Art and Life, ­1918 to 1955

Between 1918 and 1955, people in Germany were confronted with 
a series of historical turning points. Our exhibition brings into focus the lives and fates of artists during the Weimar Re­public, under National Socialism, and in the young Federal Republic of Germany. The diverse works of art and biographies tell stories of careers that were thriving, and others that were tem­porarily disrupted or cut short, of resistance and adaptation, of persecution, exile, and murder.

The period under consideration was defined by the coexistence of diverging tendencies. The presentation examines contemporary events and the institutional contexts in which they played out in conjunction with the artists’ lives; the output of artists who sympathized with Nazi ideologies aren’t disregarded.

Numerous experts help us shed light on specific subjects such as left-wing artists’ groups of the 1920s, the relationship between proscribed and state-sanctioned art in the expositions held in Munich in 1937, the meaning of the “inward emigration,” the so-called “Divinely Gifted List” of 1944, and the reception of modern art in Germany after 1945.

The emphasis is on the history of the Lenbachhaus’s collections and exhibition programming and thus on the city of Munich while also 
illuminating national and interna­tional phenomena. The presentation includes popular favorites from the museum’s holdings as well as new 
acquisitions and recently restored works; carefully selected loans round out the exhibition.

Artists:
Jussuf Abbo, Rudolf Belling, 
Maria Caspar-Filser, Karl Caspar, Fridel Dethleffs-Edelmann, 
Erna Dinklage, Heinrich Ehmsen, Edgar Ende, Elisabeth Epstein, 
Maria Franck-Marc, Otto Freundlich, Willi Geiger, George Grosz, 
Emilie von Hallavanya, Marie Heilbronner, Wilhelm Heise, Käte Hoch, Karl Hofer, Karl Hubbuch, Julius Hüther, Peter Kálmán, Paul Klee, Else Lasker-Schüler, Rudolf Levy, Maria Luiko, Gabriele Münter, Halil Beg Mussayassul, 
Herbert Ploberger, Carl Theodor Protzen, Franz Radziwill, Anita Rée, Gertrude Sandmann, Christian Schad, Josef Scharl, Rudolf Schlichter, Georg Schrimpf, Erwin Steiner, Hermann Tiebert, Fritz Winter

Curated by Karin Althaus, Sarah Bock, Lisa Kern und Melanie Wittchow
 

Booklet for the exhibition

Publication
Kunst und Leben 1918 bis 1955
Edited by Karin Althaus, Sarah Bock, Lisa Kern, Matthias Mühling, Melanie Wittchow – Städtische Galerie im Lenbachhaus und Kunstbau 
München
Berlin, 2022, 
Deutscher Kunstverlag
ca. 400 pages with 
170 illustrations, German
Price: 45 €

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