 *

Victor Brauner Victor Brauner (, also spelled Viktor Brauner; 15 June 1903 – 12 March 1966) was a Romanian painter and sculptor of the surrealist movement. Early life He was born in Piatra Neamț, Romania, the son of a Jewish timber manufacturer who subsequen ...

1965 * Horst Janssen 1965 *

Bernard Schultze Bernard Schultze (31 May 1915 in Schneidemühl, now Piła, Poland – 14 April 2005 in Cologne) was a German abstract painter who co-founded the Quadriga group of artists along with Karl Otto Götz and two other artists. On 7 July 1955 he marrie ...

1966 *

Mark Tobey Mark George Tobey (December 11, 1890 – April 24, 1976) was an American painter. His densely structured compositions, inspired by Asian calligraphy, resemble Abstract expressionism, although the motives for his compositions differ philosophi ...

1966 * Alberto Giacometti 1966 *

Konrad Klapheck Konrad Klapheck (born February 10, 1935) is a German painter and graphic artist whose style of painting combines features of Surrealism and Pop art. He was born in Düsseldorf. From 1954 to 1956 he studied painting under Bruno Goller at the Kun ...

1966 *

Wifredo Lam Wifredo Óscar de la Concepción Lam y Castilla (; December 8, 1902 – September 11, 1982), better known as Wifredo Lam, was a Cuban artist who sought to portray and revive the enduring Afro-Cuban spirit and culture. Inspired by and in conta ...

1966 *

Joannis Avramidis Joannis Avramidis ( el, Iωάννης Aβραμίδης; born 23 September 1922 – 16 January 2016) was a contemporary Greek-Austrian sculptor. He was born in Batumi, Soviet Union to a family of Pontic Greeks. He began studying painting at ...

1967 *

Pierre Roy Pierre Roy (born March 12, 1952) is a Canadian retired professional ice hockey player who played 316 games in the World Hockey Association. He played for the Quebec Nordiques, Cincinnati Stingers, and New England Whalers New is an adjective re ...

1967 *

Hans Bellmer Hans Bellmer (13 March 1902 – 24 February 1975) was a German artist, best known for the life-sized pubescent female dolls he produced in the mid-1930s. Historians of art and photography also consider him a Surrealist photographer. Biography B ...

1967 * Rupprecht Geiger 1967 *

Auguste Herbin Auguste Herbin (29 April 1882 – 31 January 1960) was a French painter of modern art. He is best known for his Cubist and abstract paintings consisting of colorful geometric figures. He co-founded the groups Abstraction-Création and Salon des ...

1967 *

Fritz Wotruba Fritz Wotruba (23 April 1907, Vienna, Austria – 28 August 1975, Vienna) was an Austrian sculptor of Czecho- Hungarian descent. He was considered one of the most notable sculptors of the 20th century in Austria. In his work, he increasingly di ...

1967 *

Alan Davie James Alan Davie (28 September 1920 – 5 April 2014) was a Scottish painter and musician. Biography Davie was born in Grangemouth, Scotland in 1920, the son of Elizabeth (née Turnbull) and James William Davie, an art teacher and painter who ...

1968 * Lucio Fontana 1968 * Antonio Calderara 1968 * Roy Lichtenstein 1968 * Domenico Gnoli 1968 *

Josef Albers Josef Albers (; ; March 19, 1888March 25, 1976) was a German-born artist and educator. The first living artist to be given a solo show at MoMA and at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York, he taught at the Bauhaus and Black Mountain College ...

1968 *

Max Bill Max Bill (22 December 1908 – 9 December 1994) was a Swiss architect, artist, painter, typeface designer, industrial designer and graphic designer. Early life and education Bill was born in Winterthur. After an apprenticeship as a silversm ...

1968 *

Almir Mavignier Almir may refer to: * Almir (given name) * Almir (footballer, born 1938), Almir da Silva, Brazilian football striker * Almir (footballer, born 1969) Almir de Souza Fraga (born 26 March 1969), known as Almir, is a Brazilian former footballer w ...

1968 *

René Magritte René François Ghislain Magritte (; 21 November 1898 – 15 August 1967) was a Belgian surrealist artist known for his depictions of familiar objects in unfamiliar, unexpected contexts, which often provoked questions about the nature and bound ...

1969 * Miguel Berrocal 1969 * Gotthard Graubner 1969 *

Graham Sutherland Graham Vivian Sutherland (24 August 1903 – 17 February 1980) was a prolific English artist. Notable for his paintings of abstract landscapes and for his portraits of public figures, Sutherland also worked in other media, including printmaking ...

1970 *

R. B. Kitaj Ronald Brooks Kitaj (; October 29, 1932 – October 21, 2007) was an American artist who spent much of his life in England. Life He was born in Chagrin Falls, Ohio, United States. His Hungarian father, Sigmund Benway, left his mother, Jeanne ...

1970 *

Jim Dine Jim Dine (born June 16, 1935 in Cincinnati, Ohio) is an American artist whose œuvre extends over sixty years. Dine’s work includes painting, drawing, printmaking (in many forms including lithographs, etchings, gravure, intaglio, woodcuts, l ...

1970 *

Giorgio de Chirico Giuseppe Maria Alberto Giorgio de Chirico ( , ; 10 July 1888 – 20 November 1978) was an Italian artist and writer born in Greece. In the years before World War I, he founded the '' scuola metafisica'' art movement, which profoundly influ ...

1970 *

Pol Bury Pol Bury (26 April 1922 – 28 September 2005) was a Belgian sculptor who began his artistic career as a painter in the Jeune Peintre Belge and COBRA groups. Among his most famous works is the fountain-sculpture L'Octagon, located in San Franci ...

1972 *

Jean Tinguely Jean Tinguely (22 May 1925 – 30 August 1991) was a Swiss sculptor best known for his kinetic art sculptural machines (known officially as Métamatics) that extended the Dada tradition into the later part of the 20th century. Tinguely's art ...

1972 * Günther Uecker 1972 *

Marcello Morandini Marcello Morandini (born 15 May 1940) is an Italian architect, sculptor and graphic designer. His visual style involves assembling of repetitive simple forms, often in just black and white, into complex objects. Biography Marcello Morandini was ...

1972 *

Tomi Ungerer Jean-Thomas "Tomi" Ungerer (; 28 November 1931 – 9 February 2019) was an Alsatian artist and writer. He published over 140 books ranging from children's books to adult works and from the fantastic to the autobiographical. He was known for sha ...

1973 *

Joseph Cornell Joseph Cornell (December 24, 1903 – December 29, 1972) was an American visual artist and film-maker, one of the pioneers and most celebrated exponents of assemblage. Influenced by the Surrealists, he was also an avant-garde experimental filmm ...

1973 * Alfred Jensen 1973 *

1973 * Horst Janssen 1973 * Jorge Castillo 1973 *

George Rickey George Warren Rickey (June 6, 1907 – July 17, 2002) was an American kinetic sculptor. Early life and education Rickey was born on June 6, 1907, in South Bend, Indiana. When Rickey was still a child, his father, an executive with Singer S ...

1973 *

Michelangelo Pistoletto Michelangelo Pistoletto (born 23 June 1933) is an Italian painter, action and object artist, and art theorist. Pistoletto is acknowledged as one of the main representatives of the Italian Arte Povera. His work mainly deals with the subject ma ...

1974 * Gisela Andersch 1974 * Walter Dexel 1974 * Uwe Bremer 1974 * Alfred Hrdlicka 1974 *

Dieter Roth Dieter Roth (April 21, 1930 – June 5, 1998) was a Swiss artist best known for his artist's books, editioned prints, sculptures, and works made of found materials, including rotting food stuffs. He was also known as Dieter Rot and Diter Rot. ...

1974 *

Roberto Matta Roberto Sebastián Antonio Matta Echaurren (; November 11, 1911 – November 23, 2002), better known as Roberto Matta, was one of Chile's best-known painters and a seminal figure in 20th century abstract expressionist and surrealist art. Bio ...

1974 *

Peter Ackermann Peter may refer to: People * List of people named Peter, a list of people and fictional characters with the given name * Peter (given name) ** Saint Peter (died 60s), apostle of Jesus, leader of the early Christian Church * Peter (surname), a su ...

1974 *

André Thomkins André Thomkins ( Lucerne, 11 August 1930 - Berlin, 8 November 1985) was a Swiss painter, illustrator, and poet. From 1952, he lived in Germany and taught at the Kunstakademie Düsseldorf between 1971 and 1973. Thomkins painted and drew ironic a ...

1974 *

Eduardo Paolozzi Sir Eduardo Luigi Paolozzi (, ; 7 March 1924 – 22 April 2005) was a Scottish artist, known for his sculpture and graphic works. He is widely considered to be one of the pioneers of pop art. Early years Eduardo Paolozzi was born on 7 March ...

1975 * Bernhard Luginbühl 1975 *

1975 *

1976, 1990 *

Cy Twombly Edwin Parker "Cy" Twombly Jr. (; April 25, 1928July 5, 2011) was an American painter, sculptor and photographer. He belonged to the generation of Robert Rauschenberg and Jasper Johns. Twombly is said to have influenced younger artists such as ...

1976 *

Claes Oldenburg Claes Oldenburg (January 28, 1929 – July 18, 2022) was a Swedish-born American sculptor, best known for his public art installations typically featuring large replicas of everyday objects. Another theme in his work is soft sculpture versions ...

1976 *

Arnulf Rainer Arnulf Rainer (born 8 December 1929) is an Austrian painter noted for his abstract informal art. Rainer was born in Baden, Austria. During his early years, Rainer was influenced by Surrealism. In 1950, he founded the ''Hundsgruppe'' (''dog grou ...

1977 *

Jochen Gerz Jochen Gerz (born 4 April 1940) is a German conceptual artist who lived in France from 1966 to 2007. His work involves the relationship between art and life, history and memory, and deals with concepts such as culture, society, public space, parti ...

1978 *

1978, 1991 *

Eva Hesse Eva Hesse (January 11, 1936 – May 29, 1970) was a German-born American sculptor known for her pioneering work in materials such as latex, fiberglass, and plastics. She is one of the artists who ushered in the postminimal art movement in the 196 ...

1979 *

Howard Kanovitz Howard Kanovitz (February 9, 1929 – February 2, 2009) was a pioneering painter in the Photorealist and Hyperrealist Movements, which emerged in the 1960s and 1970s in response to the abstract art movement. Howard Kanovitz, whose 50-year car ...

1980 *

Pierre Alechinsky Pierre Alechinsky (born 19 October 1927) is a Belgian artist. He has lived and worked in France since 1951. His work is related to tachisme, abstract expressionism, and lyrical abstraction. Life Alechinsky was born in Schaerbeek. In 1944 he ...

1980 *

Larry Rivers Larry Rivers (born Yitzroch Loiza Grossberg) (1923 – 2002) was an American artist, musician, filmmaker, and occasional actor. Considered by many scholars to be the "Godfather" and "Grandfather" of Pop art, he was one of the first artists ...

1981 *

Raoul Hausmann Raoul Hausmann (July 12, 1886 – February 1, 1971) was an Austrian artist and writer. One of the key figures in Berlin Dada, his experimental photographic collages, sound poetry, and institutional critiques would have a profound influence on ...

1981 *

Mimmo Paladino Mimmo Paladino (born Paduli, 18 December 1948) is an Italian sculptor, painter and printmaker. He is a leading name in the Transvanguardia artistic movement and one of the many European artists to revive Expressionism in the 1980s. Biography ...

1981 *

1981 * Egon Schiele 1982 *

Mario Merz Mario Merz (1 January 1925 – 9 November 2003) was an Italian artist, and husband of Marisa Merz. Life Born in Milan, Merz started drawing during World War II, when he was imprisoned for his activities with the ''Giustizia e Libertà'' antif ...

1982 *

Adolf Hölzel Adolf Richard Hölzel (13 May 1853 – 17 October 1934) was a German painter. He began as a Realist, but later became an early promoter of various Modern styles, including Abstractionism. Biography Hölzel was born in Olmütz. His father was ...

1982 * Peter Blake 1983 *

Markus Lüpertz Markus Lüpertz (born 25 April 1941) is a German painter, sculptor, graphic artist, and writer. He also publishes a magazine, and plays jazz piano. He is one of the best-known German contemporary artists. His subjects are characterized by suggest ...

1983 *

1984 *

Howard Hodgkin Sir Gordon Howard Eliott Hodgkin (6 August 1932 – 9 March 2017) was a British painter and printmaker. His work is most often associated with abstraction. Early life Gordon Howard Eliot Hodgkin was born on 6 August 1932 in Hammersmith, ...

1985 *

Christian Ludwig Attersee Christians () are people who follow or adhere to Christianity, a Monotheism, monotheistic Abrahamic religion based on the life and teachings of Jesus in Christianity, Jesus Christ. The words ''Christ (title), Christ'' and ''Christian'' derive ...

1985 *

Tony Cragg Sir Anthony Douglas Cragg (born Liverpool 9 April 1949) is an Anglo-German sculptor, resident in Wuppertal, Germany since 1977. Early life and training Tony Cragg was born in Liverpool."Tony Cragg." ''Contemporary Artists''. Farmington Hills, ...

1986 * Jean-Charles Blais 1986 * Benjamin Katz 1986 * Jean-Michel Basquiat 1986 * Martin Disler 1987 *

Fred Sandback Fred Sandback (August 29, 1943 – June 23, 2003) was an American minimalist conceptual-based sculptor known for his yarn sculptures, drawings, and prints. His estate is represented by David Zwirner, New York. Life and work Frederick Lane Sandb ...

1987 * Georg Baselitz 1987 * George Grosz 1988 * Jakob Mattner 1988 * A.R. Penck 1988 *

Sol LeWitt Solomon "Sol" LeWitt (September 9, 1928 – April 8, 2007) was an American artist linked to various movements, including conceptual art and minimalism. LeWitt came to fame in the late 1960s with his wall drawings and "structures" (a term he pref ...

1989 *

John Baldessari John Anthony Baldessari (June 17, 1931 – January 2, 2020) was an American conceptual artist known for his work featuring found photography and appropriated images. He lived and worked in Santa Monica and Venice, California. Initially a painter ...

1989 * Astrid Klein 1989 *

Bernhard Minetti Bernhard Theodor Henry Minetti (26 January 1905 – 12 October 1998) was a German actor. He appeared in 50 films between 1931 and 1996 but is mostly known for his distinguished stage career. Selected filmography *''The Murderer Dimitri Kara ...

1989 * Jean-Michel Basquiat 1989 * Richard Hamilton 1990 * Klaus vom Bruch 1990 *

Jannis Kounellis Jannis Kounellis ( el, Γιάννης Κουνέλλης; 23 March 1936 – 16 February 2017) was a Greek Italian artist based in Rome. A key figure associated with Arte Povera, he studied at the Accademia di Belle Arti in Rome. Life and work ...

1991 * Robert Wilson 1991 * Per Kirkeby 1992 *

David Tremlett David Tremlett (born 13 February 1945 in St Austell, Cornwall) is an English/Swiss sculptor, installation artist and photographer. He lives and works in Bovingdon, Hertfordshire, England. He is married to Laure Genillard who runs an art space in L ...

1992 * Eugen Schönebeck 1992 *

Thomas Huber Thomas Huber (born 18 November 1966 in Palling, Bavaria) is a German climber and mountaineer. He lives in Berchtesgaden with his family. His brother and climbing partner is Alexander Huber and the two are called "Huberbuam" (Huberboys) in the B ...

1993 *

1994

Exhibitions since 1997

1997 * Antoni Tàpies 1998 *

2001 *

2002 *

2003 *

2004 * Peter Fischli and David Weiss 2004 *

Miquel Barceló Miquel Barceló Artigues (born 1957) is a Spanish painter. Career Barceló was born at Felanitx, Mallorca. After having studied at the Arts and Crafts School of Palma for two years, he enrolled at the Fine Arts School of Barcelona in 1 ...

2004 *

Cindy Sherman Cynthia Morris Sherman (born January 19, 1954) is an American artist whose work consists primarily of photographic self-portraits, depicting herself in many different contexts and as various imagined characters. Her breakthrough work is often co ...

2004 * Santiago Sierra 2005 *

Gilbert & George Gilbert Prousch, sometimes referred to as Gilbert Proesch (born 17 September 1943 in San Martin de Tor, Italy), and George Passmore (born 8 January 1942 in Plymouth, United Kingdom), are two artists who work together as the collaborative art d ...

2005 *

Sarah Morris Sarah Morris (born 20 June 1967 in Sevenoaks, Kent, England) is an American and British artist. She lives in New York City in the United States. Personal life and education Morris was born in Sevenoaks, Kent, in south-east England, on 20 Ju ...

2005 *

Candida Höfer Candida Höfer (born 4 February 1944) is a German photographer. She is a former student of Bernd and Hilla Becher. Like other Becher students, Höfer's work is known for technical perfection and a strictly conceptual approach. From 1997 to 2000, ...

2005 * Michel Majerus 2005 *

Erik Bulatov Erik Bulatov (russian: Эрик Владимирович Булатов; born September 5, 1933 in Sverdlovsk) is a Russian artist, who was raised in Moscow. His father was a communist party official who died in World War II at Pskov, and his mo ...

2006 *

Thomas Hirschhorn Thomas Hirschhorn (born 16 May 1957) is a Swiss artist. He lives and works in Paris.Randy Kennedy (June 27, 2013)Bringing Art and Change to Bronx''New York Times''. Life and works In the 1980s, Thomas Hirschhorn came to Paris with the will to ...

2006 *

Bazon Brock Bazon Brock (born Jürgen Johannes Hermann Brock, 2 June 1936) is a German art theorist and critic, multi-media generalist and artist. He is considered a member of Fluxus. He was a professor of aesthetics at the Hochschule für bildende Künste ...

2006 *

Chris Ofili Christopher Ofili, (born 10 October 1968) is a British Turner Prize-winning painter who is best known for his paintings incorporating elephant dung. He was one of the Young British Artists. Since 2005, Ofili has been living and working in T ...

2006 *

Barbara Kruger Barbara Kruger (born January 26, 1945) is an American conceptual artist and collagist associated with the Pictures Generation. She is most known for her collage style that consists of black-and-white photographs, overlaid with declarative captio ...

2006 *

Franz Ackermann Franz Ackermann (born 1963 in Neumarkt-Sankt Veit, Bavaria) is a German painter and installation artist based in Berlin. He makes cartoonish abstraction. Life He attended the Akademie der Bildenden Kunste in Munich from 1984 to 1988 and the Ho ...

2006 *

Wolfgang Tillmans Wolfgang Tillmans (born 16 August 1968) is a German photographer. His diverse body of work is distinguished by observation of his surroundings and an ongoing investigation of the photographic medium’s foundations. Tillmans was the first photog ...

2007 *

Raymond Pettibon Raymond Pettibon (born Raymond Ginn, June 16, 1957) is an American artist who lives and works in New York City. Pettibon came to prominence in the early 1980s in the southern California punk rock scene, creating posters and album art mainly for ...

2007 *

Bruce Nauman Bruce Nauman (born December 6, 1941) is an American artist. His practice spans a broad range of media including sculpture, photography, neon, video, drawing, printmaking, and performance. Nauman lives near Galisteo, New Mexico. Life and work ...

2007 *

Eric Fischl Eric Fischl (born March 9, 1948) is an American painter, sculptor, printmaker, draughtsman and educator. He is known for his paintings depicting American suburbia from the 1970s and 1980s. Life Fischl was born in New York City and grew up on s ...

2007 * Bettina Rheims 2007 *

Araki Araki may refer to: People * Araki (surname) (荒木) * Hirohiko Araki (荒木飛呂彦), a Japanese manga artist, fashion designer and illustrator * Nobuyoshi Araki (荒木経惟), a Japanese photographer and contemporary artist also known by t ...

Meets Hokusai 2008 * Helmut Lang 2008 *

Jake and Dinos Chapman Iakovos "Jake" Chapman (born 1966) and Konstantinos "Dinos" Chapman (born 1962) are British visual artists, often known as the Chapman Brothers. Their subject matter tries to be deliberately shocking, including, in 2008, a series of works that ...

2008 *

David Salle David Salle (born September 28, 1952; last name pronounced "Sally") is a Pictures Generation American painter, printmaker, photographer, and stage designer. Salle was born in Norman, Oklahoma, and lives and works in East Hampton, New York. He ear ...

2009 * Michaël Borremans 2009 *

Phoebe Washburn Phoebe Washburn (born 1973) is an American installation artist who lives and works in New York City. Washburn is best known for producing large-scale installations: assemblages of garbage, detritus, cardboard, scrap wood, and, more recently, orga ...

2009 * Gert and Uwe Tobias 2009 * Elke Krystufek 2009 * Aaron Curry 2010 * Bethan Huws 2010 *

Alicja Kwade Alicja Kwade (born 1979) is a Polish-German contemporary visual artist. Her sculptures and installations focus on the subjectivity of time and space. Kwade lives and works in Berlin. Early life and education Kwade was born in the industrial cit ...

2010 *

Larry Sultan Larry Sultan (July 13, 1946 – December 13, 2009) was an American photographer from the San Fernando Valley in California. He taught at the San Francisco Art Institute from 1978 to 1988 and at the California College of the Arts in San Francisco ...

2010 *

Olaf Nicolai Olaf Nicolai (born 1962 in Halle an der Saale) is a German conceptual artist. Life Olaf Nicolai grew up in Chemnitz (formerly Karl-Marx-Stadt) in the German Democratic Republic. From 1983 to 1988 he studied German language and literature at the u ...

2010 * Cecily Brown 2010 * Nathalie Djurberg 2010 *

Michael Sailstorfer Michael may refer to: People * Michael (given name), a given name * Michael (surname), including a list of people with the surname Michael Given name "Michael" * Michael (archangel), ''first'' of God's archangels in the Jewish, Christian an ...

2010 *

Joachim Koester Joachim Koester (born 1962) is a conceptual artist. He works principally in still photography and video. Hal Foster, writing in Artforum, has characterized his work as being "along the borders between documentary and fiction." Over the last fifte ...

2010 * Julian Göthe 2011 *

David LaChapelle David LaChapelle (born March 11, 1963) is an American photographer, music video director and film director. He is best known for his work in fashion, photography, which often references art history and sometimes conveys social messages. His pho ...

2011 * André Butzer 2011 * Jos de Gruyter and Harald Thys 2011 * Daniel Richter 2011 * Alice Springs 2011 *

Alex Katz Alex Katz (born July 24, 1927) is an American figurative artist known for his paintings, sculptures, and prints. Early life and career Alex Katz was born July 24, 1927, to a Jewish family in Brooklyn, New York, as the son of an émigré who ha ...

2011 *

Andy Hope 1930 Andy Hope 1930 (born Andreas Hofer) is a German artist. Since 1998, most of his work has been signed "Andy Hope 1930" (although at that time the artist was still named Andreas Hofer).Barbara Fischer, ''Universum - Multiversum, Künstler Kritische ...

2012 * Monica Baer 2016 *

Rochelle Feinstein Rochelle Feinstein (born 1947, Bronx, NY) is a contemporary American visual artist that makes abstract paintings, prints, video, sculpture, and installations that explore language and contemporary culture. She was appointed professor in painting ...

2016/17 * James Richards 2016/17 * Annette Kelm 2017 *

Marc Camille Chaimowicz Marc Camille Chaimowicz is a London-based contemporary artist whose works are in the Museum of Modern Art, Tate Modern, and Victoria and Albert Museum collections. His cross-disciplinary work in painting, drawing, collage, sculpture, installation, ...

2017/18

Literature

*Wieland Schmied: ''Wegbereiter zur modernen Kunst – 50 Jahre Kestner-Gesellschaft.'' Hannover 1966. *Ines Katenhusen: ''Kunst und Politik. Hannovers Auseinandersetzungen mit der Moderne in der Weimarer Republik.'' Hahn, Hannover 1998, . *Veit Görner: ''Kestnerchronik''. Buch 1, Hannover 2006, Buch 2, Hannover 2009.

References

External links

Kestnergesellschaft
website {{Authority control Buildings and structures in Hanover Art museums and galleries in Germany Tourist attractions in Hanover Modern art museums in Germany Art galleries established in 1916 1916 establishments in Germany Art Nouveau architecture in Germany Art Nouveau museum buildings Buildings and structures completed in 1916