Friedrich Nerly - von Erfurt in die Welt

In the organizer's words:

No other German painter transformed the image of Venice as profoundly as the Erfurt-born landscape painter and Venetian by choice Friedrich Nerly (1807-1878), whose studio became the first port of call for Venice enthusiasts arriving from all over the world for decades. Hardly anyone knows that Nerly's pictorial inventions still shape our perception of this extraordinary city today. The major exhibition "Friedrich Nerly - From Erfurt to the World" has set itself the goal of rediscovering this painter, whose importance has not been recognized for a long time.

Friedrich Nerly in Venice - a pioneer and trendsetter

Nerly owed his success to the development of the lagoon city into one of the first tourist-oriented "world cities". He was a master at asserting himself in a world that was now increasingly global. As a forerunner of the modern artist, he stepped out of the exclusive commissioned relationships and, as a German Romantic, fundamentally transformed the iconography of the lagoon city. More successful than the local veduta painters, his great talent enabled him to fulfill travellers' longing for painted souvenirs.

To this end, he expanded the Venetian pictorial canon and brought back breathtaking sunsets from his excursions to the lagoons. However, he owed his fame to no other pictorial invention as far-reaching as his invention of the Piazzetta in Venice by moonlight, with which he achieved an early worldwide success and transformed the lagoon city into a place of longing for European Romanticism.

After a research project lasting several years - first major Nerly exhibition at the Angermuseum

Almost 140 years ago, the donation of his main artistic estate led to the founding of the Angermuseum. As the result of a research and restoration project lasting several years, this major exhibition is the first to reveal his artistic paths anew, with many unknown works. Due to his early oil studies, Nerly has long been rightly regarded as a leading German open-air painter. Shortly after his arrival in Rome in 1828, he already created small masterpieces of astonishingly modern brilliance. But even during his successful years in Venice, he took on the role of a pioneer and trendsetter: he knew how to stage himself imaginatively in the unique setting of the lagoon city, building on the innovative aesthetic he had developed in Rome and, as an early open-air painter, creating small paintings of great modernity by day and night.

200 works provide new insights

The exhibition reconstructs a comprehensive picture of his unusual life's journey and his former international appeal. A large number of never-before-exhibited oil studies and brush drawings provide new insights into Nerly's bold painting practices, which will decisively change our view of the German Romantic painter.

With around 200 works - including outstanding loans from major German museums in Bremen, Hamburg, Berlin and Düsseldorf as well as important paintings from private collections - the exhibition will show how Nerly developed into a brilliant plein-air painter in Rome and the most famous foreign painter in Venice.

Audio guide

A web-based audio guide in German and English can be downloaded and used on visitors' smartphones via a QR code in the exhibition. A total of twenty stations offer interpretations of the works and background information.