Otto Niemeyer-Holstein - Pictures of his Travels-Drawings and Watercolors
17th October 2026 - 11th April 2027
Opening day of the collection: Friday the 16th of October at 5 pm
Pictures made in Switzerland/Tessin, Romania, Poland, Bulgaria, Uzbekistan and on his travels in China, are showing more of the topic “traveling pictures”.
Otto Niemeyer-Holstein (1896-1984) repeatedly goes on trips to Italy to learn more about ancient Rome, the culture of the renaissance, the scenery of Italy, like many other German artists and art-interested did before him.
Tessin (1918-1924) - with over one-hundred and fifty pieces - is seen quite often, followed by his travel to China with over a hundred Pictures. Travel destinations also include France, Spain, Bulgaria, Poland, Greece, Austria, Sweden and Denmark and countless landscapes in Germany.
The Autumn-Collection 2026 shows the art of Niemeyer-Holstein that expanded the topic of Italy-yearning to many more places and countries, which the artist traveled to in the 1950s and 1960s.
In 1955 the artist travels to Odenwald drawing fifteen coloured pictures (oil on paper) and sets off to his travels in Bulgaria from which he brings back twenty-three coloured pictures. He continues to travel to Spain in 1957, Romania in 1959 and in 1960, as a passenger of the cargo ship “MS Leipzig” of the German shipping company, to China.
Achim Roscher said in 2021: “Das Fazit seiner Reisen war letztendlich immer das gleiche, und er schrieb es in einem Artikel für die Zeitschrift Bildende Kunst (Heft3/1959): Im Ausland ist mir erst so richtig klar geworden, dass ich jetzt noch viel mehr als bisher speziell die Usedomer Landschaft malen werde.“ Which translates to: “the results of his travels were always the same.” He elaborated this in an article for the magazine ”Bildende Kunst“ (educating art): “It was only during my travels, that I realised; I especially want to draw more landscapes of Usedom now.
"A travel overseas is another turning point that resulted in the evolution of one of his pictures. It led the artist and his wife over the Mediterranean Sea and the Asian seas to East Asia. He returned with many studies and pictures, which he made aboard the ship. He fixated on the cargo ship ”Leipzig” - going from port to port, in a way a “moving open-air atelier”- which forced a monotonous view of the railing and deck - this lack of variety was able to be used in a productive way.
Weeks and months on the sea culminated in the artist mastering the everchanging look of the sea: under the flaming sky in the glaze of the sun, the soft blue moving waves in the Chinese sea; wild giant green mountains of waves, topped of with white crowns of seafoam, rainbows in the spray with ten knots of wind speed the Indian Ocean, the cool shimmering fluorescence from sky and water in the Atlantic.”(Gerhard Pommeranz-Liedtke)
"The once meticulous handwriting and his effort for carefully condensed art wasn´t possible to use here. Pencil and brush are hold gently and used almost calligraphically. Reflected in his artstyle is now the actual topic-related adventure of perception in always changing situations and the study of the seemingly-alive movements of Water.
A travel of arts was made possible by the artists association. Artists traversed over Moskau to Middle-Asia and old cities of the orient. In Buchara and Samarkand not only drawings were created, but also oilstudies on Paper, in which they tried to capture the unique colours of cities and nature.”(Mayer, Rudolf 1983, Welt der Kunst Otto Niemeyer Holstein, Berlin: Henschelverlag. S.32 u. 42)
Franka Jordan
Leiterin des Museums Atelier Otto Niemeyer-Holstein
Lüttenort, den 22.09.2026
