THE VISITORS’ BOOKS OF ART COLLECTOR FRANZ MOUFANG

EXHIBITION OF THE INSTITUTE FOR EUROPEAN ART HISTORY IN COOPERATION WITH THE ART ASSOCIATION HEIDELBERGER KUNSTVEREIN

The Heidelberg cultural figure Franz Moufang (1893 to 1984) cultivated a host of varied relationships and was friends with a great many artists, including some of international renown. These contacts are documented in visitors’ books which, alongside messages and signatures, also contain hitherto undiscovered original artworks that were drawn or pasted into the books. The total of 17 books, covering a period of over six decades, were the centrepiece of the exhibition “The Social Network. The Visitors’ Books of Art Collector Franz Moufang”, which the Institute for European Art History of Heidelberg University made available to an interested public in cooperation with the art association Heidelberger Kunstverein. The exhibition was curated by students from the institute with support from art historians Prof. Dr Henry Keazor and Dr Liane Wilhelmus. It was on show in the Kunstverein studio from 10 June to 6 August 2023.

Exhibition poster “The Social Network – The Visitors’ Books of Art Collector Franz Moufang”

Legal scholar Franz Moufang was director of Heidelberg’s cultural affairs department from 1945 to 1951 and shaped the city’s artistic life in many ways. As deputy director of the Heidelberger Kunstverein from 1955 to 1965 he raised the profile of the association with exhibitions and long-term loans from his valuable collection. This collection comprised works by many regional and international artists, with some of whom Moufang maintained close friendships. The visitors’ books, which were set out on social or family occasions in Moufang’s home between 1917 and 1980, document these relationships and also contain entries and signatures from notable figures from the cultural and social life of the time. They reveal the dense, wide-ranging network that the Moufang family established over the years.

This social network was outlined in the exhibition with the aid of selected examples and visitors could also delve into it digitally. Furthermore, the exhibition introduced the topic of the visitors’ book as a genre, presented Franz Moufang and his family, and illustrated Moufang’s relationships and friendships with regional artists such as Willibald Kramm, Hanna Nagel and Marie Marcks, and with internationally significant artists like Gerhard Marcks, Edwin Scharff and Josef Scharl. The show of visitors’ books was supplemented by works from Franz Moufang’s art collection, which were displayed in the Kunstverein under his direction and returned for the duration of the exhibition. The exhibition was conceptualised on the basis of a seminar led by Prof. Keazor and Dr Wilhelmus from Heidelberg University’s Institute for European Art History in the 2022/2023 winter semester. The class took place in the framework of the research project “The visitors’ books of the Moufang family”, which – just as the exhibition – is funded by the City of Heidelberg Foundation.

ACCOMPANYING PROGRAMME

The exhibition was framed by a full programme of events, including guided tours by the curators, film screenings at GLORIA cinema and a concert at Alte Aula of Heidelberg University. Under the motto “Art at Lunchtime”, students of the Institute for European Art History gave brief insights into the exhibition they curated. Prof. Dr Henry Keazor and Dr Liane Wilhelmus guided visitors through the exhibition as part of the longer tours, which each lasted about an hour.

DATES

Short guided tour “Art at Lunchtime”

13 June 2023, 12 pm, with Klavdia Vashchillo
20 June 2023, 12 pm, with Lise Boulay
27 June 2023, 12 pm, with Klavdia Vashchillo
5 July 2023, 12 pm, with Lea Daro
11 July 2023, 12 pm, with Lise Boulay
18 July 2023, 12 pm, with Jeanne Spriet
26 July 2023, 12 pm, with Lea Daro

Guided tour

25 June 2023, 2 pm, with Dr Liane Wilhelmus
23 July 2023, 2 pm, with Prof. Dr Henry Keazor
30 July 2023, 2 pm, with Dr Liane Wilhelmus

Film screenings at GLORIA cinema

11 July 2023, 7:30 pm: “Peggy Guggenheim – Art Addict” (2016) by Lisa Immordino Vreeland
24 July 2023, 7:30 pm: “The Guggenheim and the Baroness – The Story of Hilla Rebay” (2004) by Sigrid Faltin, followed by a talk with the director

Concert at Alte Aula

18 July 2023, 6 pm: Vasyl Kotys (piano), “24 Préludes” by Frédéric Chopin
In this context, a graphic cycle on the musical piece by Hanna Nagel, a long-time companion of Franz Moufang, was presented.

“Satellite Exhibitions”

University Museum, 30 June – 31 December 2023
Mark Twain Center, 28 July – 22 October 2023
University Archives, 19 September – 31 December 2023

The three “satellite exhibitions” in the University Museum, Mark Twain Center and University Archives interpret the networking phenomenon that is the focus of the exhibition in the Heidelberger Kunstverein. Just as Moufang linked up the respective institutions with one another through his activities and interests, they are now connected via the exhibitions devoted to him at different locations in Heidelberg.