100 years of griffelkunst – A declaration of love

Part 7

Duration: May 17, 2026 – June 07, 2026
„Engel und Teufel haben sich richtig lieb“ (translated: Angels and Devils Really Love Each Other) is the title of an issue by Blalla W. Hallmann and offers a good introduction to the seventh volume of this series. The works featured here fall under broad categories such as chaos, provocation, and protest. As an artist who pushed boundaries, Hallmann certainly defied conventions and the “presentable” in a unique way. A fine example of historical photography is Denise Bellon, whose 1938 photos depict the 3rd Surrealist Exhibition in Paris, featuring Dalí (A1) and André Masson (A4). In addition to Anna and Bernhard Blume, who depict a bourgeois, cheerfully surreal world set in the dying German Black Forest of the 1980s, the exhibition also features hidden-object paintings by Moritz Schleime, the secret places and fantastical journeys of Daniel Roth, as well as works by Stankowski and Schwontkowski and Dückerhoff’s technically elaborate prints, in which an additional, ghostly layer becomes visible.

1. Denise Bellon
2. Anna und Bernhard Blume
3. Jürgen von Dückerhoff
4. Blalla W. Hallmann
5. Daniel Roth
6. Moritz Schleime
7. Norbert Schwontkowski
8. Anton Stankowski

Part 6

Duration: April 19, 2026 – May 10, 2026
The overarching theme of the sixth exhibition in our series “100 Years of Griffelkunst” is “Architecture.” The photos by Heidi Specker (Kleine Kirche) are a prime example of brutalist concrete architecture, which makes the church in Nevers, France, appear more like a bunker than a house of worship. Stephen Wilks offers us insights into everyday urban environments, while Elisabeth Neudörfl lets us watch small rural settlements in the U.S. pass by as if in a film. Petra Wunderlich shows us a disused quarry that once provided the stone for palaces and places of worship, as well as sculptures and columns. And Oliver Boberg turns his gaze to non-places and passageways such as roadside verges, no-man’s-lands, or deserted small-town streets. These are obscure situations that hardly anyone consciously notices, and yet they are omnipresent.

1. Oliver Boberg
2. Elisabeth Neudörfl
3. Heidi Specker
4. Stephen Wilks
5. Petra Wunderlich

Part 5

Duration: March 22, 2026 – April 12, 2026
We are now launching the fifth edition of our small exhibition series. This time, the central theme is the intersection of “nature and culture.” Prominent among the works are the historical photographs by Karl Blossfeld, the “(school) blackboard drawings” by Joseph Beuys, the series “Sommer wie Winter” by Walter Dahn, and the photograms by Eske Schlüters. Mark Dion’s educational charts and Walter Dahn’s CD give an impression of just how broad the Griffelkunst publication program is.

1. Joseph Beuys
2. Karl Blossfeldt
3. Walter Dahn
4. Mark Dion
5. Alfred Ehrhardt
6. Marten Lange
7. Eske Schlüters

Part 4

Duration: February 22, 2026 – March 15, 2026
In the last exhibition, we showed editions from the late 1960s, when a professional jury proposed and selected the artists. Nothing has changed in this regard to this day. In Part 4, we show works from the most recent selections.

1. Kerstin Brätsch
2. Sven Johne
3. Jonathan Monk
4. Marcel Odenbach
5. Katharina Sieverding
6. Jorinde Voigt
7. Johannes Wohnseifer

Part 3

Duration: January 18, 2026 – February 08, 2026
In the late 1960s, Griffelkunst established a professional advisory board that proposed artists, from which a jury made the final selection. We present some examples from this "beginning" of today's Griffelkunst in our third exhibition.

1. Bernd and Hilla Becher
2. Marcel Broodthaers
3. Christo (Christo Javatscheff)
4. Sigmar Polke
5. Gerhard Richter
6. Dieter Roth
7. Fred Sandback

Part 2

Duration: November 23, 2025 – December 21, 2025
In the second exhibition in our series, we are showing particularly typical works by several “world champion artists” from the late 1990s from a private collection in Cologne. These are works by

1. Peter Doig
2. Nan Goldin
3. Kiki Smith
4. Michel Majerus
5. Ralf Peters
6. Thomas Schütte
7. Peter Piller
8. Sigmar Polke

Part 1

Duration: October 12, 2025 – November 16, 2025
Our exhibition series begins with the first stylus artworks from the early 1990s from a private collection in Cologne. On display are works by

1. Dan Asher
2. Günter Förg
3. Hubert Kiecol
4. Asta Gröting
5. Moholy Nagy
6. Georg Herold
7. Martin Noell

Griffelkunst was founded in 1925 by Karl Böse, a primary school teacher from Hamburg. At the beginning of the 1900s, the idea was to bring art closer to the public in the form of inexpensive graphic prints.

The Griffelkunst Association was founded at the Langenhorn primary school, now known as the Fritz Schumacher School. At an annual meeting, the association members at that time were able to choose from several editions by a single artist.

Today, 100 years later, the Griffelkunst Association has 4,500 members and is organized into 88 local groups. For the current membership fee of €200, each member receives four prints, which can be selected every six months from six artists and six prints each. Members can purchase additional sheets at the current price of €45, as well as additional sheets or objects from special editions. The print run of each edition depends on the number of orders placed by members.

We at Haus Mödrath are enthusiastic about the idea of making art accessible to everyone at an affordable price, thereby demonstrating that good art in one's own home is not reserved for the super-rich. With the opening of Haus Mödrath in 2017, we were able to found a Griffelkunst group for Kerpen. Any citizen of Kerpen and the Erft district can become a member of our Griffelkunst group.

To mark the 100th anniversary of Griffelkunst, we are now able to display a total of almost 300 Griffelkunst works from the past 35 years from a private collection in Cologne in our studio for a period of four weeks under the title “Eine Liebeserklärung” (A Declaration of Love).

Admission to the Griffelkunst exhibition is free.