Even today, the idea persists that there were hardly any female artists until well into the 20th century — especially hardly any female sculptors. Names such as Käthe Kollwitz, Renée Sintenis or Milly Steger are usually mentioned as rare exceptions, similar to Paula Modersohn-Becker or Gabriele Münter in painting. They are often described as “solitary phenomena” and pushed into the shadow of their male colleagues in exhibition histories. The cabinet exhibition “No friend of…” at the Gerhard-Marcks-Haus in Bremen resolutely opposes this view and redirects attention to a previously overlooked generation of female sculptors.
The focus is on Hanna Koschinsky (1884–1939), an artist who worked at the cutting edge of modernism with a clear eye and a keen sense of sculptural form. Her works attracted attention at European sculpture hotspots during her lifetime, but her name soon disappeared from the public eye. The exhibition unfolds a network of female sculptors around Koschinsky, who at the beginning of the 20th century confidently and independently formulated artistic positions — far from being categorised as “students” or “companions”. “No Friend of…” is thus also a contribution to art historical justice: it shows that female sculpture played a formative role long before the middle of the century.
