LUDWIGGALERIE Oberhausen Castle
In an ambitious, alternating exhibition program, the LUDWIGGALERIE presents loans from all over the world in the spacious rooms of the classicist palace complex under four main themes.
The Ludwig Collection
is presented at regular intervals in exhibitions with its comprehensive holdings, which range from antiquity to current art positions, and which focus on unusual and comprehensive subjects. The basis for this is the attitude of the collecting couple Peter and Irene Ludwig that all cultures of the world, from antiquity to the present, have an inner connection.
This event was opened with the presentation of Gods, Heroes and Idols (1998). Other exciting shows dealt with the world of vessels, China's Tradition and Modernity or showed with To the table!, HAIR! Hair in art or The gesture Masterpieces from the Ludwig Collection and thus testify to the international nature of the cooperation. In addition, another highly successful exhibition concept in the form of exquisite one-room shows honors individual outstanding Pieces from the Ludwig collection. The candlestick women, Tödlein, the painting ars bene moriendi or the sculpture Anna teaches Maria to read represent this format, which documents the intensive cooperation of the Ludwig Houses beyond the exhibitions through the detailed scientific processing of the exhibits.
The popular gallery
In contrast, it is devoted to the presentation of comics and cartoons, which are generally considered to be part of the applied field. Important positions from Wilhelm Busch to Walter Moers to Manfred Deix were shown, as were Janosch, Ralf König and Ruthe, Sauer, FlixBook illustrations by Sabine Wilharm and Cornelia Funke delighted a wide audience. The great Disney illustrators were honored with Duckburg >>>> Oberhausen, Donald, Mickey and friends drawn in the Disney Factory by Carl Barks, Floyd Gottfredson and Al Taliaferro as well as Jan Gulbransson, Don Rosa and Ulrich Schröder. The bulbous-nosed characters by Mordillo, Fix and Foxi and characters such as the robber Hotzenplotz, the little witch and Krabat from the cosmos by Otfried Peußler populated the house, as did Jim Knopf, Momo and Bastian by Michael Ende.
The Lichtbild Galerie
Through the intensive expansion of photography, which originally belonged to the "Popular Gallery", with exhibitions by internationally renowned photographers such as Jim Rakete, Elliott Erwitt and Herlinde Koelbl as well as photography icons such as Weegee (2013), Eve Arnold (2014), Bert Stern (2013), Sam Shaw (2017), Linda McCartney (2020) and Barbara Klemm (2023), Dr. Christine Vogt has now established this as the fourth pillar of the LUDWIGGALERIE. Exhibitions by important Ruhr area photographers such as Rudolf Holtappel (2015) and Brigitte Kraemer (2016) were also presented.
The landmark gallery
accompanied in regular exhibition projects such as Parkstadt Oberhausen and Between Cabbage and Cypresses – Garden Art on the Emscher and Ruhr the process of structural change in the region and places it in an international context. The exhibitions always refer to the former coal and steel region, which has been transformed into a service center. Landmarks such as winding towers, chimneys or steelworks, which once shaped the face of the region, are disappearing. Others, such as the gasometer in Oberhausen or the winding tower of the Zollverein mine in Essen, have become new landmarks. The exhibitions presented other important aspects of structural change. AT-HOME with artistic positions on the topic of “Living in the Ruhr area” and Green city to the interconnected and damaged landscape of the region.
Estate of Rudolf Holtappel / Estate of Walter Kurowski
In 2017, the LUDWIGGALERIE collection was enriched with two extensive artists' estates that are of great importance for Oberhausen and the Ruhr region. The city of Oberhausen acquired both estates and, with the financial support of the Rhineland Regional Association, they were scientifically researched, digitized, inventoried and relocated for conservation purposes.
Rudolf Holtappel (1923–2013) from Oberhausen completed his master's degree in photography at the Chamber of Commerce in Düsseldorf in 1950 and has since worked as a photographer and photojournalist for numerous clients: Karstadt (1964-1995), Henkel (1974–2002), the Oberhausen Theater in the Günther Büch era (1961–1970) and Klaus Weise era (1992–2003), the Carl Lange Verlag, Babcock, Hüttenwerke Oberhausen AG (HOAG), Ruhrchemie, WDR, ZDF and has worked with fine printing techniques. His motifs have been offered for sale in auction houses and have won numerous awards. The Holtappel collection is made up of negatives in small format, medium and large format, over 10.000 negative sheets (around 360.000 individual negatives), slides (600 sheets), silver gelatin prints (over 5.000 pieces), C-prints, inkjet prints, 16 cityscape books for the Carl Lange Verlag or today Mercator-Verlag (mainly photographed monographically), documents, biographical material and the equipment from Holtappel's black and white photo lab.
Walter Kurowski (1939–2017) is the only city artist in Oberhausen to date. His life's work consists of a variety of artistic expressions from his more than 50 years of work. The estate of the award-winning graduate of the Folkwang School of Design in Essen includes almost 4.000 works, represented by paintings, lithographs, posters, caricatures and drawings. His works impress with their precise powers of observation, which can capture the character traits of a person depicted with just a few lines of the drawing or sometimes summarize political situations drastically. His drawings announcing the musicians at the Jazz Carousel in Oberhausen are legendary. His nude pictures reveal a deep understanding of human anatomy and the large-format paintings on the demise of mines in the Ruhr area are testament to an eventful time. As one of Germany's most important caricaturists in the 1970s and 1980s, he fought alongside workers for peace and justice and against oppression and exploitation.
