Museum im Kulturspeicher to Present First Carl Grossberg Retrospective in More Than 30 Years

The Museum im Kulturspeicher (MiK) in Würzburg will present ‘Carl Grossberg. Sachlich – Magisch – Visionär’ from 26 September 2026 to 17 January 2027, bringing together around 50 paintings and 100 works on paper by one of the most distinctive painters associated with Neue Sachlichkeit, or New Objectivity. The exhibition is described by the museum as the first comprehensive solo presentation of Grossberg’s work in more than 30 years.

Organized in cooperation with the Von der Heydt-Museum in Wuppertal, the retrospective will occupy Rooms 01 and 02 in the right-hand wing of the MiK. Grossberg’s work was last presented in a comprehensive solo exhibition in 1995, while the most recent Grossberg exhibition in Würzburg took place in 1979. The accompanying catalogue has been published by Hirmer Verlag and is available from the museum for €35.

Grossberg (1894–1940) was born in Wuppertal-Elberfeld and lived and worked in Sommerhausen, near Würzburg, for most of his artistic career from 1921 until his early death in 1940. After studying at the Bauhaus, he developed a visual language marked by sharply constructed, often unpopulated views of towns and villages, as well as paintings of machinery and industrial sites.

The exhibition places particular emphasis on the regional dimension of this work. Grossberg depicted places in Franconia including Sommerhausen, Erlach, Frickenhausen, Eibelstadt, Kitzingen, Marktbreit, Dinkelsbühl and Würzburg. Its poster features a detail from ‘Brückenkopf an der Alten Mainbrücke in Würzburg’, a 1928 painting in oil on plywood. The work is part of the museum’s presentation alongside paintings and drawings that examine both urban environments and the technological landscape.

Grossberg began producing drawings of industrial machinery in 1924 at the Würzburg printing-press manufacturer Koenig & Bauer. The museum characterizes him as the most important painter of industry and technology of his period, while stressing that he did not simply idealize mechanization. His paintings also question whether modern machines can be controlled by human beings. This concern is especially visible in his ‘Traumbilder’, or dream images, which bring technology and nature together in surreal visions.

The exhibition’s subtitle reflects the tension identified by the museum between Grossberg’s precise, factual method, his magical atmospheres and his visionary images of the future. His work combines an affirmation of modern life with anxiety shaped by the technological and political developments of the 1920s and 1930s. The presentation will also include ‘Maschinensaal I’ from 1925, an oil painting from the collection of the Von der Heydt-Museum, and ‘Papierlager’, a 1939 watercolor on paper.

A public opening will take place on 25 September at 7 p.m., with admission free and no registration required. Doors open at 6:30 p.m., and the galleries will remain accessible until at least 10 p.m. The opening will include remarks by Riccardo Altieri of the Unterfranken district, MiK director Marcus Andrew Hurttig and curator Henrike Holsing, the museum’s deputy director. The MiK is located at Oskar-Laredo-Platz 1 in Würzburg and is open Tuesday from 1 to 6 p.m. and Wednesday to Sunday from 11 a.m. to 6 p.m.