The Hegenbarth Sammlung Berlin
The private Hegenbarth Collection Berlin is part of a family foundation. The collection includes works from about 1900: painting and drawing, predominantly on paper (hand drawings), prints, portfolios, book and paper objects. The collection honors the draftsman, painter, illustrator and graphic artist Josef Hegenbarth (1884-1962).
His works form the focus of the collection. It also includes other works of classical modernism and contemporary artists. One main focus of the collection is on illustration and book art. Picture stories in children's books, illustrations to literary works and artist books are as much attention as comics, graphic novels and animations. The starting point for this is an extensive group of Hegenbarth's literary drawings in the collection, including the detailed portfolios to the Nibelungenlied, Friedrich Schiller's Song of the Bell and Joseph von Eichendorff's From the life of a Taugenichts from the 1920s.
The Subjects
Herr Hegenbarth depicts manifestation of life ; as a portraitist of people and animals, in the presentation of biblical subjects as much as in scenes from everyday life — in the street, in the circus or at the zoo.
The Hallmark
Herr Hegenbarth combined the most diverse techniques of graphic creation.
He understood how to link reality and abstraction in one expressive line.
He continually developed his unmistakeable hallmark — “richness compressed
into a hieroglyph” (Will Grohmann).
A Broad View of the Work
The Hegenbarth Collection presents a broad cross-section of the artist's work. Combined with the stock of secondary literature and illustrated editions of books, the collection provides a comprehensive view of Hegenbarth’s drawings.