Image: August-Macke-Haus, Bonn
The Museum August Macke Haus in Bonn has acquired August Macke’s watercolor “Viktoriabrücke im Abendglühen” (Victoria Bridge in the Evening Glow), dated 1912, for its collection. The museum announced the purchase in its October newsletter.
The acquisition was made possible by donations from the Verein August Macke Haus e. V., the museum’s support association. The watercolor is now on display on the first floor of the museum’s Künstlerhaus.
According to the museum, the work speaks in a particularly telling way to the lasting inspiration Macke drew from the immediate surroundings of his former Bonn home. The announcement does not give the watercolor’s dimensions, its provenance or the price paid.
The building that now houses the museum is Macke’s former residence and studio. He lived there with his family from early 1911 until August 1914; in the winter of 1910–11, a space in the house was converted to his own plans into a light-filled studio. The museum states that Macke painted many of his best-known pictures there. In the autumn of 1912, the year the newly acquired watercolor is dated, he and his friend Franz Marc painted the programmatic picture “Paradies” in the house, a work measuring four by two metres.
The house was first opened to visitors in 1991. The Verein August Macke Haus e. V. was founded as a non-profit association in 1989 by committed citizens. It describes its role as exclusively supportive, providing both non-material and financial backing for the museum’s work, including its art education programmes. Since 2019, the museum itself has been run by a separate operating company.
