Zimmer Gallery - Naive Art - Naive Kunst

Naive Art - a Short Review

In the period from 1960 to the mid-1970s - aside from contemporary professional art - naive artists were the discovery. They revealed pictures of a world view that was not known up to that time. They were preceded, at the beginning of the century, by the great naive painter Henri Rousseau, and others of the first generation. In France, this was Seraphine Louis, Louis Vivin, André Bauchant and Camille Bombois. In Germany it was: Adalbert Trillhaase and Carl Christian Thegen.

The second appearance of naive artists in the 1960s and 1970s was quickly accepted by museums, galleries and organizers of exhibits. Internationally significant exhibits were held, which made naive art famous and polular. For example, there was “De Lusthof der Naieven” in Rotterdam in 1964 and “Die Kunst der Naiven” in Zurich and Munich in 1974/75. Both exhibits were organized by Oto Bihalji Merin. Centers for naive art were formed in Museums in Recklinghausen and Neuss in Germany; in Zagreb, Croatia; and in Bratislava, Slovakia. In 1972, “Das naive Bild der Welt” (The Naive View of the World) by Oto Bihalji Merin was published and is still today considered the most important publication on this topic because if is the most fundamental.

Since its opening in the 1970s, Zimmer Gallery has held about 90 exhibitions with the theme of naive art. At that time it quickly became one of the leading galleries in Germany for the naive art. These exhibitions followed in quick succession and were accompanieds by publications which gave information about the artists. As a result, naive painting became widely represented in German art collections. We introduced many of the naive artists who then became internationally famous. The emphasis was on naive paintings from Germany, Poland, Slovakia, the former Yugoslavia, Holland, Belgium, Italy, France and Brazil. We visited most of these naive artists in their homes and acquired the pictures for our exhibitions directly from them.

Gallery Zimmer was in frequent contact with collectors and museums, and the exchange of ideas made an important contribution to the shaping of public opinion and the clarification of concepts. In 1980 Gallery Zimmer once again organized a programmatic exhibition with the title “From Grandma Moses to Ivan Generalic” and for which a catalogue was published. The Gallery paid special intention in subsequent exhibitions to the German naive artists Erich Bödeker (sculpture), Minna Ennulat (painting) and Josef Wittlich (painting, artists who undoubtedly belong to the group of authentic naive artists.

Today, we still have a large collection of works from the 1960s and 1970s, the period which is considered the actual high point in European naive art. Exhibitions will continue at irregular intervals.

Translated by David Weiland, Nideggen.