Under the title “SCHUMACHER-AFRICA – Schumacher’s paintings in dialog with large-scale sculptures from the Niger delta“ we will confront Schumacher’s abstract-expressionist paintings with the expressive sculptures of the Ibo, Urhobo and Ijo cultures.

Emil Schumacher adored and admired African art. Although he was no collector in the strictest sense, he always surrounded himself and lived with African artifacts. In his workshop as well as his home he displayed African masks and figurines. He was not interested in predominantly elegant creations, but in the archaic, angular Africa.

This observation is the basic idea of the exhibition. It wants to point out the amazing aesthetic parallels between Schumacher’s imagery and the sculptures of three Westafrican peoples, without necessarily devising a direct connection. The dialog in the exhibition „Schumacher-Africa“ arises from the total autonomy of Schumacher’s, as well as the anonymous African artists’, works.

The exhibition takes place in an important location for the European perception of African art. In Hagen, more than 100 years ago, Karl Ernst Osthaus, the founder of the Folkwang Museum (nowadays located in Essen) was the first museum director to show African art not merely as anthropological artifacts, but because of their importance as works of art. As of August 2009, the newly constructed Emil Schumacher Museum and the Osthaus Museum Hagen with its historic old building, the first art museum to present African art in Europe, form the Hagen Kunstquartier.