I am a great fan of the literature and art of Weimar Republic - that brief period when Berlin arguably displaced Paris as the world center of creativity. So I am very excited by a new exhibit at New York's Metropolitan Museum of Art: Glitter and Doom: German Portraits from the 1920s . I plan on visiting the exhibit in December (it runs until February 19th). The exhibit contains paintings from all of the greatest artists of the period:
The exhibition features gripping portraits by ten renowned artists: Max Beckmann, Heinrich Maria Davringhausen, Otto Dix, George Grosz, Karl Hubbuch, Ludwig Meidner, Christian Schad, Rudolf Schlichter, Georg Scholz, and Gert H. Wollheim. German museum collections in Berlin, Cologne, Dresden, Düsseldorf, Hamburg, Frankfurt am Main, Mannheim, Münich, Stuttgart, and Wuppertal have lent works to the exhibition. Additional portraits on loan from museums in Paris, Madrid, New York, and Toronto, as well as from private collections in Germany, Australia, New York, and Chicago, are included.
These artists never avoided scandal - in fact, they often sought to be the center of scandal. Therefore it is fitting that this exhibit has generated a mini-scandal of its own. The New York Times has the background of the missing painting:
In response to an ownership dispute, the Metropolitan Museum of Art says it has decided not to borrow a painting by George Grosz from the Museum of Modern Art for an exhibition of German Expressionist portraits that opened yesterday.
The artist’s estate argues that it is the rightful owner of the painting, a 1927 portrait of the poet Max Herrmann-Neisse, and of another work by Grosz in MoMA’s collection. MoMA, which has been discussing the issue with the estate for three years, counters that it has thoroughly investigated the claim and has concluded that it has no legal basis.
Sueddeutsche Zeitung has a very good summary of the dispute and is sympathetic to the claims of Grosz's son Martin that the painting is not the legitimate property of MoMA. The paper quotes from a letter that George Grosz himself wrote to his son-in-law about the painting in question:
Dass der Künstler das Gemälde nach wie vor als sein Eigentum betrachtete, zeigt ein Brief an seinen Schwiegersohn vom Januar 1953: ,"Modern Museum stellte ein mir gestohlenes Bild aus (bin machtlos dagegen) sie habens von Jemand gekauft, ders gestohlen". Wenige Wochen zuvor hatte das MoMA das "Bildnis Max Hermann-Neisse" zum ersten Mal als Neuerwerbung gezeigt.
But let's not forget that George Grosz spent many productive years in New York: he arrived already in 1933 and became a naturalized American citizen in 1938. So his paintings belong just as much to America - the country that gave him refuge and allowed him to paint - as to Germany. In fact, MoMA identifies George Grosz as an American artist in its catalogue. While Grosz was disappointed that Americans in the 1930s viewed art as entertainment rather than as a vehicle for social and political expression, he never stopped using political themes in his art. as evidenced by his 1944 painting Cain, or, Hitler in Hell.
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