The Easel

20th February 2018

Emil Nolde: an artist ‘more inclined to contrast and discord’

Aidan Dunne | The Irish Times | 3rd February 2018

Nolde believed in the expressive power of colour perhaps even more than other German expressionists. His belief in German leadership in art would, he thought, recommend him to the Nazi’s. They proved less keen, labelled him a ‘degenerate’ and thus saved his reputation. Today’s assessment – “one of the leading German artists of his time, an evaluation that still holds, despite his perverse selfishness and moral failings.”

The Harvard Art Museums present Inventur—Art in Germany, 1943–55

Staff | Art and Object | 22nd January 2018

Amidst the reckoning in German society after WW2, what was happening in art? Harvard art museums thinks this a “missing chapter”, a period not of apathy but highly charged art making. Individuals grappled with national guilt, ruined cities and an approaching cold war. No single style predominated but collectively they articulated themes such as commercialization and technology, themes that still loom large in German art.

13th February 2018

Love and Theft

James McAulay | Even | 8th February 2018

A 2013 discovery of a hoard of artworks acquired by Hitler’s art dealer, Cornelius Gurlitt, has created endless problems. To whom do these works really belong? Were they all looted? Why is this art being displayed when much is of “no particular distinction?” “What purpose does it serve to exhibit this? [The victims], in the end, are all that matters. How and why the Gurlitts slept with lies is their problem.”

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