100 Great Paintings - From 100 To 1000

From 100 To 1000

The Fine Arts Editor of WDR, Wibke von Bonin, developed the German version of the series. The series was produced by RM Arts, directed by Reiner E. Moritz, and narrated by Rudolf Jürgen Bartsch and the distinctive title melody was composed by Wilhelm Dieter Siebert.

Each episode showed and discussed one painting, with other paintings of the artist and of other artists being drawn in for comparison.

The German or the English version of the series was shown in West Germany, the USA, England, the Netherlands, South Africa, Austria, Scandinavia and Japan.

The German translation of Mullins' book appeared as 100 Meisterwerke in 1983. In 1985, a second volume came out, only in Germany, which discussed the remaining 50 paintings (see section Literature). The text in the books and the television series are largely the same.

After the end of the original series, it was continued under the title, 1000 Meisterwerke, only in Germany. The concept was changed, so that instead of theme groups, several pictures from the same museum were now grouped into a series of broadcasts. The emphasis was on German museums at first, and in addition, European museums and individual international museums were considered. Painters who had already appeared in "100 Meisterwerken" were not included at first. Many times, the authors of the episode were also the curators in charge of the painting. Occasionally, the fixed framework of the series was deviated from, such as when several paintings were treated in a single broadcast in the "Greek cycle", or when the painter, Konrad Klapheck, wrote the script about his own painting, but using the third person.

In 1986, Bonin received the Goldene Kamera award for her work and video cassettes on seven German museums were produced (see section Literature).

In 1987 and 1988, two more volumes of the book with the first 100 of the 1000 Meisterwerke were published. The series ended in 1994, but without coming near to 1000 episodes.

In 2004, individual episodes were produced by Werner Tübke. In 2007, 3sat showed an episode over the test image of the Institut für Rundfunktechnik (Institute for Radio Technology). Today, the series is sporadically shown by BR-alpha and Classica.