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Munich Secession


The Munich Secession was an association of visual artists who broke away from the mainstream Munich Artists' Association in 1892, to promote and defend their art in the face of what they considered official paternalism and its conservative policies. They acted as a form of cooperative, using their influence to assure their economic survival and obtain commissions. In 1901, the association split again when some dissatisfied members formed the group Phalanx. Another split occurred in 1913, with the founding of the "New Munich Secession".

By the end of the Nineteenth Century, more artists lived in Munich than lived in Vienna and Berlin put together. However, the art community there was dominated by the conservative attitudes of the Munich Artists' Association and its supporters in the government. These attitudes found expression in the official "mission statements", written by the so-called "Prince of Painters" (Malerfürst) Franz von Lenbach. Matters came to a head in 1891 when the Prince-Regent Luitpold of Bavaria founded the Prinzregent-Luitpold-Stiftung zur Förderung der Kunst, des Kunstgewerbes und des Handwerks in München, an art foundation devoted to promoting traditional history painting in the service of the state. This foundation created and maintained a high level of artistic quality and brought world attention to the Academy of Fine Arts, but was firmly opposed to impressionism, expressionism, symbolism and other contemporary trends in the art world.

Another factor was the complete financial failure of an exhibition in 1888 at the Glaspalast, organized by the Artists' Association. This led to a bitter debate about responsibility and the exhibition's content which grew so furious, it attracted the attention of the Ministry of State for Science and Art.

To address this situation, a group of artists with a progressive outlook gathered together in 1892, announced their separation from the official Artists' Association and established the Munich Secession, with an eye toward exhibiting at the upcoming World's Columbian Exposition. They called for a transformation in the ideas of what constitutes art and promoted the idea of an artists' freedom to present works directly to the public.


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