To mark the 500th anniversary of the death of Hans Holbein the Elder (1465 – 1524), the art collections and museums in the rooms of the Schaezlerpalais are dedicating a special exhibition to the work of the painter and draughtsman in his home town for the first time in almost 60 years. The older Holbein was last shown in Augsburg in 1965 on the 500th anniversary of his birth: So it is time to exhibit this master of German art from around 1500 again and thus pay tribute to the father of the more famous son – Hans Holbein the Younger (1497/98-1543).
Holbein’s work will not be presented in a classic solo exhibition, but in the context of those fellow artists with whom he created the conditions for Augsburg to develop into a European art metropolis around 1500. Masterpieces from the late Middle Ages and early Renaissance provide an insight into a period in which Augsburg became a leader in the field of fine art.
The exhibition spans the arc from Holbein’s origins in a family of tanners, through individual artistic stages, right up to his final years, which were influenced by Grünewald’s Isenheim Altarpiece. High-quality loans from Berlin, Munich, Vienna and private collections enrich our own holdings, which are otherwise not exhibited for conservation reasons. After more than ten years, two drawings from the famous “Kleine Klebeband”, which Augsburg acquired in conjunction with the Berlin State Museums and numerous foundations, are also on display.
