Hot Demand for German Expressionist Painting

This summer people are flocking to an exhibit in Schwerin of the Nazi hack sculptor Arno Breker (Sign and Sight has published an interesting 1979 interview with him). Today, Breker’s work is just an historical curiosity: no one takes him seriously as an artist. 

In 1937 the Nazis put on a exhibition of Degenerate Art ("entartete Kunst") .  Among the many artists featured were representatives of the expressionist painters group known as  Die Brücke (The Bridge), and one the key members was Ernst Ludwig Kirchner (self portrait below).

Kirchner suffered from his inability to live and work in Germany as an artist, and committed suicide in 1938.

Today, in sharp contrast to Breker’s reputation, Kirchner is viewed as a master of German Expressionist painting, and his works are much sought after by collectors and museums around the world.  The New York Times reports that one of Kirchner’s Berlin streetscapes – Street Scene: Berlin – could sell for as much as $24 million dollars when it is auctioned by Christies in later this year:

"Barely a week after the German government returned a 1913 painting by Ernst Ludwig Kirchner to the heirs of Jewish collectors who owned it before World War II, Christie’s said yesterday that it would auction the work in New York on Nov. 8.

Experts estimate that the painting, “Street Scene, Berlin,’’ a colorful canvas of an urban crowd painted mainly in blues with a prostitute in a bright red dress toward the left, could sell for $18 million to $25 million. It is considered one of Kirchner’s finest street scenes, painted at the height of his career."

German Expressionist painting – long considered "messy" by art critics in America – is the hottest selling art globally.  Much of the renewed interest can be attributed to the efforts of Die Neue Galerie in New York City – a museum devoted exclusively to German and Austrian art. But art enthusiasts who visit New York must also make a trip to Cambridge, Massachusetts as well.  The Busch Reisinger Museum at Harvard University has an amazing collection of German Expressionist art – including sculptures of Ernst Barlach.  The museum has free admission, and during my visits there I was often the only person in the whole museum.

So visit the Breker Exhibit in Schwerin to learn about history, but anyone interested in great German painting and sculpture from the Weimar Republic era needs to come to the States.