Walter Bertelsmann | An der Hamme | 1903 | Öl auf Leinwand

The history of the artists’ colony Worpswede is a story of pictures. For more than 100 years, artists have been inspired by the landscape around the Teufelsmoor. The founding fathers of the painter colony, which included Fritz Overbeck, were soon followed by other painters who, as the second Worpswede generation of artists, increased the fame of the place: Walter Bertelsmann, Lisel Oppel, Udo Peters, Willy Dammasch, Carl Emil Uphoff and Sophie Wencke just some of the best-known names.

This year, the Overbeck Museum was allowed to receive a unique collection of pictures by these Worpswede artists on permanent loan. More than 70 privately owned works have found a new home in the exhibition center in the Old Packhouse until further notice. Now the works are welcomed with an exhibition of their own in the Overbeck Museum. For the first time, the complete collection will be presented to the public, with the pictures entering into a dialogue with the works of Fritz and Hermine Overbeck. The history of the artists’ colony of Worpswede unfolds based on these pictures: Impressionistic influences, but also the first hints of an expressionistic color choice as found in the Overbecks’ work, are further developed in the second generation into respective individual, modern pictorial languages.