Max Pechstein (1881–1955) became known as a member of the artist group ‘Brücke’ (The Bridge) founded in Dresden in 1905 and his extremely colorful paintings showing man and nature. However, his artistic work shows a far greater stylistic range than his famous works dating back to the ‘Brücke’ time suggests. Therefore the Max-Pechstein-Museum shows artwork from seven decades.
The museum’s collection comprises the painting named ‘Geierwally’ created by the younger Pechstein in 1896 and considered as his earliest preserved canvas as well as paintings from the artist’s final creative and life years. The permanent exhibition includes landscapes and still lifes and besides decorative works like glass pictures and mosaics which are less well-known. One highlight of the exhibition are the paintings Pechstein created after his journey to the South Seas in 1914. Furthermore the Max-Pechstein-Museum shows portraits of the Pechstein family which have been scarcely displayed in public so far as well as the artist’s late work seeming somewhat surreal due to its colorfulness. Since 2014 the Max-Pechstein-Museum is an integral component of the Kunstsammlungen Zwickau, visited by Max Pechstein himself for several times. Above of that the museum already dedicated comprehensive exhibitions to this important representative of the German Expressionism between 1925 and 1947.