Gerhard Marcks between music, poetry and sculpture

Gerhard-Marcks-Haus in Bremen is presenting ‘His Musicians and Poets’ until 20 September 2026. The exhibition centres on Gerhard Marcks’s engagement with music and literature across several decades.

Although Marcks described himself as having little musical understanding, he regularly attended concerts. His lively sketches of performers later became the basis for sculptures and prints. Between 1924 and 1959 he also returned repeatedly to the myth of Orpheus and responded to Friedrich Hölderlin’s poetry in woodcuts.

The exhibition offers an unusual perspective on an important twentieth-century sculptor with a strong Bremen connection. It also shows how drawing, sculpture, printmaking, music and poetry can interact within a single artistic practice.