The collections of the Art History Department at the Institute for Art History and Musicology (IKM, Institut für Kunstgeschichte und Musikwissenschaft) include more than 100 casts, around 600 original works (graphics, paintings, autographs and sculptures), over one million work images (reproduction graphics, slides, negatives, photographs, postcards, etc.), some historical devices and approx. 1,000 typescripts (examination papers).
Parts of the cast collection come from the former “Mainzer Bürgerverein für plastische Kunst” (founded in 1871), which collected plaster copies of the most famous sculptures.
After World War II, the remains of the heavily damaged collection were donated to Johannes Gutenberg University Mainz and distributed to the Institutes of Art History and Classical Archaeology. Originally, the collection was used for teaching purposes; today it has a documentary character and represents the canon of artworks that were of particular interest around 1900. Among the preserved works are casts of Michelangelo’s Moses (housed in the Georg Forster Building Library), the donor figures Uta and Ekkehard from the Naumburg Cathedral, the Hallgarten Madonna, and the bust of the Florentine merchant Pietro Mellini by Benedetto da Maiano.
A collection of copies of early Christian and Byzantine mosaics (today partly displayed in the stairwell of the Georg Forster Building) was commissioned to furnish the newly reopened Institute of Art History building in 1960 (formerly located at Binger Straße 26) by the then director of the Institute of Art History, Prof. Friedrich Gerke. The collection served both as immediate reference material and as a practical tool for academic training. The copies were produced after World War II in workshops in the Ravenna area.
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From the teaching practice of art history emerged the collection of large and small slide formats. Along with the projection equipment, the slides illustrate both the teaching techniques used in art history and the canon of artworks presented. Together with the holdings of the photo library, it constitutes an important part of Mainz’s specialist history. Of particular interest is the collection of color slides documenting wall and ceiling paintings commissioned by the Nazi regime between 1943 and 1945. These color slides have been on loan to the “Bildarchiv Foto Marburg” since 1998 and can be accessed online via the “Zentralinstitut für Kunstgeschichte” in Munich.
The collections of prints, drawings and posters were donated to the Institute. The collection includes works by notable artists like Erich Heckel, Karl Hofer, and Hans Purrmann, along with a group of works by the Arbeitsgemeinschaft Pfälzer Künstler (APK) from the 1950s.
From the Collection
A matter of opinion!
Grand Teachings in Compact Form: Great Berlin Pyxis
A matter of opinion!
A Mysterious Announcement
Object of the Month November 2014
Postwar Dance
Object of the Month September 2013
The Mosaics in the Atrium
