Frankfurter Westend Galerie
since 1966

Italian Modern and Contemporary Art

Frankfurt’s Westend Gallery has developed into a forum for modern and contemporary Italian art in Germany. The gallery represents artists of classical Modernism such as Enrico Della Torre, Gianfranco Pardi, Eugenio Carmi, and Sandro Martini. Moreover, the gallery offers young artists the opportunity to present themselves to an art-interested public. Those artists include Enzo Esposito, Paolo Iacchetti, Tommaso Cascella, Arthur Kostner, Graziano Marini, Sonia Costantini, Vincenzo Satta, Alessandro Gamba, Enrico Bertelli, Carlo Pizzichini, Emanuela Fiorelli, and others.

On the occasion of the 1200th anniversary of the city of Frankfurt in 1994, the Westend Gallery organized the exhibition “Italienische Kunst der Moderne in Frankfurter Privatbesitz” (“Privately Owned Italian Modern Art in Frankfurt”) and published a catalogue under the same name, which gives an overview of the activity and influence of the gallery to that date. On the occasion of the German-Italian society’s 35th anniversary in 2001, the fourth volume of the catalogue series “Italienische Kunst nach 1945 – Deutsche Künstler und Italien” (“Italian Art After 1945 – German Artists and Italy”), documenting the exhibition history of Frankfurt’s Westend Gallery between 1991 and 2001, was published.

German Artists and Italy

The gallery is not solely open to Italian artists: also German artists with a connection to Italy are featured in exhibitions, such as in the past the exhibition “Deutsche Künstler in Florenz während des Krieges” (“German Artists in Florence During the War”), in 1974, or “Italienbilder” (“Images of Italy”), in 1983.

Painters such as Hermann Albert, Eduard Bargheer, Werner Gilles, Hans Kuhn, Heinrich Steiner, or Max Peiffer Watenphul were not persecuted in Nazi Germany, but suffered defamation and were inhibited from participating in exhibitions. Although fascism had ruled in Italy already since 1922, the country offered them more possibilities than Germany. They remained largely unknown to the Italian and German publics. With its exhibitions, Frankfurt’s Westend Gallery contributed to making those artists known to a broader audience in Frankfurt. The longing for Italy is still existent with contemporary artists. Among the younger German artists seeking stimulation and inspiration in the southern landscape are Joachim Czichon, Ulrich Erben, Siegbert Jatzko, Petra Lemmerz, Norbert Tadeusz, Sandro Vadim, and Deva Wolfram.