"Here I Am – Meidner"

Meidner was celebrated as an expressionist in Berlin, denounced as “degenerate” by the Nazis because of his Jewish faith, and ignored as an émigré artist in the London art world before he finally returned to Germany in 1953. His bohemian studio provided a refuge from the narrow-mindedness of the 1950s. Whoever stopped by became the subject of one of his drawings – which explains how the sisters Cornelia-Kathrin von Plottnitz and Monika Thimm got to know him.

The exhibition, curated by Laura Schilling and Asta von Mandelsloh, presents drawings and paintings from the sisters’ private collection. The selected works reveal the diversity of Meidner’s artistic oeuvre and focus on inner experience, expressed through ever-changing stylistic elements. The bulk of the works on paper will be exchanged in the course of the exhibition, which will initially show Meidner’s portraits next to drawings from the 1920s and then alongside works made in exile.

In its Ludwig Meidner Archive, the Jewish Museum Frankfurt manages Meidner’s artistic estate. In cooperation with the Ludwig Meidner Society and the Citoyen Foundation, the museum is preparing a catalog raisonné of Meidner’s paintings, to be published in late 2022.

The exhibition will be on view on the 3rd floor of the Jewish Museum's permanent collection from May 8, 2022 to January 1, 2023.