The Kreissparkasse (district savings bank) donates two large-format oil paintings to the museum
The Groß-Gerau City Museum has added two new works of art to its collection. The Groß-Gerau District Savings Bank recently donated two large-format oil paintings by the artist Erwin Bartussek to the museum.
The works were accepted by museum director Jürgen Volkmann shortly before his retirement, together with Mayor Jörg Rüddenklau and the chairman of the Friends of the City Museum, Klaus Meinke.
Artworks from the waiting area of the savings bank
The two paintings hung for many years in the waiting area for private customers of the Kreissparkasse (district savings bank). According to savings bank representative Bastian Locher, the idea of donating the works to the museum arose in a conversation with museum director Volkmann. Artworks should be displayed where people specifically go to engage with art and culture.
One of the paintings depicts a springtime tree with white blossoms against a distant range of hills. An ancient column is faintly visible in the foreground. The second painting resembles a dream: a mystical figure restrains a force of nature, protects a tree from a storm, and causes new shoots to emerge.
Artists with close ties to Groß-Gerau
Erwin Bartussek was born in 1913 in Teschen in North Moravia and studied art education and geography in Prague. After the Second World War, he came to Hesse and in 1949 became a teacher at the then Higher Civic School in Groß-Gerau, later the Prälat-Diehl-Gymnasium.
Bartussek designed a mural in the assembly hall of what is now the Goethe School in Groß-Gerau. He also founded several working groups, including a pottery club.
Perspective for an exhibition
Klaus Meinke, who knew Bartussek as a teacher, remembered him as a calm and friendly educator. Museum director Volkmann also placed Bartussek in the same category as other artists from Groß-Gerau, such as the genre painter Wilhelm Altheim and the color field painter Gerd Winter.
According to Volkmann, the museum's support association plans to organize an exhibition of works by Bartussek in the future. The museum is already in contact with the artist's daughters, who manage his estate.
(GROSS-GERAU – RED/PSGG)
Featured image: Jürgen Volkmann, long-time museum director of Groß-Gerau; Klaus Meinke, chairman of the museum's support association; Mayor Jörg Rüddenklau; and Bastian Locher, Director of Private Clients at the Groß-Gerau District Savings Bank (from left), at the handover of paintings by the painter and art teacher Erwin Bartussek, who worked in the district capital for many years, to the museum. Photo: Groß-Gerau District/Jörg Monzheimer
