Following Damascus... Osthaus and the Islamicate Collection

A New Survey of Osthaus's Legacy

Museum Folkwang pivots toward Karl Ernst Osthaus and his early twentieth-century collecting habits. The new show, Following Damascus... Karl Ernst Osthaus and the Arts of the Islamicate World, opens six November 2026 and closes twenty-one February 2027. Around three hundred and forty pieces sit at the heart of the display. Ceramics, textiles, glassware and Islamic metalwork trace the acquisition strategy of the museum's founder. Osthaus died in nineteen twenty-one. Acquisition policies evolved. His vision still dictates how the institution frames cross-cultural exchange today. This marks the first complete survey dedicated to his former department and its lingering presence within the modern Folkwang structure.

Travel ledgers from eighteen ninety-eight mark the starting point. Long before Renoir or Van Gogh entered any public collection, Osthaus moved through North Africa and West Asia. He gathered applied arts spanning four to nineteenth centuries. A stop in Syria proved particularly formative. These journeys cemented his identity as a collector. They also quietly reshaped the broader Folkwang concept. By nineteen nineteen, the Islamic Department had taken its final shape in Hagen. It stood alongside the earliest dedicated collections of its kind across the German-speaking world. The curatorial team has reconstructed this trajectory using archival documents, purchase receipts and early installation photographs.

The current layout maps those early routes. Purchases made in the Maghreb and the Ottoman Empire feature prominently. Attendance at the Munich exhibition Masterpieces of Muhammedan Art in nineteen ten marks another turning point. War-era display notes surface alongside records tracking how the collection adapted after Osthaus's death. Loans bring additional weight to the narrative. A seventeenth-century Persian Shāhnāma manuscript arrives from Berlin. A timber beam from the so-called Damascus Room, currently held in Dresden, also travels to Essen. Both objects anchor the historical timeline. Provenance shifts constantly.

Historical artefacts enter direct conversation with European modernism. Henri Matisse contributes a painting. Peter Behrens supplies a textile pattern. Johan Thorn Prikker offers mosaic designs while Bruno Taut presents an architectural scheme. Photographs drawn from the Folkwang publishing circle illustrate the breadth of early institutional networks. Ornamentation remains a central thread, linking Islamic architectural tiles and woven fabrics to early twentieth-century design theory. Palestinian-Saudi artist Dana Awartani rounds out the programme. Her contemporary practice interrogates the historical framework while exposing lingering Eurocentric blind spots. The display refuses to treat these traditions as isolated archives. Instead, it positions them as active participants in a wider visual conversation.

Financial backing comes from several major trusts. The Art Mentor Foundation Lucerne, the Karin and Uwe Hollweg Foundation, the Cultural Foundation of the German Federal States, the Ernst von Siemens Art Foundation and the Art Foundation North Rhine-Westphalia all contribute. Standard entry costs fourteen euros. Concessions drop to ten. Press visitors may attend on Wednesday four November at eleven am, with the public opening following on Thursday five November at seven pm. Tuesday through Sunday hours run from ten am to six pm, extending to eight pm on Thursday and Friday. Monday doors remain shut.