Degenerate Art"; The Fate of the Avant-Garde in Nazi Germany

New York, N.Y.: Harry N. Abrams, Inc, 1991. Presumed First Edition, First printing. Hardcover. Good. 423, [1] pages. Oversized book, measuring 12 inches by 9-1/2 inches. Small dings/damage at bottom edge of front cover and spine. Contributors to this book include Peter Guenther, Andreas Huneke, Annegret Janda, Mario-Andreas von Luttichau, Michael Meyer, William Moritz, George L. Mosse, and Chrisoph Zuschlag. Includes Foreword, Chronology, Register of Frequently Cited Names and Organizations, Exhibition Ephemera, Entartete Kunst: The Literature, Selected Bibliography, Acknowledgments, List of Lenders, and Index. This book was published in conjunction with the exhibition "Degenerative Art": The Fate of the Avant-Garde in Nazi Germany, which was organized by the Los Angels County Museum of Art. This is a key work in the field of what was termed 'Degenerate Art' ('Entartete Kunst') by the Nazis. Particularly valuable for its reconstruction of the 'Entartete Kunst' Exhibition held in Munich in 1937 on the basis of existing photographs and documentation, and the touring of versions to other major cities. This book examines the events surrounding the condemnation of modern art by the National Socialists. This book documents one of the most appalling moments in our century's cultural history, but it also reminders us that art and creativity will survive censorship and oppression. Degenerate Art also was the title of an exhibition, held by the Nazis in Munich in 1937, consisting of 650 modernist artworks chaotically hung and accompanied by text labels deriding the art. The National Socialists rejected and censured virtually everything that had existed on the German modern art scene. The book also includes a detailed description of the exhibit, explanations of how the exhibit design influenced the viewers, and short biographies of every artist included, as well as examples of their work, many of which were destroyed. Degenerate art was a term adopted in the 1920s by the Nazi Party in Germany to describe modern art. During the dictatorship of Adolf Hitler, German modernist art, including many works of internationally renowned artists, was removed from state-owned museums and banned in Nazi Germany on the grounds that such art was an "insult to German feeling", un-German, Jewish, or Communist in nature. Those identified as degenerate artists were subjected to sanctions that included being dismissed from teaching positions, being forbidden to exhibit or to sell their art, and in some cases being forbidden to produce art. The Nazis promoted paintings and sculptures that were traditional in manner and that exalted the "blood and soil" values of racial purity, militarism, and obedience. In 1937 the National Socialists staged the most virulent attack ever mounted against modern art with the opening on July 19 in Munich of the Entartete Kunst (Degenerate art) exhibition, in which were brought together more than 650 important paintings, sculptures, prints, and books that had until a few weeks earlier been in the possession of thirty-two German public museum collections. The works were assembled for the purpose of clarifying for the German public by defamation and derision exactly what type of modern art was unacceptable to the Reich, and thus "un-German." During the four months Entartete Kunst was on view in Munich it attracted more than two million visitors, over the next three years it traveled throughout Germany and Austria and was seen by nearly one million more. On most days twenty thousand visitors passed through the exhibition, which was free of charge; records state that on one Sunday August 2, 1937-thirty six thousand people saw it. The popularity of Entartete Kunst has never been matched by any other exhibition of modern art. According to newspaper accounts, five times as many people visited Entartete Kunst as saw the Grosse Deutsche Kunstaussiellung (Great German art exhibition), an equally large presentation of Nazi-approved art that had opened on the preceding day to inaugurate Munich's Haus der Deutschen Kunst (House of German art), the first official building erected by the National Socialists. The thoroughness of the National Socialists' politicization of aesthetic issues remains unparalleled in modern history, as does the remarkable set of circumstances that led to the complete revocation of Germany's previous identification of its cultural heroes, not only in the visual arts but also in literature, music, and film. The Entartete Kunst exhibition was only the tip of the iceberg: in 1937 more than sixteen thousand examples of modern art were confiscated as "degenerate" by a committee empowered by Joseph Goebbels, Adolf Hitler's second-in-command and since March of 1933 Reichsminister für Volksaufklarung und Propaganda (Reich minister for public enlightenment and propaganda). While some of the impounded art was earmarked for Entartete Kunst in Munich, hundreds of works were sold for hard currency to foreign buyers. Many of the "dregs," as Goebbels called them, were probably destroyed in a spectacular blaze in front of the central fire department in Berlin in 1939.