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The fine art, architecture, sculpture, graphic art, and applied art of Germany and Austria 1900-1945
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.Alexander Frenz, Illustration zu Chamberlains Richard Wagner
Paul von Joukowsky – Parsifal – Die große Gralsszene, Gouache, 1882,
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Paul von Joukowsky – Bühnenbildentwurf zu Parsifal – Gemälde ausgeführt von Max Brückner – 1882
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Richard Wagner – Franz Von Lenbach – German Art
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Hans Olde – ‘Nietzsche on his Sickbed’ – (1899)
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Hans Olde – ‘Frederiche Nietzsche’ – (1899)
Max Liebermann – ‘Bildnis Richard Straus
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Ferdinand Schmutzer (1870-1928)
Ferdinand Schmutzer (1870-1928)
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Ferdinand Schmutzer (1870-1928)
Schmutzer came from a traditional Viennese artistic family.His great-grandfather, Jacob Matthias Schmutzer founded the Imperial Engraver-Academie in Vienna.Like his grandfather and father worked, Ferdinand Schmutzer first with sculpture, but after studying painting at the Academy.A study in the Netherlands woke influence of Rembrandt van Rijn, his interest in etching .Soon Schmutzer was celebrated for his portraits of Viennese society.Prominent contemporaries such as Sigmund Freud , Albert Einstein , Emperor Franz Joseph , the Vienna Philharmonic and Karl Lueger sat for him.Schmutzer presented his work internationally and received several prizes and awards.A particular innovation was the use of large formats which until then were unknown to the art of etching.In 1901 Schmutzer became a member of the Vienna Secession, and by 1908 he was an acknowledged master of his art as professor at the Academy of Fine Arts in Vienna.In addition to the large sizes, he introduced new techniques, experimenting with new types of needles. From 1922 to 1924 he was Rector of the Academy.In 1928, at 58 years old, Schmutzer died in Vienna, in his villa.
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‘VERLORENES PARADIES’ – (PARADISE LOST)
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Hans Thoma (October 2, 1839 – November 7, 1924) was a well known and well listed German painter and print maker.
He started his life as a painter of clock faces.
In 1859 he entered the Karlsruhe Academy where he studied under Johann Wilhelm Schirmer (1825-1903) (specialist in landscape painting) and Ludwig des Coudres (1820-1878).
He left the Academy at the end of 1866 and moved to Dusseldorf.
There he met Otto Scholderer and went to Paris in May 1868.
In Paris he was influenced by Gustave Courbet (1831-1877). In spite of his studies under various contemporary masters, his art has little in common with modern ideas and is partly formed by his early impressions of the simple idyllic life of his native district, partly by his sympathy with the early German masters, particularly Altdorf and Cranach.
In his love of detail in nature, in his precise drawing of outline, and in his preference for local color, he has distinct affinities with the Pre-Raphaelites.
In 1890 he had his first successful exhibition at the Munich Kunstverein.
He subsequently joined the Munich succession.
In 1899 Thoma was made director of a gallery in Karlsruhe and was appointed professor at the art academy there. During his career he received many honors.
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‘DER VERLORENE SOHN’ – (The Prodigal Son)
Hans Thoma (1839 – 1924)
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Hans Thoma (1839 – 1924)
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Born in New York, Joseph Uhl moved to Germany at an early age.
At the Academy of Munich, he studied painting and etching.
As the First World War ended, Uhl who up to that time had concentrated mainly on painting, began to create etchings and engravings of children, nudes, general figure studies and allegorical images.
His work in this genre owes much to the German Jugendstil movement.
Joseph Uhl – (1877-1945)
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‘SOMMERWONNE’ – (SUMMER JOY)
Joseph Uhl – (1877-1945)
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Julian Alden Weir – (1852-1919)
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‘JUNGES PAAR AUF LICHTUNG’
Hermann Moest, 1868 -1945
Born on 5 December 1868, in Karlsruhe, Germany, Moest was the son of the sculptor Karl Friedrich Moest 1838-1927).
After being instructed by his father, Moest solidified his knowledge and skills from 1885 to 1888 at the State Academy of Fine Arts in Karlsruhe.
After this he studied under Otto Seitz (1846-1912) and Alexander von Liezen-Mayer (1839-1898) at the Academy of Fine Arts in Munich.
From 1914 he lived and worked in Berlin, becoming an established figure painter and illustrator.Hermann Moest married on 1 October 1904 in Hannover, Emma Priscilla Benfey.
He died on 10 December 1945 in Berlin.
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Hermann Moest, 1868 -1945
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‘NUDE EPHEBE IN HEROIC POSE’
Georg von Hoesslin (1851-1923)
George (Georg) von Hoesslin (1851-1923) is an interesting figure in art in view of his origins and study. German by heritage, but born in Hungary and educated in the United States, after his family emigrated to North America in 1856.
In 1870 he wanted to study art and returned to Europe (München) where he studied painting at the Academy of Fine Arts.
In München, (Munich), he trained under Wilhelm Lindenschmit (1829 -1 895), a German history painter. He traveled to Rome and Venice for additional studies later on.
In 1880 he returned to Boston, Mass.
He made return trips to München after his return to America.
His paintings are displayed in Museums in Boston (Museum of Fine Art) and in Europe.
This drawing is not signed but has von Hoesslin’s estate stamp on the reverse and came from his estate (Nachlass George Von Hoesslin stamp on the reverse).
The drawing is probably a preparatory study for an historical painting, part of his oeuvre of portraits and historical paintings.
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‘DER ARBEND’ – (The Evening)
‘GÖTTER IM SURF’ – (Gods in the Surf)
‘DIE WASSERFRAU’ – (The Lady of the Waters)
Hermann Prell (April 29, 1854 – May 18, 1922)
‘IM WALDE – DES KNABEN WUNDERHORN’
(In the Forest – The Boy’s Magical Horn)
Schwind von Moritz – (1804-1871)
Moritz von Schwind (January 21, 1804 – February 8, 1871) was an Austrian painter, born in Vienna.
Moritz von Schwind received rudimentary training and spent a happy and carefree youth in Vienna. Among his companions was the composerSchubert, some of whose songs he illustrated.
In 1828, the year of Schubert’s death, he moved to Munich, where he befriended the painter Schnorr and enjoyed the guidance of Cornelius, then director of the Academy.
In 1834 he was commissioned to decorate King Ludwig’s new palace with wall paintings illustrating the works of the poet Tieck.
In the revival of art in Germany, Schwind held as his own the sphere of poetic fancy.
He decorated a villa in Leipzig with the story of Cupid and Psyche, and further justified his title of poet-painter with designs from the Niebelungenlied and Tasso’s Gerusalemme for the walls of the castle of Hohenschwangau in Bavarian Tirol.
From the year 1844 dates his residence in Frankfurt during which he created some of his finest easel pictures, most notably the “Singers’ Contest” in the Wartburg (1846), as well as designs for the Goethe celebration.
In 1847 Schwind returned to Munich on being appointed professor in the academy.
Eight years later his fame was at its height on the completion in the castle of the Wartburg of wall pictures illustrative of the “Singers’ Contest” and of the history of Elizabeth of Hungary.
The compositions received universal praise, and at a grand musical festival in their honour, Schwind himself was one of the violinists.
In 1857 he visited England to report officially to King Ludwig on the Manchester art treasures.
So diversified were his gifts that he turned his hand to church windows and joined his old friend Schnorr in designs for the painted glass in Glasgow Cathedral.
Towards the close of his career, with broken health and his powers on the wane, he revisited Vienna. During this time, he created the cycle from the legend of Melusine and the designs commemorative of chief musicians which decorate the foyer of the Vienna State Opera. Cornelius writes, “You have translated the joy of music into pictorial art.”
Schwind’s genius was lyrical – he drew inspiration from chivalry, folk-lore, and the songs of the people.
Schwind died in Pöcking in Bavaria, and was buried in the Alter Südfriedhof in Munich.
The title ‘Des Knaben Wunderhorn’ was used by Gustav Mahler (1860-1911) for one of his song-cycles.
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Schwind von Moritz – (1804-1871)
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Ludwig von Hofmann (1861 – 1945) – working on his self-portrait
Ludwig von Hofmann (August 17, 1861 – August 23, 1945) was a German painter.
Born in Darmstadt, 1861, Ludwig von Hofmann first studied law in Bonn from 1880 to 1883.
He then commenced studies in art at the Dresden Academy (1883-1886) and in the master class of Ferdinand Keller (1886-1888).
In the following year, Ludwig von Hofmann enrolled at the Academie Julien, Paris.
There he was strongly impressed by the art of contemporary French painters, such as Puvis de Chavannes, Albert Besnard and Maurice Denis.
Ludwig von Hofmann returned to Germany in 1890 and settled in Berlin for the following thirteen years.
Ludwig von Hofmann’s years in Berlin were very eventful.
There he was a founding member of both ‘The Eleven’ and the ‘Berlin Secession’.
During this period, Hofmann was also a founding member of the influential arts periodical, Pan.
He contributed numerous illustrations to Pan, including the famous cover decoration.
As Ludwig von Hofmann’s reputation grew, his circle of acquaintances and associates would include such masters of art and literature as Arnold Bocklin, Edward Munch, Max Klinger, Gerhard Hauptmann and Stefan George.
In 1898, none other than Rainer Maria Rilke dedicated two of his poems to Ludwig von Hofmann and his art.
In 1903, Ludwig von Hofmann accepted the post of Professor at the Archducal School of Art, in Weimar. During his years at Weimar, he devoted much of his time to painting commissioned murals.
Collectors of his art at this time included the Empress of Austria and the novelist, Thomas Mann.
He died in 1945.
His style was impressionist, and he painted many paintings, such as his well-known “Rain”, in a mixture of impressionist and classical.
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Ludwig von Hofmann (1861 – 1945)
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Ludwig Von Hoffman – (1861 – 1945) – ‘Idyll’- 1896
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Ludwig von Hofmann (1861 – 1945)
Ludwig von Hofmann (1861 – 1945)
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‘ADAM IN PARADISICAL LANDSCAPE’ – (detail)
Ludwig von Hofmann (1861 – 1945)
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Ludwig von Hofmann (1861 – 1945)
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Ludwig von Hofmann (1861 – 1945)
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Lovis Corinth – (1885 – 1925)
Lovis Corinth (21 July 1858 – 17 July 1925) was a German painter and printmaker whose mature work realized a synthesis of impressionism and expressionism.
Corinth studied in Paris and Munich, joined the Berlin Secession group, later succeeding Max Liebermann as the group’s president.
His early work was naturalistic in approach.
Corinth was initially antagonistic towards the expressionist movement, but after a stroke in 1911 his style loosened and took on many expressionistic qualities.
His use of color became more vibrant, and he created portraits and landscapes of extraordinary vitality and power.
Corinth’s subject matter also included nudes and biblical scenes.
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Lovis Corinth – (1885 – 1925)
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Lovis Corinth – (1885 – 1925)
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Lovis Corinth – (1885 – 1925)
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‘DIE JUGEND DES ZEUS’ – (The Childhood of Zeus)
Lovis Corinth – (1885 – 1925)
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Julius Christian Rehder – (1861-1955)
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‘Pallas Athene’
Gustav Klimpt – (1862 – 1918)
Gustav Klimt (July 14, 1862 – February 6, 1918) was an Austrian Symbolist painter and one of the most prominent members of the Vienna Secession movement.
His major works include paintings, murals, sketches, and other art objects.
Klimt’s primary subject was the female body, and his works are marked by a frank eroticism—nowhere is this more apparent than in his numerous drawings in pencil
Klimt’s work is often distinguished by elegant gold or coloured decoration, spirals and swirls, and phallic shapes used to conceal the more erotic positions of the drawings upon which many of his paintings are based. This can be seen in Judith I (1901), and in The Kiss (1907–1908), and especially in Danaë (1907). One of the most common themes Klimt used was that of the dominant woman, the femme fatale.
Art historians note an eclectic range of influences contributing to Klimt’s distinct style, including Egyptian, Minoan, Classical Greek, and Byzantine inspirations.
Klimt was also inspired by the engravings of Albrecht Dürer, late medieval European painting, and Japanese Rimpa school.
His mature works are characterized by a rejection of earlier naturalistic styles, such as The Glasgow School, from which he was heavily influenced, and make use of symbols or symbolic elements to convey psychological ideas and emphasize the “freedom” of art from traditional culture.
He was keenly interested in exploring Freudian issues surrounding psychoanalysis in his works.
In his work Jurisprudence there is a focus on Freudian issues of sexual repression, and castration theory.
The three sirens in the painting look down at a withered man reproachfully, and he is shamed by his nakedness. The maw of the octopus is opened and level with the man’s genitalia connoting some sort of castration. Freudian issues gave his work a dark intricacy that would be highly influential for future artists.
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Franz von Stuck – (1863 – 1928)
Franz Stuck (February 24, 1863 – August 30, 1928) was a German symbolist/Art Nouveau painter, sculptor, engraver, and architect.
Stuck was born at Tettenweis, in Bavaria.
From an early age he displayed an affinity for drawing and caricature. To begin his artistic education in 1878 he went to Munich, where he would settle for life.
From 1881 to 1885 Stuck attended the Munich Academy.
He first made a name with cartoons for Fliegende Blätter, and vignette designs for programmes and book decoration.
In 1889 he exhibited his first paintings at the Munich Glass Palace, winning a gold medal for ‘The Guardian of Paradise’.
In 1892 Stuck co-founded the Munich Secession, and also executed his first sculpture, ‘Athlete’.
The following year he won further acclaim with the critical and public success of what is now his most famous work, ‘The Sin’. Also in 1893, Stuck was awarded a gold medal for painting at the Chicago World’s Fair and was appointed to a royal professorship.
In 1895 he began teaching painting at the Munich Academy.In 1897 Stuck married an American widow, Mary Lindpainter, and began work designing his own residence and studio, the Villa Stuck.
His designs for the villa included everything from layout to interior decorations; for his furniture Stuck received another gold medal at the 1900 Paris World Exposition.
Having attained a high degree of fame by this time, Stuck was elevated to the aristocracy on December 9, 1905 and would receive further public honours from around Europe during the remainder of his life.
Even as new trends in art left Stuck behind, he continued to be highly respected among young artists in his capacity as professor at the Munich Academy.
Notable students of his over the years include Paul Klee, Hans Purrmann, Wassily Kandinsky, and Josef Albers.
Franz von Stuck died in 1928.
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Franz von Stuck – (1863 – 1928)
Franz von Stuck – (1844-1916)
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Franz von Stuck – (1863 – 1928)
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Franz von Stuck – (1863 – 1928)
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‘REITENDE AMAZON’ – (Equestrian Amazon)
Franz von Stuck – (1863 – 1928)
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‘Fighting Amazon’ – Franz von Stuck
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‘STUDY OF A NUDE BOY’
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Gottlob Wilhelm – (1867 – 1925)
Sascha Schneider – (1870 – 1927)
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Rudolph Karl Alexander Schneider, commonly known as Sascha Schneider (21 September 1870 – 1927), was a German painter and sculptor.Schneider was born in Saint Petersburg.
In 1881, during his childhood, his family moved to Zürich.
After the death of his father, Schneider lived in Dresden, where he was a student at the Kreuzgymnasium. He studied art at Dresdner Kunstakademie beginning in 1889.
In 1903 he met best-selling author Karl May, and he became the cover illustrator of May’s books (for example Winnetou, Old Surehand, Am Rio de la Plata).
When the First World War started, Schneider took up residence in Hellerau (near Leipzig).
After 1918, he co-founded an institute called Kraft-Kunst for body building.
Some of the models for his art works trained here.
Schneider, who suffered from diabetes mellitus, collapsed and died in 1927 in Swinemünde.
He was buried in the cemetery in Loschwitz, Germany.
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‘DAS GEFÜL DER ABHÄNGIGKEIT’
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(THE FEELING OF DEPENDANCE) – 1920
Sascha Schneider – (1870 – 1927)
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Hans Wohrab – (1905-1978)
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Classicism, in the arts, refers generally to a high regard for classical antiquity, as setting standards for taste which the classicists seek to emulate.
The art of classicism typically seeks to be formal and restrained: of the Discobolus Sir Kenneth Clark observed, “if we object to his restraint and compression we are simply objecting to the classicism of classic art. A violent emphasis or a sudden acceleration of rhythmic movement would have destroyed those qualities of balance and completeness through which it retained until the present century its position of authority in the restricted repertoire of visual images.”
Classicism, as Clark noted, implies a canon of widely accepted ideal forms. Classicism is a force which is often present in post-medieval European and European influenced traditions; however, some periods felt themselves more connected to the classical ideals than others, particularly the Age of Reason, the Age of Enlightenment, and some classicizing movements in Modernism.
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Neoclassical architecture was an architectural style produced by the neoclassical movement that began in the mid-18th century, manifested both in its details as a reaction against the Rococo style of naturalistic ornament, and in its architectural formulas as an outgrowth of some classicizing features of Late Baroque.
In its purest form it is a style principally derived from the architecture of Classical Greece and the architecture of Italian Andrea Palladio.
In form, Neoclassical architecture emphasizes the wall rather than chiaroscuro and maintains separate identities to each of its parts.
High neoclassicism was an international movement. Though neoclassical architecture employs the same classical vocabulary as Late Baroque architecture, it tends to emphasize its planar qualities, rather than sculptural volumes.
Projections and recessions and their effects of light and shade are flatter; sculptural bas-reliefs are flatter and tend to be enframed in friezes, tablets or panels. Its clearly articulated individual features are isolated rather than interpenetrating, autonomous and complete in themselves.
International neoclassical architecture was exemplified in Karl Friedrich Schinkel’s buildings, especially the Old Museum in Berlin, the works of Leo von Klenze, Sir John Soane’s Bank of England in London and the newly built White House and Capitol in Washington, DC in the United States.
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München
Leo von Klenze – 1816 -1830
The Glyptothek is a museum in Munich, Germany, which was commissioned by the Bavarian King Ludwig I to house his collection ofGreek and Roman sculptures, (hence γλυπτο- glypto- “sculpture”, from the Greek verb γλύφειν glyphein “to carve”).
It was designed by Leo von Klenze in the Neoclassical style, and built from 1816 to 1830.
Today the museum is a part of the Kunstareal.
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München
Leo von Klenze – 1862
The building constructed in Doric order was completed by Leo von Klenze in 1862 and evokes the monumental entrance of the Propylaea for the Athenian Acropolis.
The gate was created as a memorial for the accession to the throne of Otto of Greece, a son of the principal King Ludwig I of Bavaria.
The reliefs and sculptures celebrating the Bavarian prince and the Greek War of Independence were created by Ludwig Michael Schwanthaler.
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Regensburg Walhalla
Leo von Klenze 1830 – 1842
The Walhalla temple is a hall of fame that honors laudable and distinguished Germans, famous personalities in German history — politicians, sovereigns, scientists and artists of the German tongue”.
The hall is housed in a neo-classical building above the Danube River, east of Regensburg, in Bavaria, Germany.
The Walhalla temple is named for Valhalla of Norse mythology.
It was conceived in 1807 by Crown Prince Ludwig, who built it upon ascending the throne of Bavaria as King Ludwig I.
Construction took place between 1830 and 1842, under the supervision of architect Leo von Klenze.
The temple displays some 65 plaques and 130 busts of persons, covering 2,000 years of history.
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Karl Friedrich Schinkel – (1781 – 1841)
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The Altes Museum was built between 1823 and 1830 by the architect Karl Friedrich Schinkel in the neoclassical style to house the Prussian royal family’s art collection.
The historic, protected building counts among the most distinguished in neoclassicism and is a high point of Schinkel’s career.
Until 1845, it was called the Königliches Museum (Royal Museum).
Karl Friedrich Schinkel (13 March 1781, Neuruppin, Margraviate of Brandenburg – 9 October 1841, Berlin, Province of Brandenburg) was a Prussian architect, city planner, and painter who also designed furniture and stage sets.
Schinkel was one of the most prominent architects of Germany and designed both neoclassical and neo-gothic buildings.
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At the 1933 Nürnberg Reichsparteitag, the new Chancellor, Adolf Hitler proclaimed the dawn of an era of ‘New Art’ – and instituted the Reichskulturkammer (Reich Chamber of Culture) to oversee the cultural life of Das Dritte Reich, (the Third Reich).
The Reichskulturkammer was headed by Dr. Paul Joseph Göbbels.
The Reichskulturkammer was to control all aspects of culture, and this included the fine arts, applied arts, industrial design, sculpture, architecture and film – examples of which are shown here.
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Haus der deutschen Kunst – (House of German Art)
Paul Ludwig Troost
The building was constructed from 1934 to 1937 following plans of architect Paul Ludwig Troost as the Third Reich’s first monumental structure of Nazi architecture and as Nazi propaganda.
The museum, then called Haus der deutschen Kunst (“House of German Art”), was opened in March 1937 as a showcase for what the Third Reich regarded as Germany’s finest art.
The inaugural exhibition was the Große Deutsche Kunstausstellung (“Great German art exhibition”), which was intended as an edifying contrast to the condemned modern art on display in the concurrent Entartete Kunst exhibition.
On 15 and 16 October 1939, the Große Deutsche Kunstausstellung inside the Haus der Deutschen Kunst was complemented by the monumental Tag der deutschen Kunst celebration of “2,000 years of Germanic culture” where luxuriously and pretentiously draped floats (one of them carrying a 5 meter tall golden Nazi Reichsadler) and thousands of actors in historical costumes paraded down Prinzregentenstraße for hours in the presence of Adolf Hitler, Hermann Göring, Joseph Goebbels, Heinrich Himmler, Albert Speer, Robert Ley, Reinhard Heydrich, and many other high-ranking Nazis, with minor events taking place in the Englischer Garten nearby.
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Haus der deutschen Kunst – (House of German Art) – detail
Paul Ludwig Troost
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Welthauptstadt (“World Capital”) Germania was the name Adolf Hitler gave to the projected renewal of the German capital Berlin, part of his vision for the future of Germany after the planned victory in World War II.
Albert Speer, “the first architect of the Third Reich”, produced many of the plans for the rebuilt city, only a small portion of which was realized before World War II.
The title “Welthauptstadt” was chosen because it was felt that Berlin’s architecture was at that time too provincial and that there was need to put Berlin on a par with and exceed the quality of other world capitals such as London, Paris and especially Rome.
Some projects, such as the creation of a great East-West city axis, which included broadening Charlottenburger Chaussee (today Straße des 17. Juni) and placing the Berlin victory column in the center, far away from the Reichstag, where it originally stood, succeeded. Others, however, such as the creation of the Große Halle (Volkshalle), had to be shelved owing to the beginning of war.
A great number of the old buildings in many of the planned construction areas were however demolished before the war and eventually defeat stopped the plans.
Speer planned the Volkshalle (people’s hall) as the centrepiece of the new Berlin.
It was an enormous domed building designed by Hitler himself.
It would still remain the largest enclosed space in the world had it been built.
Although war came before work could begin, all the necessary land was acquired, and the engineering plans were worked out.
The building would have been over 200 metres high and 250 metres in diameter, sixteen times larger than the dome of St. Peter’s.
MAIN AXIS WITH TRIUMPHAL ARCH & VOLKSHALLE
At the northern end of the avenue on the site of the Königsplatz there was to be a large open forum known as Großer Platz with an area of around 350,000 square metres.
This square was to be surrounded by the grandest buildings of all, with the Führer’s palace on the west side on the site of the former Kroll Opera House, the 1894 Reichstag Building on the east side and the third Reich Chancellery and high command of the German Army on the south side (on either side of the square’s entrance from the Avenue of Victory).
On the north side of the plaza, straddling the River Spree, Speer planned to build the centrepiece of the new Berlin, an enormous domed building, the Volkshalle (people’s hall), designed by Hitler himself.
It would still remain the largest enclosed space in the world had it been built.
Towards the southern end of the avenue would be a triumphal arch based on the Arc de Triomphe in Paris, but again, much larger; it would be almost a hundred metres high, and the Arc de Triomphe would have been able to fit inside its opening.
The outbreak of World War II in 1939 caused the decision to postpone construction until after the war to save strategic materials.
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F I N E A R T
‘French Farm-house’ – Adolf Hitler
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‘Kirche in Ardoye in Flandern’ – Adolf Hitler
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‘Zeichnung Hund’ – Adolf Hitler
‘Karl’s Church in Winter’ – Adolf Hitler
‘BAUERNFAMILIE’ – (Farming Family)
Leopold Schmutzler – ‘Working Maidens’
‘DIE RAST DER DIANA’ – (DIANA’S REST) – 1940
Ivo Saliger – 1894 – 1987
Ivo Saliger was known both for his original etchings and paintings.
He moved to Vienna in 1908 and studied painting and etching techniques at the Academy of Vienna, under some of Austria’s finest artists such as Rudolf Jettmar, Ludwig Michalek and Ferdinand Schmutzer.
Saliger completed his studies at the Academie Moderne, in Paris.
He returned to Vienna in 1920 to assume the post of professor of art at the Academy.
During the 1920’s and 1930’s, Ivo Saliger developed strong Art Deco elements within his art.
When German soldiers marched into Austria, Saliger, like so many other artists, began to paint images in support of the Third Reich.
His paintings were frequently exhibited at the ‘Great German Art Exhibition’ held annually in Munich between 1937 and 1944.
After the end of the Second World War in 1945, Saliger continued to paint until his death in 1987.
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‘EINKLANG’ – (HARMONY) – 1941
Ivo Saliger – 1894 – 1987
Adolf Ziegler – (1892-1959)
Adolf Ziegler (Bremen, 16 October 1892 – Varnhalt, today Baden-Baden, 18 September 1959) was a German painter and politician.
He was tasked by the Nazi Party to oversee the purging of “Degenerate art”, made by most of the German modern artists. He was the favoured painter of Hitler.
Hitler commented that Ziegler’s work was akin to that of perfection.
After 1945 Ziegler was unable to revive his career, and he lived quietly in the village of Varnhalt near Baden-Baden for the last years of his life.
He died in September 1959, at the age of sixty-seven.
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THE FOUR SEASONS IN SITU – ADOLF HITLER’S STUDY
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‘DIE HALSKETTE’ – (The Necklace) – 1942
‘BAUERLICHE VENUS’ – (Peasant Venus) – 1939
Sepp Hilz was born in Northern Bavaria on October 22, 1906.
Sepp began his work as a painter in his studio in Munich working mainly for regional exhibitions and displays and continued to copy the works of the great Flemish painters like Rembrandt, Vermeer, van Delft and Brouwer. Until the end of the 1920’s Sepp dedicated himself to his studies and paintings of churches in the Upper Bavarian country.In 1928, he went back to his native town to work for his father again. He married Erika von Satzenhoven who, after a year, presented him with a son they called Benno.
Together with other artists, he became the inspirer of the cultural life of Bad Aibling with his paintings in bauernmalerei style.
Starting in 1930 Hilz painted many rural scenes in the style of Wilhelm Leibl (a German painter 1844-1900) which not only earned him the name “Bauernmaler” (the painter of peasants).From 1938 to 1944 he presented twenty-two works at the Haus der Deutschen Kunst and at the Grosse Deutsche Kunstausstellung , amongst which was exhibited the famous triptych“Bäuerliche Trilogie” in 1941. After the war, Hilz, notwithstanding the many difficulties, goes back to work and restores the paintings in the churches of Schäflarn, Schlehdorf am Kochelsee, Obholting, Baumburg (the cloister of the church Altenmarkt an der Alz) and the Franciscan church of Bad Tölz.Sepp Hilz died in Bad Aibling on September 30, 1967 – five months before his second wife’s death.
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‘EITELKEIT’ – (Vanity) – 1940
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S C U L P T O R T O T H E F Ü H R E R
Arno Breker (July 19, 1900 – February 13, 1991) was a German sculptor, best known for his public works in Germany, which were endorsed by the authorities as the antithesis of so-called “degenerate art”.
He was born in Elberfeld, now Wuppertal and died in Düsseldorf.
“I am often asked why I use
athletes as models and whether
answer: That which is good
Athletes are the best models for
sculpture. It is impossible for a
sculptor like me, who loves the
triad of beauty of the body, spirit
and soul, to overlook either a
male or a female athlete.”
Breker was born in Elberfeld, in the west of Germany, the son of a stonemason.
He began to study architecture, along with stone-carving and anatomy, and at age 20 was accepted to the Düsseldorf Academy of Arts where he concentrated on sculpture.
He first visited Paris in 1924, shortly before finishing his studies.
There he met with Jean Cocteau, Jean Renoir, Pablo Picasso, Daniel-Henry Kahnweiler, and Alfred Flechtheim.
In 1927 he moved to Paris, and was quickly accepted by the art dealer Alfred Flechtheim.
He also established close relationships with important figures in the art world, including Charles Despiau, Isamu Noguchi, Maurice de Vlaminck and André Dunoyer de Segonzac, all of whom he later portrayed.
He travelled to North Africa, producing lithographs which he published under the title “Tunisian Journey”.
He also visited Aristide Maillol, who was later to describe Breker as “Germany’s Michelangelo”.
In 1932, he was awarded a prize by the Prussian Ministry of Culture, which allowed him to stay in Rome for a year.
In 1934 he returned to Germany on the advice of Max Liebermann.
Breker was supported by many Nazi leaders, especially Adolf Hitler.
Even Rosenberg later hailed his sculptures as expressions of the “mighty momentum and will power” (“Wucht und Willenhaftigkeit”) of Nazi Germany.
He took commissions from the German Government from 1933 through 1942, for example participating in a show of his work in occupied Paris in 1942, where he met Jean Cocteau, who appreciated his work.
He maintained personal relationships with Albert Speer and with Hitler.
In 1936 he won the commission for two sculptures representing athletic prowess, intended for the 1936 Olympic games, one representing a Decathlete (“Zehnkämpfer”) and the other The Victress (“Die Siegerin”).
In 1937 he married Demetra Messala a Greek model.
The same year, Breker joined the Nazi Party and was made “official state sculptor” by Hitler, given a large property and provided a studio with thousand assistants.
Hitler also exempted him from military service.
His twin sculptures The Party and The Army held a prominent position at the entrance to Albert Speer’s new Reich Chancellery.
Albert Speer, Adolf Hitler & Arno Breker – Paris – June 1940
‘BEREITSCHAFT’
(Readiness)
‘MALE NUDE STUDY’
‘Προμηθεύς’
‘PROMETHEUS’
‘GENIUS DES SIEGERS’
(Spirit of Victory)
‘ARYAN MAN’
‘DYING WARRIOR’
DER RACHER
Arno Breker
‘KAMARADSCHAFT’
(Comradeship)
Arno Breker
‘KAMARADSCHAFT’
(Comradeship)
Arno Breker
‘DER RUFER’
Arno Breker
‘BEREITSCHAFT’
Arno Breker
‘DER BANNERTRAGER’
(Standard Bearer)
Arno Breker
‘EURIDICE & ORPHEUS’
Arno Breker
APOLLO & DAPHNE’
Arno Breker
‘YOU & ME’
Arno Breker
‘DER APFEL DES PARIS’
(The Apple of Paris)
Arno Breker
‘OLYMPIA’
Arno Breker
‘OLYMPIA’
Arno Breker
‘TORSO DES ROSSBANDIGERS’
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There he met with Jean Cocteau, Jean Renoir, Pablo Picasso, Daniel-Henry Kahnweiler, and Alfred Flechtheim.
In 1934 he returned to Germany on the advice of Max Liebermann.
Even Rosenberg later hailed his sculptures as expressions of the “mighty momentum and will power” (“Wucht und Willenhaftigkeit”) of Nazi Germany.
GREAT ART - German Art 