TEFAF Maastricht 2024: Symbolism - New Horizons

For the 2024 edition of TEFAF Maastricht, the Oscar Graf Gallery is thrilled to unveil its latest exhibition devoted to the symbolist movement in Europe and America in the late XIXth and early XXth century. The gallery will be presenting a group of twenty previously unseen masterpieces of paintings, sculptures and decorative arts, from a variety of countries and in a variety of mediums, each of equal rarity, importance and relevance to the history of symbolism, in order to explore more fully the many roots, aesthetics and legacies of this very important art movement. Unlike many previous shows on the subject which focused solely on French and Belgian paintings and occasionally sculpture, this fascinating 2024 presentation aims to include many more European counties, as well as the United States, in association with rare pieces of decorative arts to offer a global symbolist atmosphere similar to a Gesamtkunstwerk or Total Work of Art. 

 

Over the last decade the Oscar Graf Gallery has specialized in rare European and American decorative arts and has explored in depth the origins, influences and connections between the Aesthetic and Pre-Raphaelite Movements, Art Nouveau, Arts and Crafts and Jugendstil. Several important pieces by leading designers, such as Edward Burne-Jones, Christopher Dresser, Charles Rennie Mackintosh, Josef Hoffmann, Richard Riemerschmid and Taxile Doat were acquired by major art institutions and private collectors around the world. In recent years however, the call for a more global understanding of this period led to a much anticipated expansion of the gallery towards fine arts and sculpture, focusing at first on bridging designers with known involvement in different artistic fields, such as Jean Carriès, Henry Van de Velde, François-Rupert Carabin, Gerhard Munthe, Georges de Feure etc.