»… just paper, and yet the whole world …«

By the Old Masters from Martin Schongauer, Albrecht Dürer and Hans Burgkmair to Rembrandt; the great Italians Raphael, Giambattista Tiepolo and Giovanni Battista Piranesi; the German Romanticists Caspar David Friedrich and Philipp Otto Runge; the Frenchmen Eugène Delacroix and Auguste Rodin as book illustrators; representatives of Classical Modern art such as Wassily Kandinsky, Pablo Picasso and Max Beckmann; the Expressionists Ernst Ludwig Kirchner, Oskar Kokoschka and Otto Dix; Andy Warhol and Roy Lichtenstein as exponents of Pop Art; and contemporary artists from Patti Smith – the iconic figure of the Punk and New Wave movement – to Tomma Abts and Tacita Dean.

In a selection of some three hundred outstanding works, paper-based art will be featured in all its various media: drawings, watercolours, prints, illustrated books, posters, collages, photographs and video art on the theme of paper. Various surprises are in store for the visitor, for example the sketchy pencil drawing of a small running Amor by Caspar David Friedrich (1806) or the curious crumpled-paper work n° 88 by Martin Creed (1995).

The continual expansion of its holdings is essential to the Department of Printsb and Drawings Under the heading "Wish List" , one entire room in the show will accordingly be devoted to works deemed desirable for enhancing the collection in the area of contemporary art: loans will be presented here with the aim of acquiring them for the department in cooperation with dedicated patrons.

In conjunction with the exhibition a catalogue (308 pages, 250 illustrations, in German) has been published.

Curators: Dr. Corinna Höper, Dr. Hans-Martin Kaulbach, Alice Koegel
Assistant curators: Dr. des. Vera Klewitz, Dr. des. Dagmar Schmengler