Carl Kuntz. Between Idyll and Reality

The graphic art of Carl Kuntz established the Kunsthalle Mannheim’s collection: His works bear the first inventory numbers. The opening of the new building provides a welcome opportunity to honor the creations of this Mannheim painter with an exhibition. The most significant works in his estate had been restored, thanks to support from the Landesstelle für Museumsbetreuung Baden-Wuerttemberg and several private donors.
Carl Kuntz belongs to the mediators between the classical painting of the late eighteenth century and the increasingly realistic painting of the nineteenth century. Influenced by his teacher Johann Jakob Rieger, who dedicated himself to Dutch landscape painting, Kuntz orients himself towards artists such as Adrian van de Velde and Heinrich Roos, among others. At the same time, Kuntz’s works can be situated in the tradition of the ideal landscape and artists such as Claude Lorrain. The exhibition focuses on sketches of a study trip to Italy and on southern German landscape motifs, which Kuntz executed as simple pencil sketches, watercolors, and gouaches. He became famous primarily for his aquatint etchings – refined in terms of both technique and motifs – of Nicolas de Pigage’s buildings in the gardens of the Schwetzingen Palace. To accompany the exhibition, the artistic estate of Carl Kuntz will gradually be made available online.

Curator: Dr. Thomas Köllhofer