AUF REISEN

This year’s exhibition focuses for the first time on the lively travels and numerous stays abroad of Anton Kolig, Franz Wiegele and Anton Mahringer. As a result, these artists always brought new ideas and impulses from abroad to Nötsch im Gailtal and their diverse impressions and experiences gained from abroad promoted the development of innovative artistic solutions, which ultimately made the painting of the Nötscher Kreis of national importance.

A travel grant to Paris, arranged with the help of Gustav Klimt and Carl Moll in 1912, offered Kolig and Wiegele the opportunity early on, on the one hand to explore the latest trends in visual art, but also on the other hand to study the old masters in the Louvre. In addition, in 1914 a journey to North Africa intensified Wiegele’s concentration on the possibilities of color expression characterized by light. Shortly afterwards, a stay in Switzerland allowed him to make fruitful contacts with patrons and intellectuals from the cultural field. Anton Kolig’s workshop activities and monumental projects also benefited from his appointment as a professor at the Stuttgart Academy of Fine Arts. Even Mahringer, whose most important source for his creative work was the landscape of the Gail valley, frequently made many trips to distant countries until the end of his life, such as to the Middle East or to Leningrad and thus enriched his oeuvre immensely.

A representative selection of these works by Kolig, Wiegele and Mahringer made while traveling or abroad, as well as biographical archive material are now available to view in the Museum of the Nötscher Kreis.

Curator: Sigrid Diewald