This document provides an overview of German Post-Expressionism between World War 1 and the 1920s. It summarizes that after Germany's defeat in WWI, the country struggled with economic collapse, hyperinflation, and social/political turmoil as millions of veterans returned. Artists rejected Expressionism's focus on personal angst and sought to express political outrage through Neue Sachlichkeit (New Objectivity), a realistic style. Meanwhile, the Dada movement rejected logic and embraced nonsense. Works shown like Otto Dix's paintings depicted Weimar society in a critical yet objective style.

1. German Post-Expressionism I:
Dada and Die Neue Sachlichkeit
(The New Objectivity)
Janet Owen Driggs
Art 114C-Presentation 13

2. World War One: 19141918
42 million soldiers, 52%
killed or wounded. 7
million civilians killed.

3. GERMANY IS DEFEATED

4. 1918: Revolution
GERMANY IS DEFEATED
3 Million disabled veterans
return from war2010:
Reparations

5. 1918: Revolution
GERMANY IS DEFEATED
1919-2010: Reparations
3 Million disabled veterans
return from war2010:
Reparations

6. 1918: Revolution
GERMANY IS DEFEATED
1919-2010: Reparations
3 Million disabled veterans
return from war2010:
Reparations

7. 1918: Revolution
GERMANY IS DEFEATED
1919-2010: Reparations
3 Million disabled veterans
return from war2010:
Reparations
1922-1923: Hyperinflation

8. 1918: Revolution
GERMANY IS DEFEATED
1919-2010: Reparations
3 Million disabled veterans
return from war2010:
Reparations
1922-1923: Hyperinflation

9. 1918: Revolution
GERMANY IS DEFEATED
1919-2010: Reparations
Economic collapse
3 Million disabled veterans
return from war2010:
Reparations
1922-1923: Hyperinflation

10. 1918: Revolution
GERMANY IS DEFEATED
1919-2010: Reparations
Economic collapse
3 Million disabled veterans
return from war2010:
Reparations
1922-1923: Hyperinflation
Social and political turmoil

11. George GROSZ (1893–1959)
The Hero, c. 1936
Lithograph
Rudolf SCHLICHTER (1890–1955)
Woman With Tie (1923)
Oil on canvas

12. German Post-Expressionism
• Grew out of WW1.
• Rejected the Expressionist’s (“helpless”)
focus on personal angst and collective
anxiety.
• Artists wanted to express outrage and
encourage political action.
Above: John
Heartfield
Adolf The Superman: Swallows Gold and Spouts Junk (1932)
Left:
Otto Dix: Café Couple (1921). Watercolor & ink on paper.

13. Die Neue Sachlichkeit
Dada
• Artists worked in a realistic style in
contrast to the pre-war emphasis on
Expressionism and Abstraction.
• Dada rejected reason and logic and
embraced irrationality and nonsense.
• Better translated as 'New Matter-offactness’ or 'New Resignation.’
“We have had enough of the intelligent
movements…What we want now is
spontaneity.”
• Ended in 1933 with the rise of Adolf
Hitler, who labeled it “degenerate.”
Otto DIX: Portrait
of the Journalist
Sylvia von Harden
(1926)
Tristan Tzara, 1925
Hugo BALL’s sound poem Karawane, 1916

14. Die Neue Sachlichkeit
Artists rejected the self-involvement and
romantic idealism of the Expressionists.
Right: George GROSZ: Pillars of Society
(1926)
"Come out of your rooms, even if you find
it an effort, pull down your individual
barriers, let yourselves be caught up by
the ideas of working people and help
them in the struggle against a corrupt
society.”
Georg Grosz, 1921
George GROSZ: Pillars of Society (1926)
Oil on canvas, 42.5 x 78.7 in.

15. George Grosz: Pillars of Society detail (1926)

16. Otto Dix: Metropolis (1928)

17. The New Objectivity is characterized
by a naturalistic style combined with a
cynical and socially critical stance.
Otto DIX: Three Wenches (1926)

18. Otto DIX: Three Wenches, detail (1926)

19. George GROSZ: Daum Marries
her Pedantic Automaton
George, John Heartfield is Very
Glad of It
(1920) Watercolor, pencil, pen
and collage on cardboard

20. Otto DIX (1891–1969)
Café Couple (1921)
Watercolor and pencil on paper
20 x 16.2 in.

21. Otto DIX:
Skin Graft (1924)
Etching, aquatint, and drypoint.
7.8 x 5.7 in.

22. Otto DIX: Skat Players (1920)
Oil on canvas with photomontage
and collage. 43.3 x 34.2 in

23. Otto DIX : The Skat Players, detail (1920)

24. How are these works
OBJECTIVE?
They’re grotesque – aren’t
the artists exaggerating for
effect, just like the
Expressionists?

25. "The Neue Sachlichkeit is Americanism, the cult of the
objective, the hard fact, the predilection for functional
work, professional conscientiousness, and usefulness.”
Dennis Crockett
German Post-expressionism: The Art of the Great Disorder, 1918-1924
(1999)

26. 1.
2.
3.
1.
2.
3.
“The Tin Noses Shop,” est. 1916, London
Veterans march for pensions, Berlin, 1919
Man with no hands or feet working a lathe,
Germany 1915

27. August SANDER:
Secretary at West German Radio, Cologne
(1931)

28. “None of these men were satisfied with just an
ordinary woman…they all desired this ‘New Woman’
... But they more or less brutally rejected the notion
that they too had to adopt new attitudes…This led
to these truly Strinbergian dramas that typified the
private lives of these men.”
—from undated notes found among Hannah Höch’s possessions.

29. NEXT WEEK: DADA
HOMEWORK:
1. Read Marinetti’s Futurist Manifesto for Oct 23
2. Ongoing Museum Paper. Due Nov 6