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Last updated: 9/19/07
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“The Art that Hitler Hated: Kathe Kollwitz and German Expressionist Printmaking” Extended until Sunday, 14 October 2007

Survey I / Survey II / Survey III

Our show features 159 works, including over forty works by Käthe Kollwitz plus additional works by
Ernst Barlach, Otto Dix, Erich Heckel, Hannah Hoch, Karl Hofer, Wassily Kandinsky, Ernst Ludwig Kirchner, Paul Klee, Oskar Kokoschka, Ludwig Meidner, Gabrielle Munter, Emile Nolde, Max Pechstein, Hilla von Rebay, Rudolf Schlichter, Karl Schmidt-Rottluff, and Georg Tappert,

Also available: Works by Max Beckmann, Heinrich Campendonck, Marc Chagall, Lovis Corinth, Conrad Felixmuller, Hans Fronius, Georg Grosz, Edvard Munch, Heinrich Nauen, Georges Rouault, Siegfried Schott, Wilhelm Wagner, and others.

The Russians: Chagall / Sonia Delauna y / Goncharova / Larionov / Malevich

The title of this show is actually a misnomer; a more accurate title would indicate that this is the art that the Kaiser hated, that the right-wingers who helped to bring about the downfall of the Weimar Republic hated, and that the militarists who ultimately threw their support to the Nazis hated. And yet, it is still amisnomer: in a sense, the term German Expressionism really means Modernist works done in Germany and Austria from the late 19th century until the Nazis took control, after which the works went underground, but, in many cases, continued to be made until the artist making them died. Just as French Impressionism reallymeant Modernist works made in France by people who had in common only their rejection of the official art that preceded them and that dominated the salons when the artists whom we now call the Impressionists began trying to show their works. It spawned in due time other movements like Post-Impressionism, Pointilism, the Nabis, the Symbolists, and ultimately the modernists who turned away from these variants of their predecessors and gave birth to Cubism, Fauvism, and Surrrealism; so the German Modernists had varied interests: The artists of the Blaue Reiter (Blue Rider) Group—Kandinsky, Klee, Munter, Marc, and Macke—were moving toward abstraction, the artists of Die Brücke (the Bridge), led by Erich Heckel, E. L. Kirchner, Max Pechstein, Emil Nolde, and Karl Schmidt-Rottlff were rejecting their immediate predecessors and trying to create an art that linked the great German artists of the Renaissance, especially Dürer, whose masterful woodcuts seemed the perfect vehicle for a new renaissance of German art, with an art for the present and the future. The first World War, which seemed to artists like Kokoschka and Dix to offer a chance to see heroism in action and perhaps to be heroic (Dix was a machine gunner, Kokoschka was a cavalry officer), quickly led instead to horror and mental breakdowns, and the aftermath of the war led to cynicism and disgust at the society that replaced the autocratic rule of the Kaiser. The Dadaists (including Hoch, Schlicter, and Grosz as well as Duchamp, Arp, and Picabia)) began with a feeling of disgust and hatred for the war and moved on to reject the values that allowed it to occur, nationalist politics and a culture of materialism. They rejected the conventions of their society and the art that had nurtured and sustained that society, cultivating a sense of the absurd and seeking artistic techniques to embody their contempt for it. The Neue Sachlichkeit (New Objectivity) group, including Max Beckmann, Otto Dix, George Grosz, Rudolf Schlichter, and Georg Tappert, hoped through their art to change their society by, as Grosz wrote, convincing "the world that it was ugly, sick, and mendacious." Kollwitz and Barlach, whose work predated all of these movements, yet agreed politically and artistically in the need to hold a mirror up to society so that it might see how much it needed to change itself. Artists like Meidner and Hofer do not easily fit into these groups, yet are clearly of their time, Hofer seeking symbolic forms to suggest the possibility of a more ideal life and the reality of approaching disasters, Meidner imagining the apocaltpse to come and portraying the passionate intensity of those who would bring it about.

Selcted Bibliography: Stephanie Barron and Wolf-Dieter Dube, ed., German Expressionism: Art and Society (NY: Rizzoli, 1997); Stephanie Barron, et al, German Expressionist Prints and Drawings. The Robert Gore Rifkind Center for Expressionist Studies, Vol. 1 (LA: Los Angeles County Museum of Art, 1989); Stephanie Barron, ed, German Expressionism 1915-1925: The Second Generation (LA: Los Angeles County Museum of Art, 1988); Frances Carey and Anthony Griffiths, The Print in Germany 1880--1933: The Age of Expressionism (London: British Museum, 1984, 1993); Stephanie D'Allessandro, et al, German Expressionist Prints: The Marcia and Granvil Specks Collections (Milwaukee: Milwaukee Art Museum, 2003); Bruce Davis, German Expressionist Prints and Drawings. The Robert Gore Rifkind Center for Expressionist Studies, Vol. 2: Catalogue of the Collection (LA: Los Angeles County Museum of Art / Prestel, 1989);Bruce Davis, German Expressionist Prints and Drawings: The Robert Gore Rifkind Center for German Expressionist Studies Elvejhem Museum of Art, The Graphic image: German Expressionist Prints (Madison: Elvejhem Museum of Art, 1983); Reinhold Heller, Brücke: German Expressionist Prints from the Granvil and Marcia Specks Collection (Evanston: Mary and Leight Block Gallery, Northwestern Uninversity, 1988); Orrel P. Reed Jr., German Expressionist Art: The Robert Gore Rifkind Collection—Prints, Drawings, Illustrated Books, Periodicals, Posters (Los Angeles: Frederick S. Wight Art Gallery, University of California, Los Angeles, 1977); Andrew Robison, ed., German Expressionist Prints from the Collection of Ruth and Jacob Kainen (Washington, D.C.: National Gallery of Art, 1985); Serge Sabarsky, Graphics of the German Expressionists (Mt. Kisco NY: Moyer Bell Ltd, 1984); Peter Selz, German Expressionist Painting (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1957, 1974); Horst Uhr, Masterpeices of German Expressionism at the Detroit Institute of Arts (NY: Hudson Hills Press, 1982); Shane Weller, ed, German Expressionist Woodcuts (NY: Dover, 1994).

Käthe Kollwitz (German, 1867-1945), Tod in Wasser / Death in the water (Kl. 262 b; Zig. 74). Original lithograph, 1934-35. 100 signed impressions on laid paper, dated & titled. From the series Tod / Death, this lithograph, produced shortly after Hitler assumed power, shows a drowned family, perhaps a prophetic vision of Germany's future as a country about to be drowning in death. One of Kollwitz's most moving images. Image size: 483x369mm. Price: $9500.

Käthe Kollwitz (German, 1867-1945), Death, woman, and child /self-portrait (Kl. 113 xiv; Knesebeck 108 XIV/XVb). Original etching, 1910. Knesebeck describes states XIII and XIV as follows. State XIII: Richter edition of 1921--"With engraved script along the lower edge of the plate: at left: "Orig. Rad. von Käte Kollwitz"; at center: "VERLAG VON EMIL RICHTER, DRESDEN"; at right: "Druck v. O. Felsing, Berlin-Chlttbg." The edition was printed in brown on copperplate paper; it was unsigned, but occasionally had accommodatory signatures. Some proofs with Richter’s stamp of the artist’s signature and with Richter’s embossed seal. XIV: Richter’s address was removed. Published in an edition by von der Becke, circa 1931; printed in brown, on copperplate paper, most signed "Kollwitz” in lower right; XV: The remaining script removed. Editions by von der Becke as of 1946/48 with either his Berlin or Munich drystamps.

Ours lacks Richter's address, but still has the script lower left and lower right, and lacks von der Becke's drystamp, fitting Knesebeck's state XIV. The plate exists and is on loan to the Kunstsammlung Akademie Berlin. One of Kollwitz' most frequently illustrated prints. Image size: 393x391mm. Price: $3250.

Erich Heckel (German, 1883-1970), Liegende / Reclining Woman (Dube 259 II, Davis-Riffkind 1034, Brücke 16, Graphic Image 24). Original woodcut, 1913, revised 1925. Edition: a few signed impressions pulled in 1913; "in 1925 he created a new edition for the luxurious art periodical, Ganymed. . . . For this, the original jigsawed forms printing in red were replaced, and they thus appear slightly different in configuration from those of the original printing." There was a deluxe edition handprinted by Heckel and a regular edition of unknown size. Image size: 181x107mm. Price: $2950.

Erich Heckel (German, 1883-1970), Zwei am Meer / Couple by the sea (Dube 326, Davis-Riffkind 1052). Original woodcut, 1920. Edition: 100 signed and dated impressions published in the deluxe edition of Paul Westheim's Das Holzschnittbuch (Pottsdam, 1921). A very good dark and evenly printed impression. Illustrated A Breadth of Vision: The Ritz Collecetion (Milwaukee Art Museum, 1992), p. 18; illustrated in German Expressionist Prints from the Collection of Ruth and Jacob Kainen (Wasington DC: NAtional Gallery of Art, 1985), p. 64. Image size: 178x136mm. Price: $4850.

Emil Nolde (German, 1867-1956), Tischgesellschaft / Dinner party (Schieffler and Mosell 38 iv, Davis-Riffkind 2113). Original etching on wove paper, 1906. A beautiful impression of this dark and mysterious work from the beginning of Nolde's career as an expressionist. Published in the 1907 issue of Zeitschrift fur bildende Kunst n.s. 19, n. 2. With the printed text TISCHGESELLCHAFT below the etching. Image size: 151x190mm. Price: $3600.

Karl Schmidt-Rottluff, (German, 1884-1976), Fraukopf / Head of a Woman (Schapire W191, Davis-Riffkind 2551). Original woodcut, 1916. Edition: 600 unsigned impressions on wove paper published in Deutsche Graphiker der Gegenwart (Leipzig, 1920) with a printed text verso giving title, artist, and identifying it as an "originalholzschnitt." A very good, clean impression of this important print, one frequently illustrated in studies of German Expressionist printmaking such as Shane Weller, ed, German Expressionist Woodcuts (NY: Dover, 1994) and Serge Sabarsky, Graphics of the German Expressionists (Mt. Kisco NY: Moyer Bell Ltd, 1984). Image size: 275x180mm. Price: $3600.

Karl Schmidt-Rottluff, (German, 1884-1976), Madchen mit Zopfen / Young woman with pigtails (Schapire W200, Davis-Rifkin 2554). Original woodcut, 1917. Edition: 110 impressions on wove paper for the first edition published in the deluxe art review, Das Kunstblatt, in 1918, of which ours is one. Image size: 216x150mm. Price: $3600.

Ernst Ludwig Kirchner (German, 1880-1938), Man with parrot (Dube 814 ii, Davis-Rifkind 1478). Original woodcut for Neben der Heerstrasse / Near the Military Road (Zurich and Leipzig: Verlag von Grethlein & Co, 1923. Image size: 118x78mm. Price: $1250.

Herman Max Pechstein (German, 1881-1955), Kopf / Head (Fechter 149). Original woodcut, 1920. Edition: c. 1000 impressions (of which this is a very rich one) published in Fritz Gurlitt's Almanach 1920, an annual of German Expressionist art published from 1919 to 1921. A masterpiece of German Expressionist printmaking. Image size: 104x81mm Price: $1750.

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