Image: Museum Behnhaus Drägerhaus, Lübeck
The Museum Behnhaus Drägerhaus in Lübeck is presenting Alfred Mahlau’s designs for a historic city procession in an exhibition marking the centenary of the event. Titled ‘Festzug 1926’, the exhibition looks back to the celebrations held in 1926 to commemorate 700 years of Lübeck’s “Reichsfreiheit”, a status described in the museum’s German-language announcement using the historical term.
The procession formed the high point of those celebrations. Artistically designed by Alfred Mahlau, it narrated episodes from Lübeck’s changing past through a sequence of images and scenes. The procession moved through the city centre on 6 June 1926, drawing thousands of spectators along the streets.
A central object in the exhibition is Mahlau’s first complete design for the procession: a painted roll more than 16 metres long. The detailed watercolour composition contains numerous figures and scenes, allowing visitors to follow the procession as a continuous visual account of Lübeck’s history and stories. The museum describes the presentation as an opportunity to examine Mahlau’s artistic engagement with the city.
The exhibition also places the watercolours alongside photographic and film documentation of the original event. Those records provide a black-and-white view of the 1926 procession, while Mahlau’s colour design offers a different way of reconstructing its appearance. Together, the materials connect the surviving artistic plan with the public spectacle that took place a century ago.
According to the museum’s announcement, these watercolours are being exhibited again for the first time in 100 years. Their return gives the exhibition a particularly focused scope: rather than presenting a broad survey of Mahlau’s work, ‘Festzug 1926’ concentrates on a single large-scale project created for a major Lübeck anniversary and on the ways the event can be viewed through art, photography and film.
The Museum Behnhaus Drägerhaus is one of the Lübecker Museen venues and is associated in the museums’ programme with the presentation of important art within an architecturally significant setting. Its public programme includes tours of the museum’s permanent and special exhibitions. ‘Festzug 1926’ is scheduled to remain on view at the Museum Behnhaus Drägerhaus in Lübeck until 22 November 2026.
