USA: A New York exhibition of German portraits from the 1920s presents a cynical, dark period in the history of Germany

Record ID: 699535

  • Title: USA: A New York exhibition of German portraits from the 1920s presents a cynical, dark period in the history of Germany
  • Date: 15th November 2006
  • Summary: VISITOR LOOKING AT PORTRAITS
  • Embargoed: 30th November 2006 12:00
  • Keywords:
  • Location: Usa
  • Country: USA
  • Topics: Lifestyle
  • Reuters ID: LVACU5FH993EOOSKDFV04DOMT5R6
  • Story Text: Portraits of gray days, injured war veterans, cocaine-addled dancers, prostitutes and profiteers dominate a new exhibition of German portraits from the 1920s, currently displaying at The Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York City.
    The exhibition titled "Glitter and Doom: German Portraits from the 1920s" presents through its collection the political, economic and social turmoil that shaped Germany's Weimar Republic between 1919 and 1933. This period is regarded as pivotal in 20th-century German culture in terms of the influence it had in generating innovation in literature, music, film, architecture and theater.
    Curator of nineteenth century modern and contemporary art at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, Sabine Rewald, pointed out that the period presented in the portraits was that of matter-of-fact realism as a result of the disillusionment following World War I. Most German artists as a result moved towards what has been termed "Neue Sachlichkeit (New Objectivity" and a branch known as "Verism". These artists looked more cynically, often even vehemently at their fellow citizens and took to portraiture, as seen in the 40 paintings and 60 worlds on paper featured in the exhibition.
    "It was a time of economic catastrophe, of political upheaval. These were the years after World War I, a crushing defeat in World War I and the artists who painted these pictures had all been in the war. They went full of illusions as all Germany went to the war, they came back from this hell and looked at their surroundings cynically, very soberly and so of course they could not depict flowers or landscapes, so the human being had more importance to them and so of course they could not flatter them. They depicted them clinically and not flattering," Rewald explained.
    Some of the artists included in the exhibition are Otto Dix, Georg Scholz, and Christian Schad.
    In "Gray Day", a 1921 oil on canvas by Grosz, the artist draws a symbolic brick wall between the smug municipal officer in charge of disabled war veterans and the dreary urban scene of a worker with a shovel, a war veteran and a furtive black marketeer.
    Although their subjects were contemporary, artists such as Dix and Schad were inspired by 16th-century German masters, such as Holbein and Grunewald. Dix explored the vices of the Weimar era by portraying the debased aspects of society, as in "The Salon I", which portrays elderly prostitutes in cheap finery and their breasts exposed. In the 1928 oil on canvas, "Two Girls", Schad shows one of the girls touching her clitoris. In "The Dancer Anita Berber", Dix draws a portrait of the infamous dancer who was also a nude performer, an actress and a cocaine addict. Berber symbolized the excesses and misery of the period.
    Dix dominates the exhibition with more than 50 of his works included.
    A 1929 portrait by Christian Schad, "Agosta the "Winged One" and Rasha the "Black Dove"" included in the exhibition shows an unusual image -- Agosta was born with an upside-down rib cage, a deformity that gave his torso a winged shape. He performed with Rasha, who twirled a large boa constructor around her body, at a fairground in north Berlin. The duo posed in Schad's Berlin studio.
    The images presented in the exhibition serve as reflections of a dismal period. With Hitler coming to the forefront in 1933 and the end of the Weimar Republic, many of the artists lost their positions and their work was banned.
    Rewald said that she hoped the American public would be able to appreciate and understand the seriousness and cynicism of the exhibition.
    "Glitter and Doom: German Portraits from the 1920s" will be open till February 19, 2007.
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