Ella Bergmann-Michel und Robert Michel. Ein Künstlerpaar der Moderne

Ella Bergmann-Michel (1895–1971) and Robert Michel (1897–1983) are among those artists of avant-garde modernism who have quite undeservedly fallen somewhat into oblivion, for the body of their pictures, drawings and collages unquestionably represents one of the most accomplished syntheses of expressive and Dadaist approaches with Constructivist tendencies. Both engaged intensively with the new media of their time, that is to say with typography, illuminated advertising, photography and film. In 1920 the couple, who had met in 1917 while studying at the Kunstgewerbeschule in Weimar, moved to Vockenhausen in the Taunus, where they were to have their home to the very end. In 1926 they became members of the association “das neue frankfurt,” worked together with Ernst May and ran their own studio in Frankfurt for advertising graphics, architecture and advertising photography. At the same time the couple took part in exhibitions at the Kestner Gesellschaft Hannover, the Nassauischer Kunstverein in Wiesbaden and the Sturm Galerie as well as the Galerie Nierendorf in Berlin. From 1921 they were close friends of Kurt Schwitters, made journeys together with him and, through his good offices, took part in a touring exhibition of the Société Anonyme across the USA. In 1928 Robert Michel founded the “ring neuer werbegestalter” together with Schwitters, Willi Baumeister and Jan Tschichold, among others. They are regarded as the “pioneers of pictorial collage,” yet their drawings and their printed work are also particularly convincing, achieving above all an extraordinary synthesis of organic chaos and serial machine technology. Looking at woodcuts of mechanical fish or at filigree pencil drawings of utopian architecture, one occasionally has the impression of shuttling back and forth along a connecting bridge between the industrial and the artistic, avant-garde workshops of modernism. Exhibition and book, devoted to the life’s work of the artist couple in all its interesting facets, draw on the fullest of resources, that is to say on the fabulous estate – a permanent loan to the Sprengel Museum – comprising well over 2,000 collages, drawings, sketches and designs for advertising and typography.

Exhibition:
Sprengel Museum Hannover, 26/5 – 2/9/2018