GERMAN PAINTING AND SCULPTURE
Alfred H. Barr, Jr.
Alfred H. Barr, Jr.: GERMAN PAINTING AND SCULPTURE. New York: Museum of Modern Art, March 1931. First Edition [1,500 copies]. Slim quarto. Printed thick tan wrappers with tipped-in color plate. 43 pp. + 46 black and white plates. 99 works listed. Wrappers lightly worn with a faint stain to front panel. Endpapers lightly foxed, but text and illustrations fresh and clean. A very good or better copy.
7.5 x 10 softcover catalog with 43 pages followed by 46 black and white plates by 21 German painters and 7 German sculptors.. Published on the occasion of the Museum of Modern Art MoMA Exhibit 11 from March 13 - April 26, 1931. With an introduction by Alfred H. Barr, Jr. and a biographical section on the artists.
Features work by Painters Willy Baumeister, Max Beckmann, Heinrich Campendonk, Otto Dix, George Grosz, Erich Heckel, Karl Hofer, Ernst Ludwig Kirchner, Paul Klee, Paul Kleinschmidt, Oskar Kokoschka, Franz Marc, Paula Modersohn-Becker, Johannes Molzahn, Otto Mueller, Emil Nolde, Max Pechstein, Christian Rohlfs, Oskar Schlemmer, Karl Schmidt-Rottluff, Georg Schrimpf; and Sculptors Ernst Barlach, Rudolf Belling, Ernesto De Fiori, Georg Kolbe, Gerhard Marcks, Oskar Schlemmer, and Renée Sintenis.
“The exhibition will include major works in oil and watercolor by twenty painters who have been leaders in one of the most remarkable national developments of twentieth century art, and important sculpture in stone, brass, bronze, and silver by six outstanding sculptors of modern Germany. While some of the artists have been previously shown in New York, many of them are practically unknown, and it is expected that the exhibition will arouse surprise and controversy by presenting a representative survey of an important aspect of European art which has been unduly obscured in America by the emphasis on French art during and since the war.
“Among the other notable pictures coming from Germany is a painting, "Cats", by Franz Marc from the collection of Princess Mechtilde Lichnowsky in Berlin, Marc, who was one of the founders of the famous "Blue Rider" group in Munich in 1911, created a sensation in New York when a few examples of his work were shown at the Armory Exhibition in 1913. The Princess Lichnowsky is the wife of the former German Ambassador to London at the outbreak of theWar, In addition to the painting from the Princess Lichnowsky' s collection, Marc will be represented by five important canvases, from public and private collections in Germany, which will do much to sustain the popular German opinion that Mac's death in the War deprived Europe of one of its most premising painters.
“Two other members of the "Blue Rider" group, Paul Klee and Heinrich Campendonk, will be shown in important works. The earlier Dresden group of expressionists, known as the "Bruecke", will be presented more completely than has been possible before in New York. Max Beckmann, one of the most powerful of the modern German painters, will be represented by eight pictures including two important canvases from New York collections, those of Dr.F. H. Hirschland and Mrs. John D. Rockefeller, Jr. Other outstanding painters who will be included are Otto Dix, George Grosz, Carl Hoferand Oskar Kokoschka.
“Among the sculptors Rudolf Belling is conspicuous because of the striking modernity of his abstractions, and his use of polished metals. Three highly interesting examples of Belling's work have been loaned to the exhibition by Josef von Sternberg of Hollywood, director of "The Blue Angel," "Morocco" and "Dishonored." One is a partially abstract portrait head of von Sternberg plated in silver. Another is a grotesque head in mahogany, and the third is/highly interesting portrait of Alfred Elechtheim, the Berlin art dealer, treated schematically in bronze.” [Museum of Modern Art press release, March 13, 1931]