1770: Elector Max III Joseph acceded to the petition of his court artists Franz Xaver Feichtmayr, Thomas Christian Winck and Roman Anton Boos and approved a “Zeichnungs Schule respective Maler- und Bildhauerakademie” (School for Drawing, Painting and Sculpture) in the former Cotta Palace on Hinteren Schwabinger Gasse (today: Theatiner Strasse 11).
1778: With the end of the Bavarian line of the Wittelsbach family, the new Elector Karl Theodor relocated his residence from Mannheim to Munich, bringing a retinue of circa 3,000 persons, including his classical court artists.
1783: The academy moved to the former Jesuit College (Wilhelminum) on Neuhauser Strasse.
1788: First exhibition in the new Hofgarten (court garden) gallery. Thirty-one students displayed copies of paintings by old masters.
1806: Johann Peter of longer, Director of the Düsseldorf Academy, submitted a plan for the future of the Munich Academy and took over as its director. Napoleon elevated Bavaria to a kingdom.
1807: On October 12, King Max I Joseph’s name day, philosopher Friedrich Wilhelm Joseph von Schelling held a speech entitled “The Relationship Between the Visual Arts and Nature”. He was appointed as general secretary of the academy and officially held this position until 1823. The Mannheim collection of antique casts, made famous by Goethe and Schiller’s visits, arrived in Munich. With approximately 200 casts, it became an “immediate attribute” of the academy.
1808: On May 13, a comprehensive and detailed constitution for the “Königliche Akademie der Bildenden Künste München” (Royal Academy of Fine Arts in Munich) was adopted. In addition to departments for painting, sculpture and engraving, a department of architecture was also set up. Schelling’s often emphasized (co-)authorship is uncertain.
1809: First records of students in the matriculation books.
1811: In June, Langer and Schelling announced the first “General and Public Art Exhibition” of the “Royal Bavarian Academy of Fine Arts”, which opened on October 12, the king’s name day.
1812: First nomination of honorary members. In addition to members of the court and government, Goethe, the sculptors Canova, Schadow and Thorvaldsen, as well as numerous international historical painters were appointed.
1813: The later historical painter Mary Ellenrieder became the first woman to matriculate in the academy. By 1839, some 50 female students (of circa 2,500 students total) were enrolled, before – as usual at other academies – they were finally categorically excluded. The matriculation conditions for women differed significantly for male students, however; they had to demonstrate outstanding abilities and achievements as well as provide high-level recommendations.
1815: King Max I Joseph allowed the academy to be given ten Gobelin tapestries based on frescoes by Raphael located in the Vatican. The large-format tapestries were hung in one of the antique rooms.
1825: Peter Cornelius, who was already working on the frescoes in the Glyptothek by order of Crown Prince Ludwig, was appointed head of the academy. As in Düsseldorf and Frankfurt, many former academy-critical “Deutsch-Römer” (German artists and literati who worked in Rome in the late 18th and 19th centuries) now occupied key positions in German art schools. As a supporter of historical painting, to which all other art genres should only contribute, Cornelius spoke out against the independence of genre and landscape painting, and after the retirement of Wilhelm von Kobell, completely eliminated the landscape class in 1826.
1828: New rules for students, for the organization and for personnel were published; the age of entry was raised from 13 to 14; the duration of study was limited to six years.
1835: After refusals by Bertel Thorvaldsen and Christian Daniel Rauch, Ludwig I appointed Ludwig von Schwanthaler to head an independent Munich school of sculpture.
1840: Gottfried Keller moved to Munich for two years to become a painter but was not enrolled. In “Grünen Heinrich” (Green Henry) he described a carnival procession of Munich artists in great detail.
1841: Architect Friedrich von Gärtner became head of the academy. He brought about various changes to the statutes, which among other things required students to take classes in art history. He tried unsuccessfully to reestablish a landscape painting class, which was prominently cultivated in other academies.
1846: Ludwig I decreed a new academy constitution. It for the first time awarded a German art academy the privilege of examining and certifying art teachers.
1852: As the only woman between 1839 and 1920, Elisabeth Ney was allowed to officially matriculate in sculpture.
1854: After studying in Düsseldorf and Antwerp, 22-year-old Wilhelm Busch matriculated in Munich.
1856: With appointment of the 30-year-old Karl von Piloty and the rapid loss of importance of the Dusseldorf academy after the departure of Schadow, Munich’s heyday began as the most attractive training center in Europe for historical painting.
1858: The Glaspalast (glass palace) was the site of the much acclaimed and financially successful “German General and Historical Art Exhibition”. The academy participated in the exhibition to celebrate its 50th anniversary.
1862: Maximilian II approved the abolition of the academy’s original purpose, which was to regularly organize exhibitions.
1866: The appointment of Arthur von Ramberg and later of Wilhelm von Diez (1872), Wilhelm von Lindenschmit d. J. (1875) and Franz von Defregger (1878) strengthened genre painting at the academy, without, however, elevating it to the rank of a class.
1868: The drawing school of the Association for the Education of the Trades (now Bavarian Artisans’ Association) was renamed the “Royal Art School of Applied Arts in Munich”. With this, the academy could finally rid itself of the role Maximilian II had assigned it in 1848 – providing an education in the applied arts – while still seeing itself at the top of the aesthetic hierarchy due to its orientation to the liberal arts. Later, plans to merge the two academies were often discussed but consistently rejected by the Academy of Fine Arts in Munich, even though it often lured away teachers and professors from the School of Applied Arts. Simultaneously, the new “Royal Polytechnic School” (today, the Technical University Munich), which took over the training of art teachers as well as architects, was established.
1869: Since mid-century, the academy had increasingly drawn more foreign students and became a model for academy start-ups in some of those students’ countries of origin, such as in Sofia. The Munich Academy was the undisputed artistic metropolis in a central European semi-circle ranging from Scandinavia and the Baltic countries to Russia, the Balkans and Greece and Italy. North American students – who had long preferred Dusseldorf – also began coming here. Between 1809 and 1920, with circa 400 matriculated students, they formed the highest proportion of foreign students, along with those from Poland and Hungary. In Polling, a small colony of American painters grew.
1872: Foundation of a separate department for women at the School of Applied Arts, which began training female art teachers.
1875: Ferdinand von Miller requested 800,000 guilders from the Bavarian state parliament for a new building. The reparations paid by France to the German Reich after the lost war of 1870/71 finally enabled two million guilders to be planned for construction.
Various locations were debated; Gottfried von Neureuther was finally commissioned to execute his design close to the Siegestor.
1877: Beginning of construction.
1880: Construction was discontinued for financial reasons.
1881: Defregger, Lindenschmit, Wagner and Müller moved their classes to completed rooms of the new building. During a fire at the spectacular artists’ festival “Trip Around the World”, nine students died because they could not take off their Eskimo costumes in time.
1882: Founding of an association of women artists that operated a "Ladies’ Academy" beginning in 1884. It required no entrance exam but required an annual tuition of 400 Marks (Academy: seven Marks). It offered women in Bavaria the first opportunity to systematically study art with a curriculum oriented to the academy’s. At the turn of the century, it maintained studios on Barer Strasse; in the summer, a landscape class was held in Seebruck at Lake Chiemsee.
1884: After a resolution of Munich citizens demanded completion of the new building, the necessary money was approved in April. The new academy building was able to be used by all departments by October.
1886: The new building was officially presented by Prince Regent Luitpold during the centenary celebration for Ludwig I. The facade to the street front remained unfinished. Instead of the expected 400 students, 552 were enrolled. The relocation changed the character of the artists’ quarter, which had been previously located outside of the Karlstor. Now, the academy extended this quarter into the northern Maxvorstadt and above all, into Schwabing. The early death of 59-year-old Piloty marked the end of the heyday of historical painting in Munich. Former academy student Simon Hollósy founded a private school, as did Heinrich Knirr shortly thereafter in 1888. Friedrich Fehr and Anton Ažbe followed in 1891; Paul Schultze-Naumburg in 1892; Kandinsky in 1901; Hans Hofmann in 1915 and many others.
1887: After the departure of Moriz Carrières, who had taught art history from 1854 on, this subject was only taught on a part-time basis until 1963.
1892: The “Munich Secession” broke away from the “Munich Artists’ Association”. One of its co-founders was the young professor Paul Höcker (appointed 1891). Under Director Ludwig von Löfftz, members were appointed to the Secession in a purposeful manner. The academy thus reoriented itself a few years after Piloty’s death and experienced a second heyday in the “Prince Regent Age” (1886–1912). With students such as Josef Albers, Giorgio De Chirico, Wassily Kandinsky, Paul Klee, Alfred Kubin, Franz Marc, Otto Mueller, Bruno Paul, Hans Purrmann, Christian Schad, Edwin Scharff, Max Slevogt, Lesser Ury or Albert Weisgerber – Emil Nolde’s application was rejected in 1898 – the academy now became a magnet for the generation that would begin to decisively influence modern art.
1895: After appointing Heinrich von Zügel to teach the newly established class in animal painting in the academy garden, a separate atelier was constructed of glass and iron that allowed animals to be painted under natural lighting conditions.
1898: Höcker had to leave the academy after a scandal developed due to his homosexuality.
1901: Thomas Mann's novella Gladius Dei, in which the academy “spread its white arms between Türkenstrasse and the Siegestor” was one example of the growing awareness of a crisis. In the same year, Hans Rosenhagen’s essay offered albeit premature, but in the end even more prophetic material for further discussion concerning Munich’s downfall as a center of art.
1907: With Hugo von Habermann (appointed 1905), Adolf von Hildebrand (1906) and Angelo Jank, Art Nouveau, modern neo-classicism and a moderate late Impressionism rounded out the academy’s offerings. These, however, marked the artistic limits that the academy would not move beyond in the following decades.
1911: Polish painter Zofia Stryjeńska matriculated under the name of her brother, Tadeusz Grzymała-Lubanski and studied in Hackl’s class, wearing men’s clothing. The academy was given a new constitution.
1912: The academy was given the gala and reception room that had been hoped for during the centenary festivities. It also received a spacious auditorium based on designs by Friedrich von Thiersch, whose dimensions were oriented to the “Raphael Frescoes”.
1913: Richard Riemerschmid was appointed director of the School of Applied Arts. During the next decade, he promoted his project of a unified arts school – an association that would include both the so-called fine arts and the applied arts. The academy resisted this with all of its means.
1914: Founding of the "New Secession", which included the later professors Bernhard Bleeker and Karl Caspar. The First World War began on August 1. Military authorities seized the academy rooms; the following year, flagpoles were put up in front of it.
1919: Proclamation of the “Räterepublik” (Soviet Republic) on April 7. Due to a power of attorney of Gustav Landauer, the "People's Representative of Public Enlightenment", the academy was closed in April. The students formed a committee and created a list of professors to be newly appointed. Teaching operations were canceled and the professors suspended. After suppression of the Soviet Republic, however, they were returned to their positions.
1920: For the first time since 1839, women could matriculate in the normal manner. Of the total 442 students matriculated in the winter semester, 70 were new; of these, 17 were women.
1922: Instead of Max Slevogt, Karl Caspar was appointed to succeed Heinrich von Zügel against the will of director Carl von Marr and some factions of the college. Caspar’s opponents found the moderate Expressionist to be too modern.
1924: The ministerial demand to work more closely with the School of Applied Arts finally ended up with government commissioner German Bestelmeyer taking over supervision of the school. Director Riemerschmid refused to accept this measure and had to vacate his post.
1933: Hitler seized power on January 30. Most academy professors signed the protest of the Richard- Wagner-City Munich, in which Thomas Mann was defamed. In accordance with the “Law for the Restoration of the Professional Civil Service”, professors had to provide proof of “Aryan” descent. Under the leadership of Josef Wackerle, the first “Day of German Art” pageant was held to celebrate the laying of the foundation stone for the “House of German Art” (later: Haus der Kunst) in March. At the resolution of the college, Hitler was awarded the new “Gold Medal for Services to the Arts”, presented on the day before the pageant. The academy constitution was to be supplemented by introduction of the “Führer” principle. New provisions on enrollment and study were adopted.
1934: Since the previous year, Adolf Ziegler had been under contract to teach painting technique. At the request of Hitler and against the will of the college, he was appointed as professor.
1935: Adoption of the “Nuremberg Laws”, which required citizens to register based on their “racial category”. 66 female students were matriculated; the number of “non-Aryan” student amounted to one to two per year until 1938. Bestelmeyer and Ziegler were appointed “Reich culture senators”; they were joined a year later by Wackerle.
1937: Goebbels authorized Ziegler to seize “decadent art from 1910” on from the museum inventory. Hitler appointed sculptor Josef Thorak in April as professor with the additional words, “I simultaneously assure you my personal protection”. The academy staff withdrew its request to designate Hans Gött as an honorary member after learning that his images had been removed from a preview of the “Major German Art Exhibition” at Hitler’s command. The propagandistic “Day of German Art” pageant – under the motto “2000 Years of German Culture” – was organized by later professors Hermann Kaspar and Richard Knecht. Under threat of an “inexorable cleansing” of modern artists, Hitler opened the first “Great German Art Exhibition” in the “House of German Art”. Among others, academy artists Bleeker, Gulbransson, Hahn, Jank, Thorak, Wackerle, Ziegler and Zügel were represented. Constantin Gerhardinger, Hermann Kaspar, Richard Knecht, Georg Müller, Anton (Toni) Roth and Franz Xaver Stahl, who also participated, joined the academy in following years. The “Degenerate Art” exhibition organized by Ziegler was hung in the Munich Hofgarten arcades. It included some paintings of the still acting professor Karl Caspar, who learned of his early retirement in this manner. The State School of Applied Arts also became an academy.
1938: At the Academy of Applied Arts, Walther Teutsch was dismissed because of his intermarriage to a Jewish woman. One year later, Carl Sattler was dismissed for the same reason, as well as was “half-Jew” Fritz Helmuth Ehmcke. At the intercession of Bestelmeyer, 68-year-old Julius Diez, also married to a Jewish woman, was released from his professorship at the Academy of Fine Arts in 1937 – ostensibly not due to his marriage but because he had reached retirement age. Hermann Kaspar, chief designer of the propagandistic “Day of German Art” pageantry between 1937 and 1939, was appointed to replace Diez. A favorite of Albert Speer, Kaspar was also given the job of interior decorator of the New Reich Chancellery. He also took over Karl Caspar’s remaining students.
1942: Bestelmeyer died, receiving a pompous state funeral. Bernhard Bleeker temporarily took over as academy director.
1943: Ziegler was arrested and interned for about six weeks in the Dachau concentration camp for “detrimental behavior to the country”. He was removed from his service as a professor and president of the Imperial Chamber of Fine Arts. In 1944, he was retired at Hitler’s personal instructions, retaining his retirement pay until the war ended.
1944: The academy was destroyed during an air raid in July. It burned to the ground except for the perimeter walls and vaulted ceilings on the ground floor. This annihilated the archive, the extensive costume collection and large parts of the plaster cast collection. In October, all art schools were officially closed.
1945: In October, all former members of the Nazi Party and Nazi artists were dismissed by the military government. Adolf Schinnerer took over the interim management. Bleeker, Knecht, Stahl and Thorak were dismissed from the academy. Hermann Kaspar’s dismissal, however, was withdrawn slightly later. Later as well, Kaspar constantly survived flare-ups about his role as a prominent decorator for the Nazi regime. He remained at the academy as a politically and socially influential professor until 1972.
1946: Architect Carl Sattler, head of the School of Applied Arts until 1933 and let go in 1939, was appointed president of the academy. On July 25, the “Munich College of Fine Arts” reopened; classes began four days later. On August 7, the joint opening ceremony of Munich’s three art academies (fine arts; applied arts; music) was held at the theatre. In September, the Academy of Fine Arts was finally consolidated with the Academy of Applied Arts to now operate as the “University of Fine Arts in Munich”. Else Brauneis, who had taught painting, perspective and descriptive geometry at the School of Applied Arts from 1923 on, was appointed the first female professor at the Academy of Fine Arts in Munich. Another woman would not be appointed until 1992. The appointment of Xaver Fuhr was enforced by the ministry and the American military government against the will of the academy. Foundation of the “New Group”, which included later professors Adolf Hartmann and Ernst Geitlinger as well as the incumbents Caspar, Hess, Shinnerer and Stadler.
1949: On July 15, the academy’s address became “Hochschule der Bildenden Künste, München 13, Akademiestrasse 2.” All its satellite departments were again housed in the building at the Siegestor, which would long remain unfinished.
1951: Ernst Geitlinger, a student of Karl Caspar, was the first abstract artist appointed at the academy.
1954: Students from all art academies in Germany exhibited their works at the academy. Horst Eckert was a student in Geitlinger’s class. From 1960 on, under the professional name “Janosch”, he continued in the footsteps of important book illustrators from the ranks of the academy, following Wilhelm Busch, Walter Trier and later, Quint Buchholz, who studied with Gerd Winner in the 1980s.
1955: Acting professors Xaver Fuhr and Toni Stadler exhibited works at the first Kassel documenta, a review of 20th century art.
1958: Painter Jean Deyrolle and sculptor Emilio Greco were the first foreign artists appointed to teach at the academy during the post-war period. They were followed in 1962 by Danish artist Robert Jacobsen. The planned appointment of documenta official Werner Haftmann as academy secretary did not come about.
1959: For the remainder of President Sep Ruf’s term of office, Hermann Kaspar was elected vice-president, a position he held until 1966.
1965: The exhibition “Young Artists of the Academy, 1945–1965”, which showed works by 400 graduates and students, was held in Haus der Kunst as well as in the Kunstverein. At the opening, art historian Harro Ernst (appointed professor in 1963) held a speech in which he scoffed at Pop Art as an inferior and passing fad.
1967: On June 26, academy students founded the “University Group of Socialist Art Students (HSK)”.
1968: At the first “teach-in” in January 1968, the HSK raised the issue of academy workshops, criticizing that private workshop use by professors prevented the students from using them. In May, the students organized an “Emergency Happening” on the front lawn of the academy. The Student Association (AStA) showed documentation on the “Case of Hermann Kaspar”. The exhibition was based on the eponymous 1966 brochure in which Reinhard Müller-Mehlis had exposed Kaspar’s works during the Nazi regime. Assemblies were held almost every day in the auditorium. On June 26, the students began painting the foyer walls. In December, in the staircase underneath the memorial plaques for the dead of both World Wars, they installed a still-extant “Antihero Memorial Plaque” inscribed with lines by Bert Brecht. Academy professor Günter Fruhtrunk was represented at the documenta IV.
1969: On February 4, the AStA held a parody matriculation ceremony; a day later, the “Day of the Two-Wheeler” was held. In addition to some heavy machines, it primarily involved mopeds and bicycles that raced through the halls to “intimidate the establishment and profane the academy”. The students painted the walls with slogans and crude agitation art. The headline of the February 21 Bild-Zeitung read: “Munich's Academy Transformed into a Pigsty”. On February 22, Minister of Culture Ludwig Huber closed the academy; an administrative court ruling canceled the closure. Nestler resigned due to “interventionism by the Ministry of Education and Cultural Affairs”. In August, a presidential body under the chairmanship of Franz Nagel was appointed for the first time. The academy senate decided that in the future, all courses should be formulated in writing and posted, and that workshops for photography and plastic would be established.
1970: The senate decided that its future sessions would be held publicly within the university community. This was approved, except for issues concerning personnel and examinations. The presidential body under Nagel resigned due to a lack of maneuvering room, but was not released from office until seven months later. Under the title “The ruling aesthetics is the aesthetics of the ruling”, academy students displayed an exhibition in the Munich Kunstverein on the most recent history of the academy, including wall paintings and photographs by Branko Senjor. They also published a comprehensive collection of documents on the political history of the academy. Because of this supplement to the exhibition developed by Pontus Hulten, “Poetry must be made by all! Change the world!” the ministry canceled all funds allocated to the Kunstverein.
The events of these years led to a long period of alienation between the academy and the ministry. Not only the overdue renovation of the house fell casualty to this, but also the extension in the academy garden.
1971: Thomas Zacharias’s class for art teachers included 229 students – nearly one quarter of all students.
1973: The senate agreed on “Principles for the implementation of an academy reform”, which included among other things a division of the academy into three areas of expertise: 1. Painting, graphics, sculpture; 2. Architecture, applied arts; 3. Art education.
1978: After a dissenting opinion gave a professorship for painting to Franz Bernhard Weisshaar, the director of studies who worked in the ministry, the academy president and many senate members resigned.
The class for interior design developed into a degree program with its own diploma examination procedures. The diploma was not considered the equivalent of a university qualification, however.
1981: Eduardo Paolozzi and Robin Page were the first two professors from the UK and North American art scene to come to the academy, which now began orienting itself to international appointments. The architecture class becomes the postgraduate course “Real architecture and the fine arts”.
1982: In October, for the first time, a position was advertised seeking a professor of philosophy and fine arts. Jürgen Klauke took over the newly created, one-year guest professorship.
1983: “175 Years of Academy of Fine Arts” festival and “100 Years of Gottfried von Neureuther Building” with numerous events. The class of newly appointed Daniel Spoerri organized the festival “Astro-Gastronomy, 12-Star Cuisine”. Foundation of the “Association of Friends and Sponsors of the AdBK München e.V.”.
1985: Publication of Thomas Zacharias’s commemorative volume “Tradition and Contradiction. 175 Years of the Art Academy Munich”. Helmut Storm, a founding member of the group SPUR, which emerged from the academy in 1957 and was a precursor of the student movement, was appointed professor.
1987: Founding of the advanced degree program “Visual design and therapy”.
1989: Establishment of the AkademieGalerie in the mezzanine of the “University” metro station now enabled student works to be continually displayed. Beginning of a ring exchange with six European art schools as part of the “Erasmus” program.
1990: Publication of the first volume of a new series launched by Wieland Schmied. Establishment of the “Erwin and Gisela von Steiner Foundation”, which specifically supported student projects.
1991: A rectoral constitution supplanted the presidential college.
1992: Announcement of a competition for the building extension. A total of 178 proposals were submitted. Among the five coequal award-winners whose proposals were recommended, Coop Himmelb(l)au won the competition by 10:2 in a second round of voting. A media workshop was set up. The academy had 654 enrolled students and 37 teachers.
1999: To win supporters for the plan to complete the renovation before the 200-year celebration and get the extension back on the political agenda, the “Foundation for the Art Academy Munich” was launched with the help of H.R.H. Duke Franz of Bavaria and Lothar Späth. The building renovation began, initially with the cleaning and restoration of the facade.
2003: The foundation stone for the new building was laid. A group of researchers was created and tasked with studying the history of the academy and how it trained artists. Group members included art historians from the Ludwig Maximilian University of Munich (LMU), the Central Institute for Art History in Munich (ZI) as well as the academy.
2005: The academy extension was completed. The academy participated in the Federal Garden Show in Munich-Riem with a student exhibition curated by Stephan Huber, Florian Matzner and Hermann Pitz.
2008: Exhibitions on the history of the academy in the Pinakothek der Moderne (Museum of Architecture; New Collection), in Haus der Kunst as well as in the Villa Stuck (Secession) in Munich. Extensive series of events entitled “Föhn, Form, Verstand” in the academy as well as a specially designed, extended annual exhibition. The digital edition of the student matriculation books was published in the Internet.
In fall, after nearly ten years of renovation and the adjacent construction, the premises in the Akademiestraße were moved into again and thus, the temporary external quarters of the academy finally abandoned.
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