Hans Hartung

The celebrations of two anniversaries – 50 years of the town twinning between Schwäbisch Gmünd and Antibes and 150 years of the museum – will be marked by an exhibition dedicated to the important Franco-German artist Hans Hartung. Born in Leipzig, Hartung moved to Paris in the late 1920s. With the rise of the Nazis, it soon became clear that his departure from Germany would be permanent. During the Second World War, the artist even fought against Germany in the French Foreign Legion. Although he lost a leg in the process, Hartung and his art, which conveys a sense of trauma, played an important role after the war in fostering cultural rapprochement between France and Germany. Decisive in this was the Stuttgart-based collector couple Domnick who discovered Hartung in Paris and, in 1948, introduced French abstract painting to Germany through a travelling exhibition. The exhibition at the Gallery in the Prediger brings together for the first time paintings and drawings from the Domnick Collection in Nürtingen with corresponding works from the Fondation Hartung-Bergman in Antibes, and also includes works never before exhibited.