Art Nouveau Dreams

Summer 2007 sees an exhibition in the rooms of the Couven Museum of a selection of items from one of the greatest private collections of art nouveau. The internationally acclaimed former violinist and concertmaster Giorgio Silzer, originally from Upper Silesia, was a passionate collector who over the years accumulated an extensive collection of hand-crafted art nouveau items.

This summer, a selection of items from one of the greatest private collections of art nouveau will be on show in the stylish ambience of the Couven Museum. The internationally acclaimed former violinist and concertmaster Giorgio Silzer, originally from Upper Silesia, was a passionate collector who over the years accumulated an extensive collection of hand-crafted art nouveau items. The exhibition features objects of everyday use made of ceramic, glass and pewter as well as a rich array of silver cutlery. All the prominent workshops of the time, from Berlin to Paris, from Vienna and St. Petersburg to Nancy and Sèvres are represented. Masterpieces by famous designers from Peter Behrens, Joseph Maria Olbrich and Henry van der Velde to Peter Carl Fabergé and Emile Gallé bring the world of the “belle époque” back to life.

The collection offers a characteristic insight into the stylish innovations of the art nouveau period between 1885 and 1914 in its ambivalent trends between playfully ornamental incorporation of vegetable forms and more sober design aimed at a conciliation of form and function. The rejection of historicism cleared the way for introduction of new artistic ideas, e.g. from Japanese and Oriental art, or from pre-classical antiquity. The prime objective was to create a new synthesis of the arts that would impact on everyday life, an aesthetic unity of architecture, fine arts and performing arts, handicrafts and general lifestyle. The cultural emergence of art nouveau, which spread through all of the industrialised nations and redefined life philosophy and the internationalism of artistic creation alike, ultimately became the foundation of the modern age after the First World War.

The exhibition will subsequently move to the History Museum in Marstall, Paderborn Schloß Neuhaus (17 November 2007 – 27 January 2008)

An exhibition catalogue is available at a price of 10,- Euro