November 24, 2023 was a significant day for us in many ways: we opened our first pop-up exhibition and are presenting works by Joseph Mader, who is considered a typical representative of the Forgotten Generation and one of the most recent rediscoveries of classical modernism. In organizing the exhibition, we worked closely with the grandson and director of the Joseph Mader Archive, Maximilian Mader. It was with great pleasure that we welcomed Maximilian Mader and his father Hans Mader, the artist's son, to the vernissage.
 
With around 40 works, the exhibition provides an overview of Joseph Mader's entire creative period. The artist's impressive and idiosyncratic creative power is already evident in his early paintings from the beginning of the 1930s, which prompted comparisons with the art of Max Beckmann in the press. The reasons for the break in the artist's promising career were explained to visitors by Maximilian Mader. His conversation with literary scholar Paul Werner Wagner was a highlight of the opening. It brought to life an artist who uncompromisingly followed his inner mission and did not shy away from the price of economic hardship. Joseph Mader's straightforward attitude and aversion to propaganda art led to his exclusion from the public art scene during National Socialism. After years of retreat into inner emigration, the painter nevertheless found the strength and creativity to make a new start. In 1946, he was one of the first artists to receive a work permit from the Allies. In the same year, he took part in an exhibition at the Munich Schauspielhaus. Consciously distancing himself from the popular art movements of his time, Joseph Mader remained true to figurative painting throughout his life, expressing his love of creation in a variety of ways using his own formal language.
 
Maximilian Mader and Hans Mader thanked the salon gallery "Die Möwe" for the first presentation of Joseph Mader's works in Berlin and considered the exhibition to be a significant contribution to the public appreciation of the artist, who has been unjustly largely forgotten.
 
The exhibition "Joseph Mader. An artist is rediscovered" can be seen until December 2, 2023 in the rooms at Kurfürstendamm 71, 1st floor, in 10709 Berlin.
 
We are pleased about the coverage:
 
Click here for the Tagesspiegel article "Back in the saddle".
Click here for the Tagesspiegel's daily tip "Beautiful creation" from November 24, 2023.
Click here for the article "Comeback after 89 years", Süddeutsche Zeitung from November 18/19, 2023.