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'Entartete Kunst'
Degenerate art (German: Entartete Kunst) was a term adopted by the Nazi regime in Germany to describe virtually all modern art.
The following project has the intention of trying to hook up to the Big World Tree, all individual Artists active during World War II, whom the Nazis claimed were producers of Degenerate Art.
In the process of each individual project dedicated to a single artist, collaborators will be confronted with a set of family relations and events, accompanied by sources, which will be linked to specific names or events. The collaborators will start their task together, meeting on the related profile or project discussions.
Degenerate art
On 18th July 1937 the Great German Art Show opened in the Haus der Deutschen Kunst in Munich. The gallery was newly built, specifically to display works of which Hitler approved, those conformed to the Aryan ideals of the Nazi party.
The following day, and a very short distance away, the Degenerate Art Exhibition opened. The exhibition was the culmination of the work of a commission, led by Hilter's favourite painter, Adolf Ziegler. Although the commission was not formed until 1937, the campaign against unacceptable art began almost immediately after Hilter was elected in 1933. So-called "shame exhibitions" (Schandausstellungen) were often organised.
The commission was given the task of removing unacceptable art from German museums. About 600 of these works were displayed in the Degenerate Art Exhibition. This was the first public showing of these works, which were hung haphazardly and alongside insulting texts, for example; "madness becomes method".
The Nazi campaign against entartete kunst was directed by cultural and propaganda spokesmen like Alfred Rosenberg and Joseph Goebbels, plus officials from the Reich Chamber of Culture (Reichskulturkammer). A total of about 16,000 works (mostly confiscated from the best art museums and galleries in Germany, such as the National Gallery in Berlin and the Kunsthalle in Hamburg) were officially deemed degenerate, involving several hundred artists, mainly from Germany.
The purge opened in Karlsruhe, in 1933, with an exhibition attacking decadent modern artists and their works of art. This was followed by the closure of the Bauhaus Design School, many of whose teachers had Jewish or Russian (ie. communist) connections, and the closing down of the Deutscher Werkbund (German Work Federation). In 1934, at a Nazi Party rally in Nuremberg, Hitler himself spoke out against degenerate art. The campaign climaxed in July 1937, with a major exhibition (entitled "Entartete Kunst") of about 700 works, held in the Hofgartenarkaden in Munich, shortly after the opening of an exhibition of officially approved art in a building nearby. Most of the condemned artworks were taken from German museums, and ridiculed by being juxtaposed with other works by the inmates of German lunatic asylums, grouped in categories like "Pictures criticizing German Women" and so on.
Artists in the 1937 Munich show
sources:
The letter from Hutchinson Internment Camp in Douglas, Isle of Man
signed by 16 artists from Germany and Austria:
sources:
• The Letter
• A Brush With Life in Exile
Other artists, considered producers of Degenerate Art, were:
Alexander Archipenko, James Ensor, Albert Gleizes, Henri Matisse, Jean Metzinger, Pablo Picasso, Vincent van Gogh, Katharina Kollwitz (Schmidt)
sources:
• New World Encyclopedia
• Degenerate Art: The Attack on Modern Art in Nazi Germany
• First, They Came for the Art
• Degenerate art: Artists in the 1937 Munich show
• Degenerate art: Why Hitler hated modernism
• Als Hitler "entartete Kunst" verscherbeln ließ
• The Entartete Kunst (Degenerate Art) Memorial plaza project
https://www.vam.ac.uk/articles/entartete-kunst-the-nazis-inventory-...
• Entartete Kunst (Degenerate Art), Munich, Germany, 1937 (03:37)
• Nazi Degenerate Art Painting & Drawing Various Artists (06:12)
Note: Dimitri Gazan is the sole manager of this project. If a Geni member is interested in "actively" collaborating on the project, member will have to make a request to join, and be accepted, before being added as a collaborator.
