Adolph Menzel (1815–1905). The Tireless Observer

Adolph Menzel is regarded as one of the most important German artists.

His long life spanned almost the entire 19th century, along with the shifting currents and phenomena in art. In Menzel's paintings, graphic works and drawings we find references to, to use traditional terms, Biedermeier, Romanticism, Realism, Historicism and Impressionism.

The collections of the National Museum in Warsaw hold 45 drawings and over 200 prints by the artist. At the exhibition we will show them in two contexts. On the one hand, this first monographic presentation of Menzel's work in Poland will, thanks to cooperation with the Alte Nationalgalerie and the Kupferstichkabinett in Berlin and with the national museums in Wrocław and Poznań, present paintings, drawings and prints illustrating all aspects of his rich output. The second important theme will be the question of the provenance of Menzel's drawings and prints from the MNW collections, which come from pre-war German collections. This group is excellently suited to a broader reflection on the fates of works that became property of Polish cultural institutions as a result of the changes of borders in 1945. Contemporary challenges of provenance research on works of art are concentrated in it as if through a lens.

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