Sources/contemporary reports
So when did the first exhibition of the groups take place in the Haus der Kunst?
Marianne Lüdicke: The work with the exhibitions, that is, the preparations, began in 1948. I was already a member of the jury for the first exhibition in the Haus der Kunst.
Why do people join groups like the Neue Künstlergenossenschaft in the first place?
Marianne Lüdicke: Well, if you want to earn a living from your art you must go public, so how else could you do that? There was no other possibility. I would say that anyone joining an association, to this very day, is seeking the backing of an association in order to exhibit, to sell, to the public. Later there were other exhibition activities besides the Grosse Kunstausstellung, for example, the Quadrionale d’arte di Roma 1957 or, in the 1950s as well, exhibitions by members in the Schuhmacher Gallery in Theatinerstraße. Two or three members of the group exhibit at the pavilion for several years.
That gives one a better chance at becoming well known and surviving from their art. So before that, I did not know whether I could survive with it. Going to galleries, running from one to the other, saying, oh, would you perhaps like to exhibit my sculptures – or have a look at them – that is really hard. I have suffered some humiliating moments. Or to go to architects to sit around the antechambers - with photos, a few sketches, it’s a hard way to make a living. At least when you're in an association, you have the others to give you support. And if you can say you exhibited in the Haus der Kunst, it does make a bit of an impression with those who find it good.
How did the press and the public react in the first years?
Marianne Lüdicke: The Große Kunstausstellung after the war was very important and was taken very seriously, and in subsequent years it remained an important event in Munich. There wasn't that much to see in the first place. And seeing the Große Kunstausstellung was a must.
What group activities were there besides defining the orientation of the exhibitions in the Haus der Kunst?
Marianne Lüdicke: The Carnival celebrations in the Haus der Kunst played a major role. At the same time as the exhibition activity began, in 1948/49, big carnival parties were organized annually in all the rooms of the Haus der Kunst. Thorough organization and scheduling was needed. For the artists who had agreed to do the decoration, this meant first of all some earnings. It wasn't great earnings, and it was hard work that one had to perform more or less in a cold building. It involved installing huge decorations, gigantic paper strips several meters long had to be hung on the walls. But when it was all done, the result was really terrific, an enchanted world, but only for the Carnival period.
Lots of people came to these parties and people had fun, but it was in a world in which one did not see what these rooms actually were, rooms in which one had exhibited "sacred" art. And each artist worked in his or her own style, whereby the decoration was considered the most important artistic task. On one particular evening, the members all got together and then celebrated a Carnival evening. Otherwise, the balls were public and a fee was paid to get in.
When did you get on the Board?
Marianne Lüdicke: I got to the Board around 1970. That is when they wanted something like that, you know, a woman on the Board. But the committee never had more than two women in its ranks. Lieselotte Strauss and me. She got there later. It could have been more. One woman was acceptable, but when a second one showed up, I can still hear them, well, two women, that is a little much. The Secession, it occurs to me, even had a membership lock-out for women at the start, it was a tradition. Exhibiting was OK, but being a member? That was still a leftover from the good old days.
Is there something comparable with the Grosse Kunstausstellung today?
Marianne Lüdicke: Yes, something similar in Düsseldorf, the Große Nordrheinwestfälische, and in Berlin. In the earlier years, however, the Haus der Kunst soon became a German art hub, and the three groups worked to a certain extent in unison for this institution. The newspapers featured big articles, inconceivable today, for the response to be so important. One reason for this is that there was not the flood of artists and exhibitions then that there is today.
Marianne Lüdicke (born in 1919) studied with H. Maxon from 1938 to 1945 at the Academy of Fine Arts in Munich. As a sculptress, she was regularly represented at the "Große Kunstausstellungen München" after 1949.
Source: A look back at the beginning of the Neue Münchner Künstlergenossenschaft 1948/49 in the Haus der Kunst. Barbara Regner, Charlotte Dietrich and Baldur Geipel in a conversation with the sculptress Marianne Lüdicke, in: Neue Münchner Künstlergenossenschaft. Volumes 1900–1910–1920, Munich [1998]
