Entartete Kunst [Degenerate Art] 1936 Exhibition Poster and Associated Ephemera

München: Druck: Max Schmidt & Söhne, (1936-38).

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Special exhibition poster printed in orange and black: “Entartete Kunst: Ausstellung von ‘Kulturdokumenten’ des Bolschewismus und jüdischer Zersetzungsarbeit vom 4.III. bis 31. III. 1936.” Quarto measuring 8” x 11 ½”. Designed by [Ludwig?] Vierthaler. Modest rubbing, one small internal tear professionally mended, small barely visible, very good or better. Accompanied by a fine printed leaflet for the official traveling exhibition in 1937 (5 ¼” x 7 ¾”), and three fine real photo postcards: two of artworks in the exhibit and the other (with two postmarked stamps) of the “haus der kunst” in Berlin where the exhibit was held in 1938.

A rare poster for the original 1936 exhibition of the Third Reich’s notorious “Entartete Kunst,” shown during the month of March at the Weissen Saal der Polizeidirektion [White Hall Police Headquarters]. The exhibition officially opened in Munich in July, 1937 at the Hofgarten arcades and traveled to other cities throughout the Reich. As noted in a recent digital exhibition by the Museum of Modern Art in New York: “740 modern works were exhibited in the defamatory show Degenerate Art in Munich in order to ‘educate’ the public on the ‘art of decay.’ The exhibition purported to demonstrate that modernist tendencies, such as abstraction, are the result of genetic inferiority and society’s moral decline.” An historically significant collection featuring the rare 1936 poster and associated ephemera. We know of only one copy of the 1936 poster, at the Wolfsonian collection at Florida International University.


Item #534364

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Item #534364 Entartete Kunst [Degenerate Art] 1936 Exhibition Poster and Associated Ephemera