Mission
The private Hegenbarth Collection Berlin is part of a family foundation with a wide-ranging collection of paintings and drawings on paper, etchings, as well as numerous series of literary illustrations by the artist Josef Hegenbarth (1884 Böhmisch Kamnitz / Česká Kamenice — 1962 Dresden). In walking distance to the Berlin Zoo, Kurfürstendamm, and Kaiser Wilhelm Memorial Church, the collection opened a space under the name “Herr Hegenbarth” in 2014. There, the oeuvre of the eponymous artist is presented to the public in two to three changing exhibitions per year, educational offers, and a varied programme of events (receptions, talks, lectures, guided tours, book presentations, concerts, film screenings, workshops).
This non-commercial institution has an exhibition space, offices and a study with an almost complete library on Josef Hegenbarth, international literature he has illustrated, secondary literature on him and contemporary artists who have been presented here. The exhibitions organised here focus on the artist’s main themes such as world literature, religion, scenes of everyday life, portraiture, the animal kingdom, circus, and theatre. Cooperations with fellow institutions, loans for external exhibitions, a series of own publications are substantial parts of our activities. One main issue is a very personal contact with the visitors.
Josef Hegenbarth could not return to his family origins in Bohemia after the Second World War. He shares his fate with many painter and sculptor colleagues of the so-called “missing” generation who continued their figurative work in the post-war era. The Hegenbarth Collection Berlin is dedicated to the public attention of this remarkable artist and his quiet oeuvre in our present time.