The Social Network

Guestbooks of the Art Collector Franz Moufang

From July 28 until October 22, 2023 the Mark Twain Center is showing a small exhibition in its Kaminzimmer, dedicated to Heidelberg’s art collector Franz Moufang (1893–1984). The exhibition is one of three smaller satellite shows that form part of the exhibition “The Social Network. Guest Books of the Art Collector Franz Moufang” (June 10 – August 8, 2023) proposed by the Heidelberger Kunstverein. Among these satellite shows are also an exhibition in the University Museum (June 30 – December 31, 2023) and an exhibition in the University Archives (September 19 – December 31, 2023).

The Kunstverein's exhibition focuses on the phenomenon of Moufang’s networks, while the satellite shows will offer further interpretations of this topic: His interests and activities were the foundation on which Moufang established ties between different institutions. In an analogy to that, the different exhibitions dedicated to him across the city will now be linked.

The Mark Twain Center’s exhibition focuses on Franz Moufang’s contacts to the US. As Director of the Office of Cultural Affairs of the City of Heidelberg and within the framework of his extensive cultural and political work, between 1945 and 1951, he was in contact with different heads of America houses that had been established in Germany by the US. In cooperation with the America House Heidelberg (today DAI), he organized exhibitions of contemporary Heidelberg artists. Moufang’s guestbooks, which are on display at the Kunstverein and the Mark Twain Center, are a testament to the fact that his professional life and personal life were often inextricably linked. He knew many of the artists that exhibited at the America House Heidelberg in person, sometimes they were friends his. Among them were prominent figures that lived outside of Heidelberg and Germany, like the expressionist painter Josef Scharl (1896–1954), who sought refuge from the Nazis and fled to the US in 1938 and whose works Moufang regularly bought after 1947. When Josef Scharl arrived in the US, the famous physicist Albert Einstein (1879–1955) helped him get settled and they went on to become friends. In the context of Scharl's death in 1954, Moufang also corresponded with Einstein.