In the 1820s a wave of enthusiasm for the American Wild West and its clichés of good and evil swept over Germany. It was fueled initially by James Fenimore Cooper’s “Leatherstocking Tales”, then by Karl May’s “Winnetou” novels, and finally by Buffalo Bill’s Wild West presentations.

This exhibition explores for the first time the motivations behind the German enthusiasm for the American West, including the extent to which the German understanding of images of cowboys and Indians was influenced by American visual culture. “I Like America” will present more than 150 paintings, films, photographs, and documentary material, including works by American and German artists such as George Catlin, Carl Wimar, Alfred Bierstadt, August Macke, and George Grosz in examining the vagaries of Wild West fiction vis-à-vis the facts.