Image: Herzog Anton Ulrich Museum, Brunswick
The Herzog Anton Ulrich Museum in Brunswick will present a series of previously unpublished ink drawings by Gerd Winner, offering a rare view of the artist’s response to the destruction of his hometown during and after the Second World War. Titled ‘Der Krieg nach dem Krieg’ (‘The War After the War’), the exhibition will run from 19 September through 29 November 2026.
The presentation is being held in memory of Winner, who is identified by the museum as an internationally renowned artist and whose dates are given as 1936–2026. The works on view were made in 1957, during Winner’s period of study, and are being shown publicly for the first time. The museum describes the group as an important early phase in his artistic development as well as a record of experiences that continued to shape him after the war.
The drawings focus on the damaged urban landscape of Brunswick. Their imagery includes firewalls, ruins and torsos, translating the remains of the city into stark ink compositions. The works are connected directly to Winner’s memories of Brunswick after its wartime destruction, linking a specific local history to the artist’s developing visual language.
In a retrospective account quoted in the exhibition announcement, Winner described walking through the burning ruined city as resembling Dante’s Inferno. The 1957 sheets transform that memory into images of architectural remnants and fragmented human forms. According to the museum, they represent a personal examination of the postwar years while also bearing witness to the human experience of conflict and its aftermath.
‘Der Krieg nach dem Krieg’ will be presented at the Herzog Anton Ulrich Museum, Museumstrasse 1, in Brunswick. The exhibition is part of the autumn programme promoted by the 3Landesmuseen Braunschweig, the group that also includes the Braunschweigisches Landesmuseum and the Staatliches Naturhistorisches Museum. The newsletter listing places the Winner presentation separately from the other museums’ exhibitions and events.
The exhibition will open during a month that also includes other programming at the Herzog Anton Ulrich Museum, including the final weeks of ‘Cabinet of Wonders. Lothar Osterburg back from Brooklyn’, which is scheduled to close on 4 October 2026, and the collection presentation ‘Rendezvous mit dem Löwen’. Those programmes are separate from the Winner exhibition. ‘Der Krieg nach dem Krieg’ will remain on view at the Brunswick museum until 29 November 2026.
