Ilse Beate Jäkel

The Galerie Stadt Sindelfingen dedicates an entire year to the oeuvre of the artist Ilse Beate Jäkel (*1907 in Zwickau, 1982 in Stuttgart). On the occasion of the 40th anniversary of her death, the LÜTZE CABINET in the Jäkel Cabinet will be transformed.

Ilse Beate Jäkel was engaged throughout his life with the representation of landscapes and their effect and perception. Particularly interested in the artist, landscapes during certain weather conditions and seasons painterly reproduce. In some cases, she captured the changes in nature caused by the weather in several successive paintings. For this purpose, she reduced the motifs to a minimum and instead preserved the atmosphere in a painterly manner. Jäkel’s watercolors show landscapes from various parts of Europe. She traveled to a variety of countries during her lifetime, so areas of England, Holland, France, Italy, and Greece can be discerned in her motifs. Ilse Beate Jäkel is especially known for these works and atmospheric motifs. In this exhibition, the Galerie Stadt Sindelfingen presents selected watercolors that exemplify Jäkel’s working method.

Jäkel dispensed with metaphorical titles in her works and instead allowed the subjects depicted to come into their own. This reduction is enhanced in a special way by the aesthetic painting technique of the watercolors. A spontaneous brushstroke and a brisk working method are essential components. Watercolors are composed of highly concentrated color pigments and the water-soluble gum arabic as a binder, which gives Ilse Beate Jäkel’s watercolors additional luminosity and intensity.

A selection of her animal drawings is also intended to draw attention to the artist’s concentrated engagement with her environment and nature. Using discreet stylistic devices, she created studies of various animals in their respective characteristic postures. Through the matter-of-fact and in some ways rudimentary depiction in her sketches, the lion, penguin and swan are reduced to their essential characteristics.

The realistic animal drawings are complemented by animal sculptures by Fritz Behn, August Gaul, Philipp Harth and Otto Baum from the Lütze Collection.

Curated by Madeleine Frey