Das Land der tausend Feuer. In­dus­trie­bil­der aus der Sammlung Ludwig Schönefeld

In the organizer's words:

The heavy industry of the Ruhr region has fascinated artists since the late 19th century. In their works, they captured the now often vanished plants, the changes to the landscape and the effects on people and the environment.

Industrial painting developed between the academic art movements and photography. From euphoric to critical, the paintings reflect various social and political attitudes towards industry. In addition to exterior and interior views, landscapes and depictions of workers, the exhibition shows their romantic and ideological traits and introduces individual artists.

The collector Ludwig Schönefeld comes from the Ruhr region. Over three decades, the communications expert and historian has collected industrial depictions by both well-known and unknown artists. Since 2022, the collection of over 1,500 objects has been in the care of the Ruhr Museum. Around 250 paintings and prints were selected for the exhibition.

The background

The Ruhr region has been shaped by industrialization more than almost any other region. It was industrialization that gave rise to the region as a unit and as an economically shaped reference area in the first place and turned what was once a sparsely populated, politically fragmented agricultural landscape into the largest industrial conurbation in Europe by the middle of the 20th century. The industrialization phase had a profound and lasting impact on the region: it shaped the population through immigration, shaped the region as a center for coal and steel, promoted other industries and created a comprehensive infrastructure.

Although the industrial age in the Ruhr region is now a thing of the past after decades of structural change, its effects - economic, ecological, social and cultural - can still be felt today.

The exhibition

The new special exhibition "The Land of a Thousand Fires. Industrial Paintings from the Ludwig Schönefeld Collection" is the Ruhr Museum's first exhibition on the image of the Ruhr region in art and invites visitors to discover the Ruhr region through the eyes of artists who documented the massive changes in the region at different times and in different styles.

It can be seen from April 7, 2025 to February 14, 2026 in the spectacular coal bunkers on the 12-meter level of the Ruhr Museum at the Zollverein UNESCO World Heritage Site.

Prof. Heinrich Theodor Grütter, Director of the Ruhr Museum, explains: "One of the most important tasks of a regional museum is to document people's memories and perceptions: How did contemporary witnesses experience industrialization? How did they perceive the transformation of the Ruhr region, its economic rise and subsequent decline? And what image did they associate with the once vibrant 'Land of a Thousand Fires'?"

The special exhibition with the industrial pictures from the Ludwig Schönefeld Collection deals with these questions. It creates a link between art and history and encourages reflection on the social, economic and ecological effects of industrialization. The 240 selected works show how artists have subjectively captured the transformation of the region and the associated challenges in their works. However, the selection also shows the range of artists. In line with the collector's intention, works by well-known artists, self-taught artists and anonymous creators are on display. The exhibition thus underlines the fact that it is not only the name and artistic reputation that determine the significance of an industrial painting for the history of the Ruhr region.

The pictures impressively reflect the euphoric, but also the critical, romantic and ideological attitudes towards industry. The pictures in the exhibition, created between 1890 and 2010, bear witness to the times when coal mining and steel production as well as heavy industrial mass production, but also labor disputes, poverty and damage to health and the environment were omnipresent in the Ruhr region. "The artistic examination of industry and the landscapes of the Ruhr not only reflects the economic and social changes in the region, but also the respective political and social attitude of the artists towards the industrialized working world," explains project manager and curator Dr. Reinhild Stephan-Maaser. "The pictures not only express the individual motivations and interests of the artists, but also the current social and political discourses on work and the relationship of people to progress and technology."

The exhibition is divided into 18 chapters according to pictorial themes and motifs. These include sections such as "Collieries and Coking Plants", "Underground" and "Industrial Romanticism". In the side rooms, special themes are explored in greater depth and individual personalities are presented who play a special role in the art scene of the Ruhr region - including Herman Heyenbrock as the oldest artist (1871-1948) and Alexander Calvelli (*1963) as the best-known living industrial painter.

Industrial painting in the Ruhr region

Industrial painting developed between the academic art movements and photography and conveys the different attitudes towards industry. Indeed, from today's perspective, the mostly positive view with which collieries, steelworks, coking plants and industrial ports were depicted as employers and sites of technical progress is astonishing. For a variety of reasons, artists and a few female artists of the time focused their attention on the phenomena of heavy industry - often against the trend towards abstraction in avant-garde art. Industrial painting was rarely a subject at the academies. The pictures also met with little interest from the affluent public. Many industrial paintings and prints were created as commissioned works for the boardrooms and print media of industrial companies. The artists' biographies often reveal further motives: Family influences, employment in a colliery or steelworks, love of home, but also social issues or the artistic challenge of depicting atmospheric elements such as fire, smoke and steam as well as a fascination with production processes were decisive factors.

Highly detailed scenes, for example from steel production, reveal everyday industrial life in a very unique aesthetic. Stylistically, the influence of Impressionism is noticeable in the depiction of light and color effects, for example in the scenes in the blast furnaces and coking plants. While paintings often idealized industry, advertising graphics emphasized the size and efficiency of the factories - workers were often depicted as small, anonymous figures in the wheels of production. These images shaped the industrial self-image of the Ruhr region and made technological progress visible.

Industrial painting also served political purposes. Industrial work was glorified as a symbol of national strength. Some artists depicted the harsh working conditions, others stylized workers into heroic figures. With the First World War, industrial painting became increasingly patriotic. The paintings from this period are often imbued with an idealized view of work and progress that barely addresses the harsh reality of everyday working life. Works from the National Socialist era glorify industrial achievement as a contribution to national greatness, establishing a close link between work and patriotism. The image of the hardened German worker as a hero was part of a broad National Socialist propaganda campaign.

After the Second World War, industrial painting came under critical scrutiny, particularly with regard to the role of artists in National Socialism. There was a general suspicion that industrial painters had supported the policies of the Nazi regime too uncritically. On the one hand, this led to a sharp decline in idealizing industrial painting and, on the other, to new artistic approaches to the subject of industry, such as abstract depictions. Finally, the structural change brought forth new industrial paintings that documented abandoned factories and increasing unemployment.