Eggert Gustavs Museum

Description

The "Eggert Gustavs Museum in the Old Smithy" opened in 2019 in Kloster on the island of Hiddensee. After careful renovation and an expansion with an archive annex in 2022, the Eggert Gustavs Society e.V. was awarded the Friedrich-Lisch Monument Prize 2023 of the state of Mecklenburg-Vorpommern.

The private museum presents original works by the artist in a wide variety of techniques (watercolor, linocut and woodcut, brush and reed-pen drawings, oil, pastel, pencil, glass print), figurative wood carvings, printing plates, photo and film recordings, as well as an exhibition on the history of the listed smithy building. The preserved tools, the forge and the line-shaft drill press testify to the long craft tradition of blacksmithing on the island of Hiddensee.

In his impressive watercolors and masterful woodcuts Gustavs confines himself to the essential. Also in portraiture and caricature he pursued his aim of capturing the typical with spare artistic means. He was fascinated, as he put it, by the "face of the landscape" and the "landscape of the face."

Eggert Gustavs — son of the island pastor and ancient Near Eastern scholar Lic. Arnold Gustavs — was born in the parsonage on Hiddensee. At a young age he went to Hamburg to the State Art School and to the Bauhaus in Berlin. From 1934 onward he followed his own path — as a self-taught and freelance artist.

On the occasion of the artist's 100th birthday, the Eggert Gustavs Society e.V. was founded in 2009 and his life's work was honored with the publication of the book "Eggert Gustavs – Life and Work of a Hiddensee Artist." The museums in Neuruppin and on Hiddensee held extensive exhibitions, as did the Royal Art Circle in Barcelona in 2010.

The renovation and expansion of the Old Smithy, the construction of the functional annex, the solar roof, the terrace, the air conditioning, the scanner and the tea kitchen were supported with public funds: https://www.eggert-gustavs.de/