Degenerate art

'Degenerate art' (Entartete Kunst) was not a style but a persecutory classification: the label Nazi cultural officials applied to modern art they considered corrupting. In 1933-1945 works by Expressionist, Dadaist, New Objectivity, Cubist and other modern artists were removed from German museums, and the confiscated works were displayed in the deliberately cramped 1937 'Entartete Kunst' exhibition in Munich, staged in contrast to the official Great German Art Exhibition running nearby. Hundreds of thousands of works were ultimately seized; many were later sold abroad or destroyed. The category is worth cataloguing precisely because it shows style labels being used as political instruments — and because the works it condemned form one of the best-documented bodies of twentieth-century modernism.

Defining characteristics

• Distortion or fragmentation of natural form
• Bold, non-naturalistic color
• Visible, expressive brushwork over polished finish
• Abstraction away from representational clarity
• Influence of folk art and non-Western visual traditions
• Subjective or critical subject matter in place of approved heroic themes

Key figures

• Adolf Ziegler (1892-1959) — Organized the 1937 'Entartete Kunst' exhibition
• Ernst Ludwig Kirchner (1880-1938) — Expressionist works branded and confiscated; later persecuted
• Max Beckmann (1884-1950) — Works included in the 1937 show; emigrated after the labeling

Example works

• 'Entartete Kunst' exhibition, Munich — Organized by Adolf Ziegler (1937)
• Berlin Street Scene — Ernst Ludwig Kirchner (1913)

Sources

• Degenerate art - Wikipedia encyclopedia

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