In the early twentieth-century expressionism became the underlying tradition of most of the art movements and in that sense became meaningless. However groups like Die Brücke and the Fauves pushed expressionism into the foreground and took over the name.

Explicit, in-your-face expressionism in the first quarter of the twentieth century was characteristic of the DeLaunays, Bonnard, and Soutine in France, and Schiele in Austria. But the expressionist tradition centered in the work of many German artists Kirchner, Kokoschka, Marc, and Meidner. In the period between the world wars, strong expressionism became the dominant art form in Germany. This gallery is devoted to German expressionist art from this period between the wars.

This concentrated look at German Expressionism is possible only because Marvin and Janet Fishmann of Minneapolis Minnesota made many trips to Germany collecting pictures from this period. Finding representative sketches and pictures from some of these artists would have been impossible without this collection becoming public. In the case of the lesser known artists most pictures come from the Fishmann collection. This is also a weakness of this survey because it imposes the Fishmann's collecting strategy on the survey—but for the Fishmann's efforts many of these artists might have been forgotten. With respect to the major artists of the period, Beckmann, Dix, Grosz and others, the pictures come from a wide variety of sources some of which are in museums where the pictures can be viewed; these locations, when known, are marked appropriately under the thumbnail version of the image.

Many pictures from the Fishmann collection show no location information because in October of 1980 the Fishmanns sold much of their collection of German expressionist art at Sotheby's in London. Where these pictures eventually found homes is unknown, some may have gone to museums—most probably went into private hands, while some remained unsold. The Fishmanns have also generously given many pictures to art galleries and public institutions.

Note that this specialized gallery contains several duplicate entries for major artists that are represented in the Gallery for European Art Between the World Wars. This is done to try to preserve the continuity of the presentation of German Expressionist art. In places it also includes non-German artists who worked in the German Expressionist tradition or who were an important influence on the tradition. This survey makes no attempt to follow German Expressionism tradition beyond the end of WW II where it is picked up by American artists and becomes a root of Abstract Expressionism.

Steinhardt attended the Akademie der Künste in Berlin in 1906 and in 1907. He studied painting with Lovis Corinth and etching with the German painter Hermann Struck [1876–1944]. Steinhardt went to Paris in 1907 and there he continued his studies with Jean-Paul Laurens, and then with Matisse and Théophile-Alexandre Steinlen.

He returned to Berlin in 1910, but visited Italy the following year. Back in Berlin again in 1912 he co-founded Die Pathetiker group together with Ludwig Meidner and the German painter Richard Janthur; they had their first group show at the Sturm-Galerie that year. The group emphasized dramatic content over artistic form and the resulting works exhibit the characteristic German expressionist style.

Die Pathetiker (1912), a portfolio of the group’s work, included etchings by Steinhardt.

Willy Jäckel studied at the Royal School of Applied Arts, Breslau in 1906 and later at the Dresden Academy. He gained critical success at the Jury-Free Art Show, Berlin in 1913 and later that year had his first individual exhibition at the Kunstsalon Fritz Gurlitt in Berlin.

He became a member of the Berlin Secession two years later and his lithographic portfolio Memento 1914/15 was banned for anti-military imagery.

Jäckel wrote an autobiographical statement for Fritz Guritt's annual Das graphische Jahr in 1921. He was appointed Professor at the State College of Art, Berlin in 1925. Jäckel continuously participated in exhibitions throughout Germany, but in 1937 his works were removed from public collections as "degenerate." His graphics were destroyed in Düsseldorf, Hamburg, and Mannheim museums. Jäckel returned to Berlin in 1944, where he died in his house from an Allied bombing raid.

Dr. Hans Koch
1921
Museum Ludwig
Cologne, Germany

Exotic Brothel
1922