On November 23, 2018, the famous Dusseldorf gallery owner Alfred Schmela would have celebrated his hundredth birthday. To mark this occasion, the Kunstsammlung Nordrhein-Westfalen organised an exhibition that showed the wide-ranging network of this 'pioneer of the avant-garde.' The exhibition illustrated the international spectrum of the gallery's program, focusing on those central actors and art trends during the second half of the twentieth century - including Joseph Beuys, Nouveau Realisme, Pop Art, and ZERO - to whose success and expansion Alfred Schmela significantly contributed. In this publication selected works by renowned artists such as Yves Klein and Gerhard Richter, with whom Schmela collaborated from the beginning of their careers, are presented, along with fascinating documentary material.

Text in English and German.

Text by: Lena Bruning