German Expressionism

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Käthe Kollwitz, “Brustbild einer Arbeiterfrau mit blauem Tuch (Bust of a Working Class Woman With a Blue Shawl),” 1903

colour lithograph on sturdy tan wove paper

German expressionism, provoked in the aftermath of the country’s 1871 unification by the desire to escape rigidly conservative values, has proven resilient and durable. The evolution of the movement is the theme of Living, Building, Thinking: art and expressionism at the Vancouver Art Gallery until May 21. It takes an expanded view on a movement most narrowly associated with German art and activism from 1905 to 1937.

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Erich Heckel, “Junges Mädchen (Young Woman),” 1913

woodcut on silk Japan paper (gift of Undercliffe Limited, 1990, McMaster Museum of Art)

The exhibition, curated by Ihor Holubizky, draws on works from the McMaster Museum of Art in Hamilton, Ont. Some 90 works are arranged chronologically, beginning with etchings, lithographs and woodcuts from the early 1900s. Images from before the First World War, such as Erich Heckel’s Young Woman, are simple, stark and angular. It’s the era of Käthe Kollwitz, Christian Rohlfs and Ernst Ludwig Kirchner. Numerous book illustrations by George Grosz, Max Liebermann and others are also on display.

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Hannah Hoch, “Mutter und Kind (Selbstbildnis Traum) [Mother and Child (Self portrait Dream)],” circa 1931

oil on cotton canvas (Donald Murray Shepherd Trust purchase, 2013, McMaster Museum of Art ©Estate of Hannah Höch/SODRAC, 2018)

By the 1920s, the drawings become finer and more detailed. Subject matter turns to loss and alienation as Germany reels from post-war political and economic upheaval. Max Beckmann’s The Disappointed Ones speaks of estrangement and distance. Hannah Höch’s Mother and Child is similarly hard and unsentimental. Expressionists of this period considered urban life dehumanizing.

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Rainer Fetting, “Back Nude—Donald,” 1986

oil on canvas (gift of Leon Liffmann, 2010, McMaster Museum of Art ©Rainer Fetting/SODRAC, 2018)

The expressionist mantra was to express inner emotions, not surface gloss, and this doctrine is carried forward in two large paintings from the 1980s. Manic Rot, by Helmut Middendorf, shows a contemplative figure enveloped in a shroud of reds and blacks, while Elvira Bach’s What Can I Do About My Dreams? is a stark head and torso rendered in brown, blue and yellow. Rainer Fetting’s Back Nude—Donald continues the expressionist penchant for dramatic, exuberant brushwork. Yet Leopold Plotek’s Master of the Genre of Silence, on the opposite wall, is a calm, controlled study of repose that makes one think of Francis Bacon. Clearly, there’s no hard-and-fast rule on style and technique, as artists, especially non-Germans, use various media.

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Natalka Husar, “Commissar’s Daughter,” 2007

oil on rag board (gift of the artist, 2011, McMaster Museum of Art ©Natalka Husar)

Britain’s Richard Hamilton and Canada’s Barbara Astman turn to photography. Hamilton’s Kent State is an extreme close-up of a protestor wounded at the university. Astman’s Scenes from a Movie for One #1 is an early selfie, a scratched and distorted Polaroid. Germany’s Anselm Kiefer uses acrylic and molten lead to create the disturbing abstract Yggdrasil, his dark interpretation of an ancient Norse myth, while Canada’s Natalka Husar turns to haunting and otherworldly figurative painting in Commissar’s Daughter, the centrepiece of her triptych.

The show concludes with B.C. artist Gary Pearson and his 2011 video, Soliloquy. A woman drinks wine and smokes a cigarillo. She appears distant and unconcerned with the camera, absorbed in her own thoughts, a modern image to be sure, but also one reminiscent of the hard-edged portraits of a century ago. ■

Living, Building, Thinking: art and expressionism is on view at the Vancouver Art Gallery from March 3 to May 21, 2018.