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The Guardian
7 days ago
- Politics
- The Guardian
The Jewish dealer who bought art hated by the Nazis – and created one of the greatest collections ever seen
When Heinz Berggruen left Germany for America in 1936, he was not allowed more than 10 marks in his pocket. As a young journalist in Berlin, Berggruen had been forced to publish under the pseudonym 'h.b.' in order to hide his Jewish heritage and evade the Nazi party's antisemitism. In the decades that would follow, he became an art dealer, regularly rubbing shoulders with the most important artists of the 20th century, and amassing one of the most impressive private collections of modern art ever to exist. On the day he left Berlin for Berkeley, however, such a future would have seemed impossible. A year after Berggruen departed Germany, the Nazi party escalated its assault on culture by staging the infamous exhibition titled Entartete Kunst ('degenerate art'). Based on the belief that modern art represented a cultural decay and assault on German values, the regime confiscated more than 16,000 artworks and presented a number of them in an exhibition intended for public ridicule. This invisible history is embedded in the artworks in the National Gallery of Australia's new exhibition, Cézanne to Giacometti: Highlights from Museum Berggruen/Neue Nationalgalerie, which is mostly drawn from Berggruen's collection and showcases many of the artists that the Nazis repudiated. The first artwork that Berggruen ever purchased was a watercolour drawing by Paul Klee. The work, which he bought for US$100 in 1940 from another émigré in Chicago, immediately held personal significance. Berggruen described the artwork as his 'talisman' and likely saw his own history reflected in the biography of Klee – a Swiss German artist, who had taught at the Bauhaus before being designated as 'degenerate' and leaving Germany in 1933, the same year Adolf Hitler became chancellor. Berggruen would carry Klee's watercolour drawing everywhere, even taking it with him when he was called up to serve in the US military. Sign up for the fun stuff with our rundown of must-reads, pop culture and tips for the weekend, every Saturday morning '[The drawing] was probably a reminder of a world and home he had to leave behind, and a Germany that didn't exist any more,' explains Natalie Zimmer, curator at Museum Berggruen, which is part of Berlin's Neue Nationalgalerie. 'Works by Klee really represented a cultural cosmos he was longing for … a reminder of everything that was good for Heinz, and very much the opposite to the Nazi regime.' Artistic style can sometimes seem like an inward-facing conceit. Its importance is lauded by a subset of the art world – and yet, the greater distance one has from the context of its creation, the more ambivalent we as viewers can become to it. Similarly, the work of assembling a private art collection can be of critical importance to some – historians, institutions, the collector's immediate family – and be of little to no interest to most gallery visitors. But the Berggruen collection bucks both trends. Here, the modernist style is not just some idle indulgence, but a critical artistic counterpoint to the sanctioned aesthetics of the Nazis. Collecting such repudiated art was an act of resistance. Klee's abstracted watercolour drawings, Alberto Giacometti's elongated sculptures, Pablo Picasso's dissonant Cubism: all despised by the Nazis and all now present at the NGA. The story that the NGA is telling is primarily focused on the spread of modernist art styles across Europe and its eventual arrival in Australia. Here, the spread begins with the work of Paul Cézanne – a key precursor to the avant-garde movements of the 20th century, whom Picasso purportedly referred to as 'the father of us all' – before moving on to trace his immediate impact on the artistic styles of Cubism and Fauvism, and its persisting influence on the generations of artists that followed. Sign up to Saved for Later Catch up on the fun stuff with Guardian Australia's culture and lifestyle rundown of pop culture, trends and tips after newsletter promotion This influence is present even when it is not immediately apparent. 'Giacometti is well known for his incredibly tall skinny sculpted works – but what on earth does that have to do with Cézanne?' asks David Greenhalgh, curator at the NGA. 'Well, a lot. Giacometti had a painterly way of sculpting. He built his works up particle by particle – like the constructive brushstrokes of Cézanne.' The basic lines of this narrative follow the conventional history of western art. Yet within the exhibition, this genealogy is extended out to encompass pockets of less-aired histories. Of particular note are the works by Dora Maar, whose Portrait of Pablo Picasso (1938) resists the well-rehearsed and reductive portrayals of her as merely Picasso's muse by dramatically inverting the positions of artist and model. In the painting, Picasso is abstracted and unnerving, staring directly back with orange-yellow eyes and blank, black irises. Maar's collection of black and white street photography further redefines her as an observer of life, rather than just the object of observation. Ludwig Hirschfeld-Mack's artworks are particularly arresting. The artist studied at the Bauhaus before being forced to flee Germany for England in 1936 due to his Jewish heritage. He was subsequently classified as an illegal alien and deported to Australia, where he was interned in camps in Hay, Orange and Tatura. The works that he made during this period import the lessons of the European avant-garde into country Australia to dramatic effect, aching with feeling and visually diarising the conditions of exile, as we witness in his woodblock print, Desolation: Internment Camp, Orange, NSW (1941). In 2000, Berggruen sold his collection to the German state, seven years before his death at the age of 93. 'It was a huge act of reconciliation by someone who was driven out of the city some 60 years before and still chose to give his works to Berlin, rather than Geneva or London,' reflects Gabriel Montua, director of the Museum Berggruen. With this gesture, Berggruen helped to fill the historical gaps created by the Nazis' violent confiscations – and left behind a collection that testifies to the power of art in moments of true peril. Cézanne to Giacometti: Highlights from Museum Berggruen/Neue Nationalgalerie is on at the National Gallery of Australia until 21 September 2025.
New York Times
07-05-2025
- Entertainment
- New York Times
A Rarely Seen Angel With a Lesson From History
The angel is kept in a state of darkness, because it is delicate and vulnerable to light. The subject of a century of philosophical debate, and the inspiration for works of poetry, theater, music and film, the angel, called 'Angelus Novus,' is a powerfully enigmatic figure. When this artwork by Paul Klee is presented it in public, it is considered an event. Klee's 1920 watercolor print will have a rare appearance starting on May 8, as part of the exhibition, 'The Angel of History: Walter Benjamin, Paul Klee and the Berlin Angels 80 Years After World War II,' at the Bode-Museum in Berlin. On loan from the Israel Museum in Jerusalem, Klee's work — which is about the size of a standard notebook page — will be on show through July 13, a shorter-than-typical exhibition run, to protect it from too much exposure. The German-Jewish philosopher Walter Benjamin, who owned 'Angelus Novus' for nearly two decades, wrote one of his final texts about the angel, just before he died by suicide in 1940. He saw the angel as a witness to an imminent cataclysm. 'This is how one pictures the angel of history,' Benjamin wrote in notes that would later be published as 'Theses on the Philosophy of History.'
BBC News
02-05-2025
- General
- BBC News
Bath's Victoria Art Gallery marks 'milestone moment' of 125 years
An art gallery has reopened a section of its exhibition space following conservation work, in celebration of its 125th free-to-visit Upper Gallery at Bath's Victoria Art Gallery is now open to the public after extensive conservation work was carried out to protect the Grade II-listed venue houses Bath & North East Somerset Council's (BANES) collection of public artworks, and pieces by artists such as Paul Klee and Grayson Campbell, BANES head of culture and heritage, said it was a "milestone moment" for a "much-loved" council-owned art space. All of the Victoria Art Gallery is free to enter for residents in the BANES Council area who hold a Discovery Card, and relies on support from visitors and conservation work took place, the gallery team developed The Modelling Room, a dedicated learning and engagement studio for schools and the community. The council said it was "very grateful" for the commitment of its supporters and the individual donor who helped to fund the development of the new space. "We are honouring its important past while investing in its future," Mr Campbell said."The completion of vital conservation work in the Upper Gallery and the launch of our first dedicated learning and engagement space are milestone moments. "We're thrilled to welcome the public back to this much-loved cultural space."The exhibition - First Impressions: Printers' Proofs of Works by Great 20th Century Artists - runs in the Upper Gallery until 6 July.
Euronews
18-02-2025
- Entertainment
- Euronews
'Degenerate art' denounced by Nazis goes on show in Paris
A new exhibition on the 'degenerate' art disavowed by the Nazis has opened in Paris. 'L'art dégénéré' is now on at the Musée Picasso in Paris and is the first show in France dedicated to the art which came under attack during the Nazi regime. At the forefront of the expo is an examination of the 'Entartete Kunst' (degenerate art) exhibition that ran in Munich in 1937 showing more than 600 works by artists persecuted by the Nazis. 'Entartete Kunst' was designed to disgust the German public at the output of artists from backgrounds rejected by the fascist state, such as Jews, Bolsheviks and homosexuals. Many of the artists included in the exhibition are now considered crucial avant-garde members of modern art such as Otto Dix, Wassily Kandinsky and Paul Klee. The 1937 show was the culmination of a series of exhibitions promoted by the Nazi state to 'purge' the degenerate art that was a threat to German 'purity'. It followed exhibitions in Dresden, Mannheim, Karlsruhe and others across Germany that ran from the party's election in 1933. As part of the German government's sweep, over 20,000 works of art from artists including Vincent Van Gogh, Marc Chagall and Pablo Picasso were withdrawn, sold or destroyed. 'L'art dégénéré' runs at the Musée Picasso from 18 February to 25 May and features many of the works targeted during the era. It examines the way fascist governments persecute people through art and targeting artists. Other artists featured in the exhibition include George Grosz, Paul Klee and Oskar Kokoschka. There's also a section dedicated to the persecution of Jewish artists by the Nazi regime, focused around two paintings from Jewish French-Russian artist Marc Chagall. It's the first time a French museum has dedicated an exhibition to the art branded degenerate by the Nazis aside from a small exhibition by the Goethe Institut in 1989. Other countries have run similar exhibitions in the past, including a major Berlin retrospective in 1992. Some of the artworks on display were thought to have been lost forever during the war. Sculptures by German sculptor Emy Roeder that were found during a 2010 archaeological dig in Berlin are on show. Other works catalogue the journey through the war, from ownership by Jewish art patrons to their theft by the Nazis and eventual return to the original owner's descendants. 'La Prise (Rabbin)', a painting by Chagall which takes its title from a short story by Yiddish writer Isaac Leib Peretz was acquired by the Kunsthalle of Mannheim in 1928. As both the painter and the painting's subject embodied Jewish culture, the work was paraded through Mannheim's streets in 1933 with the message 'You who pay taxes, you should know where your money is spent' before it was shown in the 1937 'Degenerate Art' exhibition. There are also letters from artists like Dix throughout the exhibition that paint a picture of life as an artist during the Nazi era. It also tells the stories of the artists persecuted by the regime. As the exhibition debuts in Paris, the exhibition is a powerful historical document of how fascist regimes persecute culture through its art. 'L'art dégénéré' runs at the Musée Picasso Paris until 25 May.
