For a century, Hamburg's Griffelkunst Association has been removing graphic works by renowned artists from the commercial art market through a unique membership system that prohibits resale. The Hamburg and Bremen art halls are celebrating this milestone anniversary with comprehensive exhibitions showcasing the organization's revolutionary approach to art distribution.
The concept of "100 Pictures for 100 Years" may not be entirely new, but it perfectly suits the centennial celebration of Hamburg's Griffelkunst Association. Reflecting the passage of time through published graphic works fits an organization that remains unique worldwide in its form and mission. Founded by art teacher Johannes Böse, the association aimed to bring authentic art to less affluent households in the newly built residential area of Hamburg-Langenhorn, following the social democratic popular education ideals of the Weimar Republic – the same era that saw the establishment of adult education centers in 1919 and the Book Guild in 1924.
Since Griffelkunst, founded in 1925, has always maintained ideological and sometimes personnel connections with the Hamburg Art Hall, the largest anniversary exhibition is taking place there under the somewhat oddly English title "And so on to infinity," which expresses hopes for eternity. Curator Corinne Diserens has selected an additional 370 works from the edition program, which since 1970 has also included photographs and occasionally multiples, to complement the 100 sheets described in detail in the catalog on the inner wall of the third floor of the Gallery of the Present.
This diversity in small format may be barely comprehensible as a whole, but it illustrates the breadth of the endeavor to bring original art to currently 4,500 collectors. The signed editions are not reproductions but originals specially designed for various reproduction techniques. Affordable and unlimited up to the level of respective order intake, they exist outside the logic of the art market with a strict prohibition on resale. The first statutes stipulated that individual income of subscribers should preferably not exceed a middle civil servant's salary.
During the Nazi era, the Reich Chamber of Culture abolished this wealth limit but ultimately approved of the association. Although Johannes Böse had to join the NSDAP in 1937 and once published an edition featuring Hitler's image, he maneuvered the association through the war years with uninterrupted regular editions despite material shortages and printing house destructions. Böse also commissioned artists who were unwanted by the party, former Hamburg Secessionists like Ivo Hauptmann, Willem Grimm, Friedrich Ahlers-Hestermann, Eduard Bargheer, and even the socially critical A. Paul Weber, albeit with motifs that could not be suspected of being "degenerate." Until his death in 1955, the founder remained the sole decision-maker in a steadily growing association publishing house.
What began with an etching of a peat worker by a local artist in a small workers' association has now become the world's largest graphics publisher and an art institution. Around 1,000 young and established international artists from today's entire spectrum, from Georges Adéagbo to Gerhard Richter, from Joseph Beuys to Jonathan Meese, have designed works for the association. However, the most represented artists were rather conservative: 220 sheets by A. Paul Weber and 122 by Horst Janssen were distributed. Re-editions of avant-garde photographs from respective estates are also very popular.
Since everything has been designed around communication about original art from the beginning, the mass production is preceded by the presentation of printed proposals for selection in the 90 volunteer-run association groups throughout Germany. The smallest group is located on Helgoland island. Eleven full-time Griffelkunst employees then handle the production of orders and distribution of desired works per quarter in Hamburg.
The curious name is borrowed from Max Klinger, the Leipzig Symbolist who particularly valued printmaking and summarized everything from the engraving burin to numerous drawing pencils under the term "Griffel" (stylus). The Bremen Art Hall emphasizes this derivation in its special Griffelkunst exhibition, showing Klinger's famous graphic series "A Glove," Opus VI from 1881, supplemented with 60 other narrative works from the association's program. This connection is fitting since the association's founder Johannes Böse was born in Bremen in 1879 and only went to Hamburg as an elementary school teacher in 1902.
The "Black Arts" – traditional printing processes including woodcut and etching, lithography and screen printing – were included in the German UNESCO Commission's national list of intangible cultural heritage in 2018. To prevent these techniques from being forgotten in the digital world, Griffelkunst invites artists twice yearly with scholarships for traditional printing techniques in workshops in Hamburg and near Berlin. Perhaps young ideas will continue to find intensive encounters in everyday living environments, exactly as the association's founder intended.
