CHAPTER TEN

FREE ART IN FREE BERLIN:

GERMAN-AMERICAN SUPPORT
All rights reserved. May not be reproduced in any form without permission from the publisher, except fair uses permitted under U.S. or applicable copyright law.

FOR BERLIN ART IN THE 1950S

DOROTHEA SCHÖNE

It is true that the most significant and most forceful talents which we have
today are in the abstract camp. This kind of painting has a long tradition in
Germany.1

Art historical research has, for the most part, agreed upon the
interpretation that abstract art was the prevailing style in postwar West
German art, 2 dominant—at least in the late 1940s—not necessarily by
numbers of artworks made or artists working in abstract styles but rather
by its presentation in art debates and discourses, in exhibition reviews, and
rankings of importance for the development of modern art. Despite its
rejection by a wider public, prominent art critics and art historians such as
Werner Haftmann, Will Grohmann, and Franz Roh presented abstract art
as the most forceful, future-oriented, democratic, and international style
existing at the time; their interpretation of abstract art had multiple facets
and served various interests. First, it emphasized that postwar abstract art
had its origin in prewar modernism represented by artists such as Wassily
1
Werner Haftmann, “Abstract Painting,” in Documents: Revue du Dialogue
Franco-Allemand, Special Issue: German Contemporary Art, ed. Gesellschaft für
Übernationale Zusammenarbeit (Offenburg/Baden: Dokumente–Verlag, 1952),
Copyright 2016. Cambridge Scholars Publishing.

71–80.
2
Serge Guilbaut, How New York Stole the Idea of Modern Art: Abstract
Expressionism, Freedom, and the Cold War, trans. Arthur Goldhammer (Chicago:
University of Chicago Press, 1983); Francis Stonor Saunders, The Cultural Cold
War: The Cia and the World of Arts and Letters (New York: New Press, 2000);
Christian J. Meier, Dichotomie Figuration Versus Abstraktion in der Deutschen
Kunst von 1945 bis 1985 (Berlin: Epubli, 2012).

EBSCO Publishing : eBook Collection (EBSCOhost) - printed on 2/18/2020 6:53 PM via UNIVERSIDAD DE LOS ANDES
AN: 1439279 ; Wunsche, Isabel, Gronemeyer, Wiebke.; Practices of Abstract Art : Between Anarchism and Appropriation
Account: undeloan.main.ehost
 196 Chapter Ten

Kandinsky or Paul Klee. By arguing in such a way, critics implied that

before the Nazi dictatorship, Germany had a free, democratic art scene,
which was now—after 1945—revived and rehabilitated. When Haftmann,
in his 1952 quote (cited above), pointed to a long tradition, he naturally
thought of Kandinsky as one of the founders of abstract art in Germany.
But pointing to prewar modernism and linking it directly to new, postwar
art, Haftmann was also eliminating twelve years of Nazi dictatorship and
cultural propaganda from art historical narratives and cultural discourses.
Furthermore, his writings served the interest of rehabilitating those artists,
whom the National Socialists defamed as degenerate—namely those who
worked in modernist, expressionist, and nonobjective styles. Rehabilitation
was certainly a key interest of the art historical discourses after 1945. Yet,
this also fit, in multiple ways, into the political agenda of the Western
Allied Forces in the late 1940s and early 1950s, promoting abstract art as a
model contrary to the propaganda of figurative art in the East as well as a
progressive international style, a “world language” of art, as art critic
Werner Haftmann put it in his 1954 publication Die Malerei des
20. Jahrhunderts. 3 With little to no pictorial reference to a political
agenda, abstract art came with no overtly visible ideological preloading.
Rather, it was interpreted as an individual expression of the artist, thus a
free and democratic form of expression. The strong pronunciation of
freedom and democracy in the context of abstract art naturally bore a
political agenda—countering both the National Socialist propaganda as
well as the current Socialist and Stalinist politics.
Given the strong political contextualization of abstract art in postwar
Germany, it comes as no surprise that it was promoted against all tastes
and favors of the German public. As late as 1955, a questionnaire still
revealed that only six out of one hundred Germans liked modern painting
in a “Picasso style,” while thirty-two fully rejected it. Over fifty percent of
the people asked had no interest in the question at all.4
Despite the negative reception of abstract art by the German public,
abstract art was heavily promoted by the American Occupational Forces,
which saw it as both a powerful tool in the cultural competition with the

3
“Zur Annahme dieser Einsicht zwingt die geschichtlich noch nie dagewesene
Tatsache, daß der europäische Lebensentwurf, den wir im letzten halben
Jahrhundert entwickelt haben und dessen ästhetischer Ausdruck die moderne
Kunst und Architektur ist, heute Geltung um den Erdkreis herum erlangt hat.”
Werner Haftmann, Die Malerei des 20. Jahrhunderts (Munich: Prestel, 1954), 479.
4
Paul Maenz, Die 50er Jahre. Formen eines Jahrzehnts (Stuttgart: Hatje, 1978),
93.

EBSCOhost - printed on 2/18/2020 6:53 PM via UNIVERSIDAD DE LOS ANDES. All use subject to https://www.ebsco.com/terms-of-use
 Free Art in Free Berlin: Support for Berlin Art in the 1950s 197

Soviet Union, its Cold War enemy, as well as a significant medium of re-
educating the German public to a more open-minded, avant-garde-
friendly, and internationally oriented viewer.
Naturally, in such a politically charged discourse, the city of Berlin
played a major role. When in 1950, the US High Commissioner (HICOG),
in collaboration with the Berlin-based group Prolog (its members
consisted of American and German artists and art lovers), as well as the
Washington-based American Federation of Art (AFA), organized a touring
exhibition of contemporary Berlin art, it naturally meant to convey a
political message.5
In the spring of 1950, the AFA prepared an exhibition of contemporary
Berlin art to first be shown in three German cities and then tour through
fifteen cities in the United States. The Federation’s idea for this exhibition
had been initiated by Prolog, which had been promoting the local art scene
through publications, lectures, and exhibitions in the private mansions of
their American members since 1946.
In the summer of 1950, shortly after HICOG and AFA had agreed to
tour the exhibition, Charlotte Weidler was hired as a curatorial advisor to
the show. Weidler, a German-American curator, had been the advisor on
German art for the Carnegie’s International Exhibitions from the 1920s
until the late 1930s. Due to this experience, she had established close ties
with a number of leading artists and was well informed about their
practices even after she had emigrated to the United States in 1939. When
in 1950, the Carnegie Institute decided to revive its International
Exhibitions, she was hired again as a consultant for the German section.
When approaching the HICOG for traveling permission and visa for her
research, the governmental institution asked her to also assist on the AFA
project. Weidler agreed and took on the task, which Prolog had initiated.
While the initial concept of the show, assembled by the Prolog
members, included all kinds of artistic styles, Weidler now changed the
concept profoundly by putting a much stronger emphasis on the
Bauhaus—an institution, in which she had been trained as a young
woman—and abstract art. Weidler selected about fifty-five works by
twenty–four artists, including prominent names such as Karl Hofer, Max
Kaus, Max Pechstein, and Karl Schmidt–Rottluff—all of whom she had
included in the Pittsburgh International Exhibitions taking place until

5
See Dorothea Schöne, Freie Künstler in einer freien Stadt. Die amerikanische
Förderung der Berliner Nachkriegsmoderne (Berlin, Boston: De Gruyter, 2016).

EBSCOhost - printed on 2/18/2020 6:53 PM via UNIVERSIDAD DE LOS ANDES. All use subject to https://www.ebsco.com/terms-of-use
 198 Chapter Ten

1939. Furthermore, she added younger artists such as Alexander Camaro,

Karl Hartung, Bernhard Heiliger, Hans Jaenisch, and Heinz Trökes.6
While names such as Karl Hofer, Max Kaus, Max Pechstein, and Karl
Schmidt–Rottluff represented rather expressionist and figurative painting,
the publicity material Weidler prepared for the AFA emphasized mainly
the abstract tendencies in the show.
The press release, for example, made it appear that the majority of the
works included were abstract art and that expressionist or surrealist works
would have a minor presence as they were discussed rather briefly.
Despite all efforts by both Weidler and the AFA representatives, a sponsor
and financial support for the exhibition catalog could not be found and
consequently, the volume was not published. Therefore, the organizers had
to entirely rely on other forms of publicity, mainly press statements and
newspaper reviews. For this particular exhibition, press material thus
played a major role.
Even before the show opened and the official press release was sent to
the participating venues, Weidler prepared lists for the AFA, categorizing
the artists by style and by how well they were already known in the United
States. According to this document, seven were abstract artists, three
belonged to the “Bauhaus group,” while fourteen names were listed as
“Expressionists.” 7 While these early lists seem somewhat balanced in
regard to the styles represented, the press release and what resulted in the
tenor of the newspaper reviews reveals that a clear emphasis was put on
abstract art.
In addition to the list in which she sorted the artists by styles, Weidler
also prepared a sheet she entitled—mistakenly or on purpose—as
“propaganda notes” (a handwritten correction turned it into “publicity
notes”). Here the German–American curator listed those artists and artworks

6
Artists included were: Alexander Camaro, Karl Hartung, Bernhard Heiliger,
Werner Heldt, Karl Hofer, Wolf Hoffmann, Willy Robert Huth, Hans Jaenisch,
Max Kaus, Karl Heinz Kliemann, Peter Kowalski, Juro Kubicek, Hans Kuhn, Fritz
Kuhr, Katja Meirowsky, Max Pechstein, Richard Scheibe, Lou Scheper–
Berkenkamp, Renée Sintenis, Hans Thiemann, Heinz Trökes, Hans Uhlmann, and
Theodor and Woty Werner. See “List of Artists,” in Cleveland Museum of Art
Archives, Collection: Exhibition Compendium, Box 11, Folder: “Contemporary
Berlin Artists, 1951.” Karl Schmidt–Rottluff was omitted from the list due to the
fact that no adequate work could be found to tour the United States and the artist
was not willing to send in anything from his own collection.
7
Letter Charlotte Weidler to Annemarie Pope, February 4, 1951, in: American
Federation of Arts Records, 1895–1993, Folder 3. Some names were listed twice in
different categories.

EBSCOhost - printed on 2/18/2020 6:53 PM via UNIVERSIDAD DE LOS ANDES. All use subject to https://www.ebsco.com/terms-of-use
 Free Art in Free Berlin: Support for Berlin Art in the 1950s 199

which would sell well to the American audience and art critics: The
“abstract painter” Juro Kubicek, who had lived in the United States on a
scholarship in 1947, Hans Jaenisch and his semi–abstract painting Airlift,
and Bernhard Heiliger’s model of the same topic. All artists she highlighted
worked in an “abstract” or “semi–abstract” manner. But to label their works
in such terms was simply false. Jaenisch, for example, painted airplanes in
clear, geometric shapes and with a rather plain painting surface–but most
certainly not in a nonfigurative way. Furthermore, semi–abstract was a term
never clarified and somewhat self–contradictory. (Fig. 10.1)
To ensure that the American audience would understand the concept of
the exhibition and would pay most attention to the favored abstract art,
Weidler and the AFA invited a hand–selected group of curators and art
critics to view the works while in storage in New York before the actual
opening at the first venue in Louisville, Kentucky. Curators such as Alfred
H. Barr Jr., James Soby Thrall, Hudson Walker, and the art dealer Curt
Valentin came to the storage facility in New York’s harbor to see the
artworks first hand, guided by Weidler herself.

Figure 10.1. Hans Jaenisch: Airlift (Luftbrücke (Rosinenbomber)), 1948/1949.

Temperarelief, 46 x 140 cm. Copyright Fritz–Winter–Haus.

The strategy paid off—however, not as much as the organizers had

hoped. Most press and media representatives showed little to no interest in
covering the exhibition. The few journalists who did so followed the
interpretation and emphasis Weidler had introduced. The most important
review was written by Aline Louchheim for the New York Times. On
March 26, 1951, she contextualized the works as anti–Nazi art:

Art came to life in West Berlin as soon as the war ended. Those who
emerged with the greatest sense of excitement in their regained freedom
were the former Bauhaus students, those men whose art was especially
abhorrent to the artistic tastes of Herr Hitler. They had literally been

EBSCOhost - printed on 2/18/2020 6:53 PM via UNIVERSIDAD DE LOS ANDES. All use subject to https://www.ebsco.com/terms-of-use
 200 Chapter Ten

working underground—treasuring the lessons of Klee and Kandinsky and

their other instructors.8

Of all the works in the exhibition only the abstract works were
appreciated by the critics: “In this reviewer’s opinion, neither the young
expressionists nor the surrealists were especially noteworthy. . . . ” She
points out:

Of the abstract artists in this show, Theodor Werner is the most interesting
and one can understand why Christian Zervos promoted him in the current
issue of Cahiers d’art. Werner’s talent is far–reaching. . . . Werner has
assurance as well as facility. His wife, Woty Werner, paints pleasant,
Klee–like abstractions on silk which suggest the mystery of Coptic textiles
which were their inspiration. . . . The American Federation of Art is doing
a real service in assembling and circulating such a show. Hopefully, we
will see more work from Germany in the future, including the lively and
original abstractions of Fritz Winter. (Fig. 10.2)9

Figure 10.2. Contemporary Berlin Artists (Exhibition View, 1951). Photograph,

dimensions unknown. Copyright Cleveland Museum of Art.

8
Aline B. Louchheim, “Post-War German Art Comes to us. Old and New
Represented in a Show to Tour this Country,” New York Times, February 25, 1951,
97.
9
Louchheim, “Post-War German Art”.

EBSCOhost - printed on 2/18/2020 6:53 PM via UNIVERSIDAD DE LOS ANDES. All use subject to https://www.ebsco.com/terms-of-use
 Free Art in Free Berlin: Support for Berlin Art in the 1950s 201

While the exhibition toured the United States—a total of fifteen venues
in over a year—two articles appeared in the AFA’s own art magazine,
which introduced German modern and contemporary art. The first article,
“German Art behind the Iron Curtain” by Prolog’s founding member
Lehmann–Haupt, appeared in the March issue of the magazine, the other
article by Charlotte Weidler titled “Art in Western Germany Today” was
published in the April issue. Weidler did not mention her role in
assembling the show, but described the exhibition as if she had just been a
regular visitor. Her strategy was to present the works in the exhibition as
an accurate reflection of postwar German art in general, despite the fact
that the show focused solely on Berlin-based artists. While the title led to
the assumption that Weidler would address multiple centers of artistic
production and key figures of artistic and cultural life in postwar West
Germany, about two thirds of the text focused on the artists included in her
exhibition. And here again, the emphasis was put above all on the abstract
works included in the show.
All three articles, Louchheim’s as well as Lehmann–Haupt’s and
Weidler’s, also contextualized the artworks with terms such as free and
democratic in order to explain to an American audience the uniqueness,
strength, and quality of German art, possibly also helping to overcome
stereotypes and rejection of anything coming from the former war enemy.
Though it was not mentioned directly, this rhetoric most likely also
served another purpose: the defense of contemporary American art, which,
at that time, was facing harsh attacks and censorship by conservative
media and politicians. In defense of American contemporary art,
Lehmann–Haupt took up the example of the struggle of German avant-
garde artists, their censoring and persecution under the Nazi dictatorship
as an argument against the conservative attacks in the United States. On
May 17, 1951, Lehmann-Haupt even wrote a personal letter to President
Harry S. Truman, asking for more tolerance towards modern art:

During a recent trip in Germany, I have sought out some of the modern
artists, who survived the Nazi persecution. They continued to paint
according to the way they felt they had to paint, under the most dire stress
and stain. . . . Mr. President, you would not like the work of these men. But
please believe me that they were bitterly earnest about what they did. They
were not pursuing a hobby or an arbitrary fad. . . . We are still in a free
country and nobody needs to be told what to like and what to not like. You
sir, like every citizen, certainly have the right to your own taste. . . . But it
is urgently on my heart to ask you to consider the effect of casual,
generally disparaging remarks about modern art. Please say as loudly and
as often as you care that you don’t like it Mr. President, but please don’t

EBSCOhost - printed on 2/18/2020 6:53 PM via UNIVERSIDAD DE LOS ANDES. All use subject to https://www.ebsco.com/terms-of-use
 202 Chapter Ten

say anything that would indicate to the public that modern art has no right
to exist, it is, in fact, a sincere and worthwhile form of art.10

With this interpretation and “use” of German art, Lehmann-Haupt was

not alone. Other prominent art experts had published articles arguing along
the same lines. In 1950, Alfred H. Barr Jr., founding director of the
Museum of Modern Art in New York, together with the directors of the
Museum of Fine Arts in Boston and the Whitney Museum in New York,
had signed a petition to support the “Freedom for Art,” which was of
course reprinted and discussed favorably in the New York Times. In 1952,
Barr published in the New York Times one of his most important defending
remarks for artistic freedom in the United States—the article “Is Modern
Art Communistic?”—also using German art as an example to demonstrate
the consequences of censorship.11 There he stated:

Modern political leaders, even on our side of the Iron Curtain, feel strongly
and express themselves eloquently against modern art. President Truman
calls it “merely the vaporings of half-baked lazy people” and believes “the
ability to make things look as they are is the first requisite of an
artist.” . . . They couldn’t be more mistaken. . . . The love of freedom
cannot be tolerated within a monolithic tyranny and modern art is useless
for the dictator’s propaganda.

To illustrate his point, he juxtaposed works by Kandinsky with Elk

Eber, a painter whose works were prominently displayed in Nazi
propaganda shows such as the Große Deutsche Kunstausstellung (Great
German Art Exhibition) at the Haus der Kunst in Munich shown annually
from 1937 to 1941.
Both Barr and Lehmann–Haupt belonged to a group of people who
used German modern and contemporary art to defend freedom of artistic
practice and contemporary American art, thus giving German art yet
another layer of political meaning. But labeling German modern art in
such political terms and embracing it for political and ideological purposes
did not necessarily match up with the artists’ interests back in Germany. In
1951, art historian Bernard Myers began his essay on recent German art in
the College Art Journal with the following statement:

10
Letter from Hellmut Lehmann–Haupt to President Harry S. Truman, May 17,
1951 in: Hellmut Lehmann–Haupt Papers, Series 2, Box 7, Folder 5, The Museum
of Modern Art Archives, New York.
11
Alfred H. Barr Jr, “Is Modern Art Communistic?,” New York Times, December
14, 1952, 22.

EBSCOhost - printed on 2/18/2020 6:53 PM via UNIVERSIDAD DE LOS ANDES. All use subject to https://www.ebsco.com/terms-of-use
 Free Art in Free Berlin: Support for Berlin Art in the 1950s 203

Perhaps the most astonishing aspect of the postwar artistic situation in

Germany is its complete lack of direct response to the conditions of the
time. We may assume that the preponderant interest in various forms of
abstraction, chiefly abstract surrealism and abstract expressionism,
represents an attempt to escape from the unpleasant realities of a bombed
out world.12

Whereas the artists in West Germany and Berlin generally intended to

stay away from political and ideology-loaded interpretations, some art
critics and curators nevertheless promoted and interpreted their art in such
a way. This was possible because of the thematic neutrality of the pictures
themselves—unless a title would indicate a certain political meaning, the
abstract image itself would not lead to such a conclusion. Furthermore,
abstract art was a vague term and loosely applied to numerous forms and
styles. Berlin-based artist Heinz Trökes illustrates the multitude of
possible inscriptions of names and styles under the umbrella of abstract art
in one of his statements. In an article in the East Berlin art magazine
Bildende Kunst in 1948, the artist distinguishes between the various forms
of abstract art and their respective representatives: nonobjective or
“gegenstandslose” art, as Trökes writes, was produced by artists such as
Kandinsky, Mondrian, and others, while Picasso and Klee stood for
abstract art. Additionally, Ernst, Miró, and Werner contributed to stylistic
forms that Trökes called “surrealist, rhythmic” images.13 Although Trökes
outlines three different types of abstraction and even names representatives,
it remains unclear what exactly abstract art was and what could not be
subsumed under this term. Just like the term “modern,” “abstraction” had
no clear limits to what would be included and what not. Yet, Trökes
acknowledges the fact that abstract art also bore an additional meaning. In
a brief statement on abstract art, which he had written a year earlier for the
Museum of Modern Art in New York, he described the possibilities and
meanings of abstract art:

Twenty or thirty years ago an advance-guard made the first breach in

Germany as well as abroad, now choice troops are following and taking
possession. Abstract art opens up new possibilities for mental sensations
and experience, and though it does not make the human misery of our time
the object and subject of its work, it still is the expression of the powers

12
Bernard Myers, “Postwar Art in Germany,” in College Art Journal Vol. 10, No.
3 (Spring 1951): 251.
13
Heinz Trökes, “Moderne Kunst und Zeitbewusstsein,” in bildende kunst 3
(1948): 17.

EBSCOhost - printed on 2/18/2020 6:53 PM via UNIVERSIDAD DE LOS ANDES. All use subject to https://www.ebsco.com/terms-of-use
 204 Chapter Ten

that to-day try to reorganise, to clarify and to reconstruct and is evidence of

the desire for such powers. Abstract art furthermore is a creed, the creed
professing faith in individuality, without reference to the Ego, as—in a
manner of speaking—world-wide forms are being sought after and are
found, symptoms which can be seen everywhere and by everyone. It is also
a creed professing faith in freedom, . . . 14

The AFA and Weidler obviously used this ambiguity in their own
favor. Disproportional to the actual numbers of abstract artworks included
in the exhibition, they strongly emphasized the presence and meaning of
abstract art in the show, for example, by categorizing works as “semi-
abstract.” It is of little surprise that artworks with the most overt political
theme would fall into such a category: most prominently Hans Jaenisch’s
painting Luftbrücke (Airlift), which celebrated the heroic rescue of West
Berlin during the Soviet blockade of the city.
Overall, the exhibition received little interest. Of the fifteen venues,
only a few were high-ranking museums. Others, which had initially shown
interest in the exhibition, canceled on late notice—arguing that the show
did not fit their schedule. For example, the Carnegie, Weidler’s chief
employer of the previous decades, did not take the exhibition despite the
curator’s personal engagement and the AFA’s offer to waive the standard
exhibition fee of 175 US dollars. Obviously, the show was not seen as an
important contribution to the exhibition calendar.
All participating venues were allowed to install the show without any
prerequisites from the AFA. Photographs of the installation in Cleveland
show that none of the artworks were installed according to style, date of
production, or name of artist. In addition, the museum added modernist
works from its own collection—for example, Ernst Barlach’s Singing Men
(1928) or Dina Kuhn’s Head: Das Wasser (1929) although both Barlach
and Kuhn were artists who did not belong to the contemporary art scene in
Berlin. Barlach, who died in 1938, had lived most of his life in Northern
Germany; Kuhn was a Viennese artist and member of the Wiener
Werkstätte. Obviously, neither the AFA nor Weidler were against
changing the focus of the exhibition, or adding works from the museum’s
own collection.
While the AFA failed to secure high-ranking museums to participate
and to take over the traveling show of Berlin art, it was nevertheless
successful in playing along with the general effort of promoting abstract
14
Unpublished manuscript by Heinz Trökes, 17 March 1947, Germanisches
Nationalmuseum Nürnberg (Germany), Deutsches Kunstarchiv, Heinz Trökes
Papers, I, B–321.

EBSCOhost - printed on 2/18/2020 6:53 PM via UNIVERSIDAD DE LOS ANDES. All use subject to https://www.ebsco.com/terms-of-use
 Free Art in Free Berlin: Support for Berlin Art in the 1950s 205

art as the most promising and most important stylistic tendency of the
time. When, in 1955, the art dealer Martha Jackson presented works by
contemporary German artists—among them Heinz Trökes—the press
release stated: “Germany’s most forceful and significant talents today are
occupied with the abstract.”15
Two years later, the seminal exhibition German Art of the 20th
Century opened at New York’s Museum of Modern Art. For two months,
the 1957 exhibition showed more than 170 works: paintings, sculptures,
and works on paper. The few examples of post-1945 art were sculptures
by Hans Hartung, Bernhard Heiliger, and Hans Uhlmann as well as
paintings by Willi Baumeister, Ernst Wilhelm Nay, Theodor Werner, and
Fritz Winter; all of whom worked in abstract or semi-abstract styles.16
On October 6, 1957, a few days after the opening, Howard Devree
reviewed the exhibition for the New York Times:

Seldom does an exhibition have the triple impact—emotional,

psychological, and sheer visual—which is to be found in the showing of
German art of the twentieth century which has just opened at the Museum
of Modern Art.17

But Devree now solely focused on prewar modernism because it better

served the argument of countering totalitarian propaganda and ideology:

Dissatisfaction and protest are prevalent and undoubtedly figured more

than the aesthetic factors in the condemnation of much of the work by the
Nazis when they came to power; for such work and the more abstract could
not be turned into the propaganda and the sickly sentiment which the Nazis
(and the Russian rulers since) have made official.18

Just like Berlin Contemporary Artists, the Museum of Modern Art

exhibition was set out to restore the reputation of German art after the war
and to document the visual evidence of a young, democratic spirit, yet
with a stronger focus on prewar modernism.
Both exhibitions put emphasis on different artistic styles, yet used the
overall interpretation of German art of the twentieth century as an
15
Press Release Martha Jackson Gallery, Germanisches Nationalmuseum
Nürnberg (Germany), Deutsches Kunstarchiv, Heinz Trökes Papers, I, B–183.
16
German Art of the 20th Century, ed. Andrew Carnduff Ritchie, exh. cat. (New
York: Museum of Modern Art, 1957).
17
Howard Devree, “German Moderns. Emotion, Protest and Diversity Stamp
Work in Modern Museum Show,” New York Times, October 6, 1957, 143.
18
Devree, “German Moderns.”

EBSCOhost - printed on 2/18/2020 6:53 PM via UNIVERSIDAD DE LOS ANDES. All use subject to https://www.ebsco.com/terms-of-use
 206 Chapter Ten

argument in the debates on artistic freedom—for both art under totalitarian

regimes as well as within the United States. This strategy paid off for
German art—prices on the art market went up and, according to press
reports, German art was again considered an important contribution to the
European avant-garde in the twentieth century. However, over-emphasizing
abstract art ultimately also meant the termination of pluralist stylistic
experimentation after 1945 in favor of one style, singled-out in the
ideology-driven cultural battle of the Cold War. Furthermore, the newly
found ideological and economic success of abstract art was only valid for
prewar modernism. Postwar abstract art, as Bernard Myers stated,
remained to be seen as of minor quality and relevance:

. . . We must contend with a considerable quantity of middle-of-the-road

painting and sculpture, pleasant subjects in a pleasant manner, that clutter
the annual exhibitions of Kunstvereine throughout Germany.19

German art after 1945 was uncritical pleasing art, which came across
as uncontroversial and unprovocative in the eyes of the critics. Yet it
became a powerful tool for a political agenda and for transmitting
ideological messages. In the case of the Berlin Contemporary Artists
exhibition, following a political agenda even went so far as to convey a
distorted image of what was shown in the exhibition. Generating the
impression that contemporary German art consisted mainly of abstract
styles, as the publicized material on the exhibition had done, supported
Myers’statement of German abstract art being the most predominant style
after 1945. Yet reality was profoundly different. German artists were far
from being certain which way to follow and how to develop a visual
language responding to recent history. Contrary to what the AFA narrative
suggested, harsh battles and disputes were fought over abstract art.
Nevertheless, the post-1945 narratives and presentations of modern
and contemporary abstract German art accommodated ideological
interests. The hyperbolic claims for freedom, democracy, and individualism
were projected so forcefully onto abstract art that an exhibition—
particularly when organized and financed by US–American institutions—
could not refrain from putting it into the center of attention, thus feeding
into the perception that there was little else than abstract art to be found in
Berlin and West Germany in the late 1940s and early 1950s.

19
Myers, “Postwar Art,” 251.

EBSCOhost - printed on 2/18/2020 6:53 PM via UNIVERSIDAD DE LOS ANDES. All use subject to https://www.ebsco.com/terms-of-use