From November 17, 2022 to February 5,2023, the museum Center for Persecuted Arts exhibits works of art and artifacts from Oscar Zügel's estate. These testify to the artist's diverse oeuvre and at the same time provide insights into his life marked by migrations. Part of the estate was purchased in 2017 with funds from the Federal Government Commissioner for Culture and Media following a decision by the German Bundestag. The so-called “Oscar reins archive”, consisting of 315 file folders, came to Solingen in 2018 as a result of the will of daughter Katja Zügel.

For the museum Center for Persecuted Arts with his eventful life and anti-fascist stance, Oscar Zügel (1892-1968) is an important representative of the collection, which the house has been working intensively on for several years. Through the funding line Research traineeships at Kunstmuseen NRW The state of North Rhine-Westphalia was able to set up its own office in 2020 to develop the estate. The research results are presented to the public for the first time at the exhibition. Research is understood as a process, and the exhibition as a first interim state. In the exhibition, paintings and drawings correspond with testimonies from the archive, which always focuses on Oscar Zügel himself.

As a freelance, modern artist who despised National Socialism, his life was defined by serious upheavals and marked by new beginnings across several continents. In 1933 Oscar and Margarita Zügel sold their belongings in Stuttgart and left National Socialist Germany and thus also friends and family. He had lifelong friendships with intellectual companions such as Josef Albers, Willi Baumeister and Franziska Sarwey. Arriving in Tossa de Mar, Spain, Zügel found his artistic heyday in the circle of other artists such as André Masson and used his means to express his inner stance against National Socialist and Fascist ideology in his art and beyond. In this way, he created time-critical icons such as the “Icarus” and helped Stuttgart writer Fred Uhlmann find shelter from increasing anti-Semitic persecution. With the outbreak of the Spanish Civil War in 1936, Zügel experienced another break. Once again he became an emigrant and settled with his family in Argentina until he returned to his “second home” Tossa de Mar in 1950.

In addition to presenting works of art and archival materials, the exhibition will provide space for reflection and critical self-questioning: How do self-and external narratives about the artist relate to each other? Which narratives dominate and how are they possibly interfered with? Who shoots at what is passed down and who influences the interpretation? The exhibition should not be about showing a supposedly objective truth, but rather about negotiation processes in memory work, which we often face as researchers in museums.