The house and its collection
The Barkenhoff is an authentic setting. Heinrich Vogeler created, in a number of construction phases, a perfectly designed house, a total work of Jugendstil art. For a few years, while it was the residence of the Vogeler family, the Barkenhoff was also the artistic and social focal point of the Worpswede artists’ colony until the idyll – as well as the artist’s family – broke up.
Rainer Maria Rilke, friend and frequent guest of Vogeler at the Barkenhoff, wrote the house motto on the north gable: “Light is its fate / the Lord being only the heart and the hand / of the lodge with the linden in the land / so be his house / shaded and great” .
After Vogeler’s shift to communism, the house became the scene of various experiments in establishing a model of socialist life, such as a work school and a children’s home of the Red Aid. After years of private use, it has been open to the public since 1981 as the Heinrich-Vogeler-Museum.
The museum’s collection retraces this history. The collection of the Heinrich-Vogeler-Museums encompasses a wide range of works from all genres. In addition to oil paintings and graphic works, it also houses works of applied art, such as jewellery, porcelain and furniture.
The exhibition in the Heinrich-Vogeler-Museum provides an ideal opportunity to study the chronology of Heinrich Vogeler’s artistic development. At the same time, the exhibition also focuses on the works of Heinrich Vogeler as documenting the great upheavals in the history of the 20th century up to the Second World War. In the individual rooms of the exhibition space, the eventful history of the former artist’s residence, the biography and the artistic work of Heinrich Vogeler are vividly presented by a short film, paintings, graphic works, valuable decorative art objects, artist books and book illustrations.
Thanks to the generous loan of works by the Prussian Cultural Heritage Foundation in conjunction with the Berlin State Museums and National Gallery, it has been possible to present Heinrich Vogeler in the museum dedicated to him and in all aspects of his art.
