. Here are the
stories of 10 works of art condemned by the Nazis and the people who created
them.
Max Beckmann
(pictured above) focused on exaggerated, distorted, figurative drawings, which
places him among the Expressionist artists. After his traumatic experiences
serving in World War I, he sought to explore spiritual and political themes in his art. Beckmann’s work was well received in
postwar Germany, and he even received awards for his paintings.
However, after
Hitler’s rise to power, Beckmann was dismissed from his teaching position at
the Stadel Art School in Frankfurt. More than 500 of his works were removed from
museums that same
year. Beckmann fled to Amsterdam, where he waited out the war before
immigrating to the United States.
Some of Beckmann’s pieces were featured in the 1937
Degenerate Art exhibit. In 2012, several of his important pieces were
discovered in an apartment owned by an art collector who’d gotten his hands
on hundreds of works looted by the Nazis. The watercolor Moon Over a Mountain Lake does not appear to have been one of those paintings,
but it was seized from the National Gallery in Berlin during the war, and it’s
now exhibited at the Bavarian State Painting Collections in Munich.
9Bathers With A Turtle
Henri Matisse
Henri Matisse
Henri Matisse
pioneered the style of Fauvism, a style of broad, visible brushstrokes and
strong, unrealistic colors that clashed with Hitler’s vision of proper artwork.
As such, Matisse’s works were at serious risk.
The Nazis were
a practical regime. They didn’t just destroy artwork they disliked. They would
often sell it cheaply to raise foreign currency for the Reich. In 1939, Joseph
Pulitzer Jr. was on his honeymoon when he came across one of these auctions
taking place in Lucerne, Switzerland. After consulting with Pierre Matisse, son
of Henri, he managed to rescue the painting for just $2,400. Pulitzer described the artwork for sale as “the most creative works of then-existing
artists of that period.”
Matisse was
permitted to continue exhibiting his works in Paris, assuming he signed an oath
declaring his “Aryan” status. He did so, writing to his son that he felt he
would be “deserting” his homeland if he fled.
8The Absinthe Drinker
Pablo Picasso
Pablo Picasso
The Abstraction and Cubism of Pablo Picasso’s paintings
clearly made him a target for Nazi ridicule. While Picasso remained in Paris
during the German occupation, he did not exhibit his work during this time. His
famous Guernica showed
his hatred of both warfare and the Third Reich, and the Nazis were surely
aware.
However, The Absinthe Drinker was
produced before the rise of the Nazis, during Picasso’s “Blue Period.” Also
known as Portrait of Angel Fernandez de Soto, it depicts the young artist drinking a glass of absinthe
in front of a dark background. The painting became controversial in 2006 when
then-owner Andrew Lloyd Webber announced his intentions to auction the painting
for charity. Descendants of the previous owner, Paul von Mendelssohn-Bartholdy,
protested that the painting had originally been sold under duressfrom the Nazis.
Indeed, the
Mendelssohns (descendants of famed composer Felix Mendelssohn) have been trying
to reclaim a number of paintings, including works by Picasso and van Gogh. When
Mendelssohn-Bartholdy, a German Jew with an Aryan wife, realized the Nazis
would attempt to confiscate all Jewish property, he attempted to arrange his
will so his wife would “pre-inherit” his incredible collection. His daughters
would then receive the works after his wife’s passing. After his death,
however, his widow sold a number of priceless paintings, though whether the
auction was forced by the Nazis or not seems to be a subject of debate.
Eventually, the
matter was settled out of court, with Lloyd Webber retaining ownership. The
painting was sold to an anonymous bidder in 2010.
7Reclining Nude
Gustav Klimt
Gustav Klimt
The abstract
and erotic focus of Gustav Klimt’s work made him anathema to the Nazis, even
though Klimt had died in 1918. Two of his drawings, both female nudes seized
from the Kunsthalle Mannheim museum, are included in Freie Universitat
Berlin’s database. Sadly, their current locations remain unknown, lost to the
annals of time.
The particular tragedy of Klimt’s work focuses around a
woman named Adele Bloch-Bauer. Adele and her husband, Ferdinand, were members of Vienna’s
high society. Adele posed for two of Klimt’s portraits and possibly more
paintings, including his most famous work, The Kiss. When Adele died at 43 years old, her husband created a
memorial in their home using Klimt’s artwork. However, when the war began, the
Jewish Bloch-Bauer was forced to flee his home and abandon all his property. He
died in exile in 1945.
However, his
niece, Maria Altman, gained some justice for her late aunt and uncle. In 2006,
an Austrian arbitration board ordered that five paintings, including the two
portraits of Adele, be returned to Maria Altman’s possession. The paintings are
estimated to be worth $150 million. One now hangs in the Neue Galerie in
New York and the other in the Museum of Modern
Art.
6Self-Portrait Dedicated To Paul
Gaugin
Vincent Van Gogh
Vincent Van Gogh
Vincent van
Gogh’s work found itself under Nazi scrutiny due to his Expressionist
influences. The distorted swirls and cascading colors were too modern, thus
making them too degenerate.
Van Gogh’s
self-portrait on a stunning seafoam background was donated to the Neue
Staatsgalerie in Munich in 1919, but just 20 years later, it was targeted by
the Nazis. At some point between 1937 and 1938, the portrait was taken from the
walls of the museum and auctioned for funds at Lucerne.
The van Gogh
was then purchased for a hefty sum by Maurice Wertheim, who bequeathed the
painting to the Harvard Art Museums. Much like Joseph Pulitzer Jr., Wertheim
“seemed to believe that to support what the Nazis detested was justifiable.”
Unlike many other works on this list, the painting was taken from a state-run
museum, and therefore, it is not legally required to be returned.
Ironically, the
fact that it was seized may be why the painting survived. As World War II
escalated, the Neue Staatsgalerie closed. To protect its paintings, some were
shipped outside Munich. Others were housed in the museum basement. Sadly, the
structure was bombed, and many works were destroyed. But thankfully, this van
Gogh was saved.
5The War Cripples
Otto Dix
Otto Dix
Of all the art styles that Hitler hated, he might’ve hated
Dadaism the most. He railed against the style in Mein Kampf, claiming that
Dadaism was “the
degenerate excess of insane and depraved humans.” Furthermore, he statedthat Dadaists were “holding the expressions of national
sentiment up to scorn, overturning the concepts of the sublime and the
beautiful, the worthy and the good, finally dragging the people to the level of
[their] own low mentality.”
The Dadaists
would likely have been flattered by this depiction. Early Dadaism began as sort
of an “anti-art” movement, a satirical attack on capitalism and the bourgeoisie
that many Dadaists believed had drawn their nations into World War I. According
to artist Hans Richter:
“For everything that art stood
for, Dada was to represent the opposite. Where art was concerned with traditional
aesthetics, Dada ignored aesthetics. If art was to appeal to sensibilities,
Dada was intended to offend.”
It’s no wonder, then, that Otto Dix’s hard-hitting The War Cripples remains lost. Though it is a painting, the style
almost seems like a collage made from magazines. The painting ridicules
everyone, including the military for crippling poor men, the public for their
strange fascination with the handicapped, and the injured men themselves for
retaining pride in a country that sent them to war. The painting was featured
in the Degenerate Art exhibit, and then it was probably destroyed.
4Color Order
Hans Richter
Hans Richter
Hans Richter was another Dadaist who unabashedly opposed the
Nazis. Richter, who’d served in World War I and had become partially paralyzed,
firmly believed it was the duty of artists to oppose war and support
revolution. He slammed militaristic Germany in his pen-and-ink drawings and
studied color and composition in his abstract paintings. Richter was also a pioneer in abstract film, with his Rhythmus 21 being extremely important in the movement.
Obviously, neither his heavy
satire nor excessive use of abstract lines and color could remain in the
Reich’s cultural vision.
Farbenordnung, which translates into Color Order, appears to be one of Richter’s abstract color studies. Once
housed in the Provincial Museum in Hannover, it was seized and exhibited in
Entartete Kunst before it was finally destroyed. As for Richter himself, he immigrated to the US in 1941.
3Winter Garden
Paul Klee, 1925
Paul Klee, 1925
Paul Klee has the unsavory
distinction of being a rare Jewish artist in the time of the Nazis. In addition
to this “terrible crime,” Klee was a modern artist. Though difficult to
classify, his painting spanned the realms of Expressionism, Cubism, Surrealism,
and Abstraction.
From 1931 to 1933, Klee taught
at the Dusseldorf Academy. However, his career was cut short by an investigative Nazi newspaper. “He tells everyone he’s a thoroughbred Arab,” reported the rag,”
but he’s a typical Galician Jew.” The Gestapo searched his home, and Klee was
fired.
To deal with this event, Klee created Struck from the List, a painting in which a monochromatic, abstract person is seen
crying as a black “X” covers his (or her) face. Klee and his family fled to
Switzerland shortly thereafter. As for his work entitled Winter Garden, it was seized from the Civic Museum of Arts and Crafts in Halle,
along with hundreds of his other works. Tragically, 17 of his paintings were
exhibited in Entartete Kunst, and
this particular piece was destroyed.
2La Belle Jardiniere
Max Ernst
Max Ernst
Max Ernst was yet another
Dadaist, and when World War II broke out, Ernst found himself trapped in Paris
as an “undesirable foreigner,” even though he was a native German. After the
intercession of some famous friends, Ernst was released, only to be later
arrested by the Gestapo when the Germans invaded Paris. He then managed to
escape to America with the help of Peggy Guggenheim, a wealthy patron of the arts.
Ernst was unafraid of tackling touchy subjects in his artwork. In
one famous painting, Ernst depicts the Virgin Mary spanking a young Christ
while three famous painters, including Ernst, watch from a window. In La Belle Jardiniere(Creation of Eve),
Ernst paints a nude Eve, complete with a scandalously placed dove. Behind Eve,
there’s a line drawing of a woman made of fruit.
At least two of Ernst’s works were displayed in Entartete Kunst.
Interestingly, a photo taken at the exhibit shows Hitler walking past La Belle Jardiniere. Sadly, records of this painting were lost after the event, and
it may have been destroyed by the Nazis.
1Self-Portrait As A Soldier
Ernst Ludwig Kirchner, 1915
Ernst Ludwig Kirchner, 1915
Ernst Ludwig Kirchner led a
troubled yet influential life. He was plagued by physical and mental illnesses,
both made worse by his time as a World War I soldier. However, he was also the
founding member of “The Bridge,” a group that hoped to form, well, a bridge
between old and new styles of art. Thanks to Kirchner, these artists were highly influential in the period leading to the advent of Expressionism.
Self-Portrait as a Soldier is probably one of the most important pieces Kirchner ever
created. In the foreground, we see Kirchner in military uniform, holding up a
stump where his right hand once was. His face is highly stylized. In the
background, we see the artist’s studio, complete with a nude model. The colors
are bright, yet they’re sad as well. It brings together the complexities that
Kirchner was dealing with during this time in his life.
In 1933, the Nazis rose to
power, damning Kirchner’s abstract style and making it impossible for him to
sell his paintings. He was forced to resign from the Prussian Academy of the
Arts. In 1937, over 600 of his works were removed from museums in Germany, and
at least 32 were displayed at the Degenerate Arts exhibit. Tragically, Kirchner
took his own life in 1938.
*Source - listverse
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