More Weimar Art: 1926

This blog contains some excellent selections of works of art from Weimar Germany, complemented by concise information, poems, and other impressions. Below are a few striking portraits, which all happen to be from 1926 -- the year that Brecht produced Man Equals Man.

Rudolf Schlichter, Portrait of Bertolt Brecht

Gert Wollheim, Untitled

Georg Scholz, Self Portrait

George Grosz: "Degenerate Art"

"Fit For Active Service" (1918)

Along with Otto Dix, George Grosz was a key proponent of the New Objectivity in German art.

From the Figge Art Museum website:

World War I instilled in Grosz a hatred of the Prussian military establishment, which he attacked mercilessly in his work. The most well known of his satirical drawings is "Fit for Active Service," in which a fat, complacent doctor pronounces a skeleton fit for duty. His disgust with his countrymen caused him to anglicize his name (adding an 'e' to Georg) in 1917. Immediately after the war, Grosz became a leader in the German Dada movement, which brought him much success and international recognition. His work in the 1920s and 1930s ruthlessly denounced a decaying German society and his despair of the political situation in Germany. His relentless political views resulted in several prosecutions for obscenity and blasphemy, the confiscation of his drawings, and his inclusion in Hitler's Entarte Kunst (degenerate art) exhibition in 1937 in Munich. In 1933, Grosz came to the U.S. to take up a teaching post at the Art Students League in New York. He taught there until 1955. In later years, Grosz painted romantic landscapes and still-lifes attempting to overcome his reputation as a brilliant satirist. He died shortly after his return to Germany in 1959.

"Lovesick" (1916)

"Beauty, Thee Will I Praise" (1919)

"Grey Day" (1921)

"The Pillars of Society" (1926)

"The Agitator" (1928)

Otto Dix: "Der Krieg" (1924)

Otto Dix was one of the most striking and influential artists of Weimar Germany, a key proponent of the New Objectivity (Neue Sachlichkeit). In 1924, just two years before the premiere of Brecht's Man Equals Man, Dix produced "Der Krieg," a cycle of 51 prints depicting the horrors of war.

Much like Brecht's work in the 1920s, Dix's prints are at once gritty and ironic, depicting his subjects both critically and sympathetically.

The National Gallery of Australia has excellent information on "Der Krieg," as well as access to individual prints. I've included a few images below.

"Roll Call of the Returning Troops"
... depicting a scene not dissimilar from the one in Brecht's play

"Canteen in Haplincourt"

"Frontline Soldier in Brussels"