06/10/2026
ON VIEW
Exhibition 9
Adalbert Trillhaase
5.9.–17.10.2026
From the start, Trillhaase is a committed and active member of the Junges Rheinland, which is founded in 1919. His work embodies the ideals to which the artists’ association aspires: in its quest for a new art, it breaks with academic convention to allow for a more open, freer form of creative articulation. Trillhaase forms personal bonds with the artists that speak from numerous portraits, including Otto Dix’s painting „The Family of the Painter Adalbert Trillhaase“ (1923) and Arthur Kaufmann’s group portrait „The Contemporaries“ (1925). At the same time, Trillhaase engages with the Expressionist and Dadaist tendencies of his time. His visual language grows increasingly expressive and surreal: his figures more and more often strike exaggerated poses, while the structure of his pictorial spaces disintegrates or vanishes entirely. Trillhaase’s contemporaries are fascinated by the liberties that he takes in his art.
The Junges Rheinland and its successor groups, including the Rheinische Sezession and the Rheingruppe, at times count over four hundred members. Among its most defining exponents are artists like Otto Dix, Max Ernst, Marta Hegemann, Arthur Kaufmann, and Gert Heinrich Wollheim, as well as art historians and art dealers like Walter Cohen, Johanna Ey, and Alfred Flechtheim.
Images:
1. Adalbert Trillhaase, Christ on the Mount of Olives, undated, oil on canvas, 56 x 74.5 cm, Photo: Simon Vogel.
2. Installation view, Photo: Simon Vogel.
