Munich; Haus der Kunst; Art in the “Third Reich”: Hitler’s ‘Brush Worker”
by Venetia Kapernekas
photo: courtesy of HdK (published photo)
Ziegler’s painting “The Four Elements” was on view in the 1937 “Great German Art Exhibition”, the inaugural exhibition of the “House of German Art”. Until September 30, 2012, it was also exhibited in the show “Histories in Conflict”, which juxtaposes Nazi art with works by then-ostracized artists.
Essay
The detailed article on SPIEGEL ONLINE highlights the stellar career of Adolf Ziegler, painter and president of the Reich Chamber of Visual Arts as of 1936, whose works were exhibited in the “Great German Art Exhibitions” until 1943. Hitler showed great enthusiasm for the works of an otherwise unknown painter: “‘Ziegler is the best painter of nudes in the world,” he allegedly said upon viewing one of his nudes. The forms of the provocative young women, seated on a bench embellished by colored fabric, came close to exemplifying Hitler’s ideals of the well-formed breasts of the Botticelli’s Venus. The general public, however, ridiculed Ziegler, the pedantic painter of nudes, calling him the” master of German pubic hair. ”
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