Works by Belgian

Works by Belgian and French sculptors such as Constantin Meunier, Charles van der Stappen, Albert Bartholomé, Alexandre Charpentier and Emmanuel Frémiet follow. Within a few years, an extraordinary collection of international contemporary sculpture – including numerous plaster casts – is assembled in Dresden. 

However, this new development does not meet with universal approval. The controversy flares up particularly fiercely in 1901 over the purchase of a monumental plaster cast of Albert Bartholomé’s “Monument aux morts”, which has previously been exhibited at the International Art Exhibition in Dresden. Dresden sculptors protest in an open letter: they accuse the museum of spending too much money on French art, whilst paying too little attention to local artists. This dispute highlights just how contentious the issue of embracing international trends is, and how passionately people are already debating, even back then, what kind of art museums should be collecting and promoting. 

With the exhibition “The Great Drama: Auguste Rodin and the Debate over Modernism”, the Albertinum now places this extraordinary collection in the spotlight. Around 70 sculptures, as well as medals, plaques, photographs, paintings and letters, bring the aesthetic upheaval of those years to life. They tell of cross-border networks, of courage and resistance, of fierce debates over the new art – and of how, around 1900, Dresden becomes a major centre of European modernism with a world-class collection.