»Paris Is My Library«
Press information
The Hamburger Kunsthalle will launch the year 2023 with an exhibition of around 100 never-before-shown prints and drawings by Félicien Rops (1833–1898). The artist’s incomparable repertoire of lascivious motifs and scandalous graphics, many of them described as pornographic, brought him both great fame as well as notoriety throughout Europe in the latter half of the nineteenth century. His work would go on to influence several generations of artists after the turn of the century, among them Max Klinger, Alfred Kubin and Otto Dix. The exhibition spans the Belgian Symbolist’s wide-ranging oeuvre, with a focus not only on his more salacious images but also on evidence of his sharp wit, social criticism, and political and social satire, as well as his illustrations for Symbolist literature. Nineteenth-century gender roles, social relations and moral double standards as evoked by Rops come to the fore and are subjected to critical examination.
The large group of more than 250 works by Rops in the Hamburg Kunsthalle’s Prints and Drawings collection was acquired in 1907 by Alfred Lichtwark, the museum’s founding director, from the Hamburg lawyer and art collector Johannes Mohrmann (1812–1906).
The extensive collection can be viewed online in its entirety (https://www.hamburger-kunsthalle.de/sammlung-online).
Sponsored by: Tavolozza Foundation
