RESHAPING TALES | HELGA GEBERT

Exhibition dates: 12 June 2026 – 24 January 2027

Storytelling is a lively exchange, transcending times and cultures. The first comprehensive solo exhibition dedicated to the artist Helga Gebert demonstrates this through her works and her worlds of pictures and fairy tales. Illustrations become places where stories are questioned, rethought and reshaped.

Helga Gebert, born in 1935 in Freiburg im Breisgau, has created an impressive variety of characters and worlds through her work – whether by illustrating well-known stories from Grimms’ fairy tales and the “Arabian Nights”, or through her own tales. In the 1970s and 80s, she was regarded as one of the key figures in the renewal of German literature for children and young adults; she was one of the regular authors and illustrators for the book programme for children and young adults which had been newly established by the Beltz publishing house. Her work exemplifies the delicate balance to be found between well-known traditions and the possibility of their renewal. Transformations, shifts in perspective and disturbing elements encourage us to investigate the artist’s aesthetic and narrative strategies within the context of contemporary discourses on fairy-tale and storytelling cultures.

ZWISCHEN GESTALTEN (RESHAPING TALES) highlights the dynamic interplay between word and picture, between the illustrations and traditional source material. It makes changes in the images from fairy tales and their significance recognisable, and shows how cultural influences, hierarchies and the ongoing appropriation of stories are inscribed within them. In this way, Helga Gebert’s work enables new perspectives on contemporary forms of storytelling.

Insights into the artist’s world are provided by moments from her biography, formative impressions from her life, by the sources of her inspiration, and examples of her political and social activities. Numerous pictures by Helga Gebert – including several previously unpublished works – bear witness to her immense creative energy. Individual works by other artists – for example from the Grimm Collection of the City of Kassel, by Maurice Sendak, Helga Ruppert-Tribian and the Kassel-based illustrator Markus Lefrançois – make it possible to draw comparisons concerning the choice of fairy tales and scenes as well as the depiction of characters. Further dimensions in the exhibition are added by artistic, interactive, cinematic and auditory elements; for example, there is a film installation by Catrine Val, a sound collage by Katharina Zimmerhackl, and an interactive feature created in collaboration by Olaf Val and Lina Walde. Works done by a sixth-year class from the Kassel grammar school Wilhelmsgymnasium form part of another interactive station, encouraging visitors on their part to try their hand at painting. A quiz rally for children and an exhibition catalogue delve more deeply into the exhibition’s themes.

The exhibition was developed in collaboration with the design studio Gebert & Krüger and was curated by Hanna Krüger.

The exhibition is generously supported by the documenta-city of Kassel and the district of Kassel.

Helga Gebert

Helga Gebert (born 16 January 1935 in Freiburg im Breisgau) is an illustrator, painter, author and translator. Most of all, she became well-known for her fairy-tale books, for which she created illustrations, wrote her own versions of the texts and produced translations from the original languages into German. For her work, she learnt English, French, Spanish, Italian and Arabic as well as other languages. Her illustrations range from delicate pen-and-ink drawings and watercolours to richly detailed oil paintings. Apart from book illustrations, she also designed murals and stage sets, among them for the Freiburg Children’s Hospital and the Wallgraben Theatre in Freiburg. From 1963 onwards, she also worked in creative therapy in the psychosomatic department of Freiburg University Hospital. From the 1970s onwards, she played a key role in the book programme for children and young adults at the Beltz publishing house (“Beltz & Gelberg”) and was actively involved in social causes – both in the anti-nuclear movement and in refugee aid in Freiburg.

Her enthusiasm for the world of fairy tales already emerged in her early childhood. Helga Gebert grew up in Freiburg and in a small village in the southern Black Forest, where an aunt introduced her to the world of stories, painting and drawing. After finishing school, she studied painting at the State Academy of Arts in Freiburg. Since then, she has seen herself as a painter of fantastical worlds – and has remained so to this day.

Learn more with our current guided tours and events around the special exhibition (in German):

For your group visit, please book an individual guided tour of the special exhibition in advance.

The exhibition is generously supported by the documenta-city of Kassel and the district of Kassel.