The August Macke House in Bonn

Carl Heinrich Gerhardt, the father of August Macke’s wife Elisabeth, purchased the house in 1884 to store the archives of his firm next door. The house had been built in 1877/78 in late classicist style.

Upon Gerhardt’s death in 1907, Elisabeth Macke’s mother Sophie Gerhardt inherited the house. At the urging of son-in-law August and following his design, Sophie had the top floor redone as an artist’s studio. In February 1911 the young couple moved into the house, located at Bornheimer Strasse 88 (now 96), with their son Walter after a year’s stay in Tegernsee.

August Macke spent his most productive years here before his early death in 1914. This is where he created the largest part of his oeuvre (greatly exceeding 400 works). Looking out from the windows of the house, and especially from those of his studio, Macke observed, sketched, and painted life on the streets below and – again and again – the house’s magnificent garden.

This is where Macke received his artist friends, including Max Ernst, Robert Delaunay, Guillaume Apollinaire, Gabriele Münter, and Franz Marc. Together with Marc in October 1912 he painted the 4x2m mural entitled "Paradise" on the studio's walls. The work has since been removed from the house and now forms part of the Westfälisches Landesmuseum’s collection in Münster.

After Macke was killed in action in the early days of the first World War, the widowed Elisabeth married August’s childhood friend Lothar Erdmann in 1916. She lived in the house with him, her two sons by August Macke, and two children from her marriage with Erdmann. The family then moved to Berlin in 1925. The house was rented out, but not the studio.

Elisabeth lost her eldest son Walter in 1927. This was followed by the death of her second husband Lothar Erdmann in the Sachsenhausen concentration camp in 1939. After her home in Berlin was destroyed in an Allied bombing raid in 1943, Elisabeth found shelter in the small town of Kandern near the Swiss border and then on Lake Constance. In 1948 she returned to Bonn.

Her mother died in 1947 and left the house to Elisabeth who then moved into the studio, living there until 1975. At the age of 87, Elisabeth moved to Berlin to live with her children Dietrich and Constanze Erdmann, where she passed away in 1978.

After the relocation of the Macke/Marc mural to Münster in 1980/81 for lack of interest on the part of the city of Bonn, a building contractor from Berlin purchased the house with the idea of turning it into a pub.

A civic-action group founded by Dr. Margarethe Jochimsen, head of the nearby Bonner Kunstverein, succeeded in preventing the conversion of the Macke house and in 1988 secured its protection as a registered monument.

With funding from the state of North-Rhine/Westphalia and building contractor H. Hillebrandt, the city of Bonn purchased and restored the house. The studio has since been returned to its original condition.

The August Macke Haus opened its doors to the public on September 26, 1991 in a ceremony attended by North-Rhine/Westphalia Minister-President Johannes Rau. The Stiftung August Macke Haus der Sparkasse Bonn bears legal and financial responsibility for the house, while the Verein August Macke Haus, established in 1989, administers the artistic program.

In addition to the studio with paintings by August Macke and furniture used by him in Tegernsee, the house contains an archive of Rhenish Expressionism and a reference library. First and foremost, however, exhibitions on topics connected with Rhenish Expressionism are held in the house on a regular basis and documented in a catalogue series published by the Verein August Macke Haus. In the few years since its inception, the Museum August Macke Haus has established itself as an internationally recognized center for research on Rhenish Expressionism.

VEREIN AUGUST MACKE HAUS e. V.
Bornheimer Straße 96
53119 Bonn
Telefon: 0228 / 65 55 31
Fax: 0228 / 69 15 50
Mail: buero@august-macke-haus.de