Feb 21, 2019 - Sale 2499

Sale 2499 - Lot 50

Price Realized: $ 4,750
?Final Price Realized includes Buyer’s Premium added to Hammer Price
Estimate: $ 2,500 - $ 3,500
(ENTARTETE KUNST--DEGENERATE ART SHOW)
A fine suite of 7 real photo postcards from the iconic modern art exhibitions in Munich and Berlin, featuring installation views, depictions of so-called "entartete kunst [degenerate artwork]" and an exterior of the "ausstellung [exhibition]" building. With 3 images credited to Hitler's chief photographer Heinrich Hoffmann. Includes a view into a large exhibition room that gives insight into the curator's strategic captioning of degenerate artworks. Often paintings were accompained with text detailing the amount of German funds that had been designated to acquire a particular work; this figure was meant to evoke anger among Germany's tax-paying citizens. Silver prints on carte-postale paper, the images measuring approximately 3 1/2x5 1/2 inches (12.7x17.8 cm.), and smaller, and the reverse, 3 with caption information in the negative, and 4 with printed captions on verso, one of these with a Berlin exhibition postmark and stamp. 1937-38

Additional Details

Includes:
1. Street view showing signage on the front of the Berlin exhibition building;
2. View of the first artwork guests encountered in the exhibition, a grotesque sculpture of an emancipated Christ on the Cross by Prof. Gies;
3. A painting by Max Beckmann titled Descent from the Cross;
4. A painting by Jankel Adler titled Mother and Daughter;
5. A painting by Otto Dix titled The War Cripples;
6. Survey image of a room in Munich exhibition, a large painting by Beckmann and Kirchner with captions visible;
7. A frontal viewpoint of several paintings installed in the exhibition, most depicting religious subjects.