19.10.2007 to 15.03.2008
During the first half of the 20th century, no other city in the Federal Republic of Germany paid such intense attention to medal art as Cologne. Ludwig Gies had worked at the Vereinigte Staatsschulen für freie und angewandte Kunst, the national school for fine and decorative arts in Berlin from 1917 through to 1933 (when he was expelled from his teaching post). In 1950, he became a teacher for sculpture at the Werkschulen in Cologne, where he passed on his passion for 'carving plaques' to numerous students. His most important successor in this special field of small-scale relief art was Karl Burgeff.
The exhibition presents acquisitions the Numismatic Collection was lucky to make in recent years, including the extensive bequests of Burgeff and Jochem Pechau, as well as important acquisitions of works by Gies and other sculptors working as medal artists. A comprehensive catalogue, covering works additional to those shown in the exhibition, documents the high artistic level of medal making in Cologne.
