Databáze uměleckých výstav v českých zemích 1820 – 1950

In October 1922, the Liberec Museum housed an exhibition of paintings, drawings, prints and applied arts objects by four German-speaking painters based in Liberec and Jablonec nad Nisou: Rudolf Karasek, Alfred Kunft, Erwin Müller and Hans Thuma. In total, there were 35 oil paintings and 48 watercolours and prints from these artists. Erwin Müller and Alfred Kunft also exhibited small applied-arts objects. The Oktobergruppe was part of the Metznerbund association and this was their first show. The group’s activities were modelled on the Prague group Die Pilger (Pilgrims) whose artists travelled between Prague and Dresden. In order to understand the significance of this particular show, it is necessary to know the broader context of the group’s origins. The group emerged from within the Metznerbund, which since 1920 had been trying to serve as an umbrella organization for all German-speaking artists from Bohemia, Moravia and Silesia. This necessarily entailed a broad and artistically fragmented membership base. Already the first Metznerbund exhibitions in Liberec and Teplice in 1920 presented hundreds of works by dozens of artists; shows of this type lacked critical selection. The Oktobergruppe brought together like-minded artists who spoke out against this state of affairs: “The overly broad basis on which this association was founded and the lax entry requirements in the different regions gave rise to exhibitions that confused the public and upset experts and artists alike. It is quite understandable that especially those of a more serious artistic nature have tried to extricate themselves from this confusion, and that kindred spirits have joined together to hold group exhibitions.” [Thuma 1925]

The works exhibited at the October show mapped the young artists’ existing oeuvres. Their 1920s work in particular is the most interesting in the context of Czech German art. Alfred Kunft and Hans Thuma spent a significant part of the First World War in Siberian captivity, and their watercolours and prints reflect these experiences. Thuma complemented his set of artworks with lyrical landscapes, while Kunft exhibited unspecified religious scenes.  Rudolf Karasek presented what became the two main currents in his future oeuvre – landscape and figure. In his early period, Karasek’s works probed existential questions and explored ways how to represent them, particularly through expressionism. Erwin Müller focused on religious and mythological subjects, depicting figural scenes exclusively.

In 1922, the Museum published an unusually extensive catalogue featuring reproductions of one work by each of the exhibiting artists. The 1926 autumn exhibition of the Oktobergruppe had a similar catalogue. Conversely, the catalogue for the group’s 1927 exhibition in the Mánes building in Prague contained only a list of artists and exhibited works.

At present, we are only able to identify a fraction of the works from the first Oktobergruppe exhibition. These include the central piece, the large-format mythology-themed canvas Niobe by Erwin Müller accompanied by watercolour sketches, the oil painting Moonlit Night by Rudolf Karasek, the lithograph Bergelgasse and the drawing St. James’s Dream by Alfred Kunft and the etching Love by Hans Thuma (now in the collection of the Regional Gallery Liberec). This small sample reflects the heterogenous artistic expression of the Oktobergruppe members, although they all shared a point of departure in moderate expressionism. Their style ranged between moody late impressionism (Hans Thuma), crystallinism (Rudolf Karasek), expressionism (Rudolf Karasek and Erwin Müller) and classicism (Erwin Müller, Alfred Kunft).

No photographic documentation of interwar Liberec Museum exhibitions has survived. Based on newspaper reports, we may assume they took place in the main exhibition hall on the ground floor and were installed in line with the exhibition practice of the period. The opportunity to show their works to a wide audience in a traditional institutional environment was an encouragement for the artists to create new artworks, which they exhibited in the same venue in 1926. Oktobergruppe’s activity peaked with their show in Prague’s Mánes building in 1927; it would be their last exhibition.

Anna Habánová

Works Cited

Thuma 1925: H. T. [Hans Thuma], OktoberGruppe, in: Kunst und Kunstgewerbe, ein Überblick, Otto Kletzl (ed.) Sudetendeutsches Jahrbuch, volume 1, 1924 annual report, Augsburg 1925, pp. 98–99

Further Reading

Anna Habánová, Oktobergruppe, in: Anna Habánová (ed.), Mladí lvi v kleci. Umělecké skupiny německy hovořících výtvarníků z Čech, Moravy a Slezska v meziválečném období (exh. cat.), Oblastní galerie v Liberci, Řevnice – Liberec 2013, pp. 80–93

Anonymous author, Bericht der Oktobergruppe, Kunsthütte I, 1923, 1, p. 3