Séance: Albert von Keller and the Occult

Edited by Jo-Anne Birnie Danzker

Essays by Jo-Anne Birnie Danzker and Gian Casper Bott

Published by the Frye Art Museum in conjunction with its exhibition Séance: Albert von Keller and the Occult, this catalogue is the first English-language monograph on the Munich Secessionist artist. Swiss-born painter Albert von Keller (1844–1920) was highly regarded in Europe and America at the dawn of the twentieth century for his “modern” psychological painting. Keller’s participation in séances and occult experiments placed him at the center of passionate debates in fin de siècle Germany on Seelenleben, or the life of the soul. He was equally enthralled by traditional Christian narratives. He engaged in a lifelong search for new techniques and visual forms to describe shifting, uncertain states of being and becoming.