Max Pechstein: The Rise and Fall of Expressionism 9783110282085, 9783110296624

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Bernhard Fulda, Aya Soika Max Pechstein: The Rise and Fall of Expressionism

Interdisciplinary German Cultural Studies Edited by

Scott Denham · Irene Kacandes Jonathan Petropoulos Volume 11

De Gruyter

Bernhard Fulda, Aya Soika

Max Pechstein: The Rise and Fall of Expressionism

De Gruyter

ISBN 978-3-11-029662-4 e-ISBN 978-3-11-028208-5 ISSN 1861-8030 Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data A CIP catalogue record for this book is available from the Library of Congress. Bibliographic information published by the Deutsche Nationalbibliothek 7KH'HXWVFKH1DWLRQDOELEOLRWKHNOLVWVWKLVSXEOLFDWLRQLQWKH'HXWVFKH1DWLRQDOELEOLRJUDÀH detailed bibliographic data are available in the Internet at http://dnb.d-nb.de. © 2012 Walter de Gruyter GmbH & Co. KG, Berlin/Boston Cover image: Max Pechstein in front of his painting Nude with Umbrella and Fan (1912/47) in his apartment in Offenbacher Str. 8, in autumn or winter 1913/14. Photograph. Waldemar Titzenthaler, Berlin Printing: Hubert & Co. GmbH & Co. KG, Göttingen

’ Printed on acid-free paper Printed in Germany www.degruyter.com

für Lux und Sophia

Contents Preface . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

IX

An Artist in the Making, 1881–1906 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

1

Pechstein and Die Brücke, 1906–1913 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

36

Paradise, War and Revolution, 1914–1919 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 133 The Weimar Years, 1919–1932 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 229 Life under Dictatorship, 1933–1945 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 292 The Final Years, 1945–1955 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 363 Epilogue . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 394 List of illustrations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 401 Bibliography . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 407 Index . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 427

Frontispiece: Max Pechstein, 1910. Photograph: Minya Diez-Dührkoop, private collection

Preface Max Pechstein’s life overlapped with the most dramatic decades of modern German history. He grew up in an age of empire and colonies, fought in the trenches of the First World War, participated in the revolutionary activities of 1918/19, and was part of the vibrant cultural scene during the allegedly ‘roaring Twenties’. He experienced the totalitarian dictatorship of National Socialism, survived Allied air raids on Berlin during the Second World War, narrowly escaped execution by the Red Army in 1945, and, during the last ten years of his life, witnessed the division of Germany and the emergence of the Cold War. In short, Pechstein’s life – like that of many others of his generation – was shaped by what Eric Hobsbawm appropriately called the ‘Age of Extremes’.1 What sets Pechstein apart from most of his contemporaries, however, is the fact that throughout this period he produced art: his was quite literally a colourful life. And yet this in itself is not sufficient justification for writing a biography of Pechstein. After all, there were tens of thousand of other visual artists in Germany who lived through the same period.2 Why, for example, not study the life of Alexander Hubert Law von Volborth? Four years younger than Pechstein, Volborth was born into a family of German-Russian nobility in St Petersburg, and studied at art academies in Stuttgart, Düsseldorf and Berlin with some of Germany’s leading artists at that time, like the Prussian court painter Anton von Werner, the historical painter Arthur Kampf, and the Secessionist Max Slevogt.3 As far as we know, Pechstein and Volborth never met: but in 1912 Volborth played Pechstein a practical joke when sending him a letter with a few caricaturist drawings held in a fake mod-

1 2

3

Eric Hobsbawm, The Age of Extremes. The Short Twentieth Century 1914–1991 (London, 1994). In 1936 the Nazi Reich Chamber of Visual Arts, in which all non-Jewish artists were organized, counted around 50,000 members, see Alan E. Steinweis, Art, Ideology, and Economics in Nazi Germany. The Reich Chambers of Music, Theater, and the Visual Arts (Chapel Hill, 1993), 97. Charlotte Fergg-Frowein (ed.), Kürschners Graphiker-Handbuch. Deutschland – Österreich – Schweiz. Illustratoren, Gebrauchsgraphiker, Typographen (Berlin, 1967), 311; Arthur Adams, Living descendants of blood royal (London, 1959), vol. 2, 789. Additional information on Volborth’s life was helpfully provided by Dr Uwe Degreif, Museum Biberach.

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ernist style, asking for guidance on getting these published. The fact that Pechstein failed to spot the joke greatly amused conservative art critics at the time.4 Of course, it is easy to claim that Pechstein eventually had the last laugh: today, his works are displayed in major museums around the globe and fetch up to seven figure sums at international auctions, whereas Volborth’s oils change hands for a few hundred Euro and are on display only in one small local museum, in Biberach in southern Germany. Yet there was nothing inevitable about this outcome, and it would certainly be too simplistic to assume that this development was preordained by the respective ‘quality’ of their artistic output. As Klaus von Beyme rightly observed, artistic careers do not grow organically out of a lonely genius.5 By tracing how Pechstein became one of the most prominent artists of his generation, this book asks for the conditions of artistic success, and how and why these changed over time. It is thus a history of reception, and aims to contribute to a better understanding of the emergence of a canon of modern art. Max Pechstein’s place within the canon of modern art is largely based on his involvement in the artists’ collective Die Brücke (The Bridge), and his contributions to the breakthrough of German Expressionism in the years prior to 1914. It is difficult to exaggerate the importance of Expressionism within the wider history of modern German culture. Expressionism came to be described – by contemporaries of Pechstein as well as later art and cultural historians – as a quintessentially German form of artistic modernism. The defamation of Expressionism in the course of the National Socialist Degenerate Art campaign only helped cement this view: official condemnation by the Nazi regime meant that Expressionism could be presented as ‘good’ German art in the wake of the German catastrophe.6 Curating exhibitions with Expressionist art after 1945 thus became part of a larger project of Vergangenheitsbewältigung, of coming to terms with the Nazi past, and of cultural rehabilitation. Like in the period before 1933, some German art historians felt the urge to point out that by 1910/11 German Expressionists – and the Brücke artists in particular – ‘had reached a level which secured them a premier position within European art, equal

4 5 6

See chapter 2. Klaus von Beyme, Das Zeitalter der Avantgarden. Kunst und Gesellschaft 1905–1955 (Munich, 2005), 235. According to Saehrendt, the Brücke group became ‘once more the cultural showpiece of democratic Germany’, in Christian Saehrendt, “Die Brücke” zwischen Staatskunst und Verfemung. Expressionistische Kunst als Politikum in der Weimarer Republik, im “Dritten Reich” und im Kalten Krieg (Wiesbaden, 2005), 82.

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to that of the French Fauves’.7 Even art historians who could not be suspected of endulging in cultural patriotism were making grand claims about the cultural significance of Expressionism: it was ‘the first form of rebel art’ according to Maurizio Calvesi; Donald E. Gordon, one of the first American scholars of Expressionism, called it ‘a movement essential to an understanding of modern art’.8 And yet such claims need to be taken with a pinch of salt. They are usually to be found in exhibition catalogues, and serve to legitimize a particular exhibition project and the selection criteria that come with it. Art historians and curators are connoisseurs and taste-makers, and operate as gatekeepers: they decide which artistic objects should be presented to a wider public as particularly valuable, and they come up with the plot lines which help establish the cultural significance of the objects on display. This book’s subtitle – The Rise and Fall of German Expressionism – draws the reader’s attention to the importance of such plot lines. It is a variation on a well-established art historical trope, of artistic genius and originality overcoming material obstacles and external opposition, and finally winning expert and public recognition. This narrative certainly works for Expressionism: inspired by a variety of aesthetic influences – Vincent van Gogh, Edvard Munch and French post-Impressionism, medieval German wood cuts, African and Pacific tribal art, to mention just a few – a number of young artists came up with a form of visual expression which flew in the face of officialdom in Wilhelmine Germany, and which was also rejected by the standard-bearers of artistic modernism at the time, the Berlin Secession in 1910.9 However, encouraged and supported by open-minded gallery owners and progressive art collectors, these young artists organized a series of exhibitions which slowly won them art critics’ respect. With the end of monarchy in 1918, museum curators embraced Expressionsim as a legitimate and valuable aesthetic manifestation of German culture, and began including Expressionist art works in public collections. But Expressionism fell from grace in the 1930s, when Hitler and other National Socialist tastemakers decried it as ‘degenerate’ and ordered such works to be purged from German museums. And by the early 1950s, Expression7 8 9

Martin Urban, ‘Zur Geschichte der Brücke’, in Museum Folkwang (ed.), Brücke 1905– 1913: eine Künstlergemeinschaft des Expressionismus (Essen, 1958), 14. Maurizio Calvesi, ‘German Expressionism and Italian Art’, in Stephanie Barron, WolfDieter Dube (eds.), German Expressionism: Art and Society (London, 1997), 59; Donald E. Gordon, E. L. Kirchner. A retrospective exhibition (Boston, 1969), 9. Stiftung Brandenburger Tor (ed.), Liebermanns Gegner: Die Neue Secession in Berlin und der Expressionismus (Cologne, 2011). For a critical analysis, see Helen Boorman, ‘Rethinking the Expressionist Era; Wilhelmine Cultural Debates and Prussian Elements in German Expressionism’, in: Oxford Art Journal (1986) 9 (2), 3–15.

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ism was rejected as ‘bourgeois’ and ‘decadent’ in Eastern Germany, and spurned by young artists in Western Germany who prefered abstract art: Expressionism was now relegated from the ranks of progressive contemporary art, and elevated into the confines of museums’ holdings of classical modernity. There are good reasons to elucidate the trajectory of Expressionism through a biography of Max Pechstein. Born into a provincial Saxon working-class family and brought up in poverty, Pechstein became one of the shooting-stars of the art world in the late Wilhelmine period. Hailed by many contemporaries as the leading member of the Brücke group, Pechstein played a central role in the German avant-garde during the first decades of the twentieth century. He was the best-selling member of Brücke and a decisive catalyst for the group’s development. Through his involvement in the foundation of the New Secession, he also became an important player in the world of art politics. After the First World War, he became one of the founding members of the Workers’ Council for Art and was actively involved in the November Group. He was the first Expressionist to join the ranks of the Prussian Art Academy and executed several state commissions in the Weimar Republic. After Hitler’s rise to power, Pechstein walked a tight-rope: he was accused of Jewish origins and attacked as a ‘degenerate’ artist, yet he was also the first ‘degenerate’ artist to be allowed a public exhibition again, in 1939, and remained a member of the Reich Culture Chamber until 1945. In the post-war period, he was showered with honours, and simultaneously attacked by proponents of Socialist Realism in the East and Abstraction in the West. Pechstein’s life is thus a window onto the world of early twentieth-century avant-garde art, and Expressionism’s place within it. A biographical approach also allows us to see beyond Expressionism. All too often, art historians have typecast Pechstein simply as an Expressionist, and have chosen to highlight those art works of his that share certain stylistic and thematic similarities with that of his Brücke colleagues and other selected Expressionists. Yet this tends to ignore the huge variation within Pechstein’s oeuvre, and throws into relief the simplification inherent in any art historical or cultural categorization. To a large extent this is the result of an imperfect knowledge of the artist’s oeuvre: until very recently, there existed no catalogue raisonné of his paintings, and there is still no such overview of his drawings. Ever since Pechstein’s death in 1955, the vast majority of exhibitions which have featured his works have framed him as an Expressionist and have drawn on a relatively small sample of perhaps at most around one hundred of his works. In other words, only those works were included and reproduced in the accompanying exhibition catalogues which fitted into a particular art historical narrative: those

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which did not fit the Expressionist mould were usually not made visible. Arguably, many scholars of Expressionism have not sufficiently reflected on how their own methodology has contributed to the creation of that particular phenomenon. Because art works – as indeed all other images – do not speak for themselves, art historians have often inscribed them with meaning of their own, often fusing their observation of stylistic developments with their readings and interpretations of literary Expressionism. Hence there are countless references in the literature to Expressionists as art revolutionaries antagonistic to bourgeois Wilhelmine society, part of a wider ‘generation in revolt’.10 In the case of the Brücke artists, the nudes produced in Moritzburg near Dresden in 1910, for example, are stylized as ‘a way of overcoming social restraints’ and ‘a liberation of eros, the release of the physical from the confinement of hypocritical bourgeois moral notions.’11 Not only do such interpretations skate over incidents of pedophilia at Moritzburg, they also exaggerate the degree of rebelliousness that allegedly inspired such paintings. As we show in Chapter Two, Pechstein applied for a well-paid teaching position at the Düsseldorf School of Applied Arts just before leaving for Moritzburg; and he submitted a design for a national Bismarck museum shortly after his return. Viewing Pechstein’s art works simply through an Expressionist lens necessarily distorts our understanding of the complexity of artistic production after 1900. Clearly, to reconstruct authorial intentions in the case of a work of fine art is even harder than in the case of literary texts.12 And for Pechstein, it is almost impossible because – unlike many other avant-garde artists of his time – he produced hardly any commentaries on his own works.13 But although we are sceptical of both grand and very specific claims that are sometimes made about the social, meta-physical or ideological dimension of certain art works, this biography emphasizes the significance of such external interpretations. Artists in the early twentieth century operated in a mass media society and were faced with an army of art critics and commentators. In order to carve out an existence in the contemporary art market it was imperative to attract critics’ attention, through individual

10 11 12 13

E.g. Bernard S. Myers, The German Expressionists: A Generation in Revolt (New York, 1957); Jost Hermand, ‘Expressionismus als Revolution’, in Jost Hermand, Von Mainz nach Weimar (Stuttgart, 1969), 298–355. Wolf-Dieter Dube, ‘The Artists Group Die Brücke’, in Solomon Guggenheim Foundation (ed.), Expressionism: A German Intuition 1905–1920 (New York, 1980), 98. For a discussion of this revolving around W. K. Wimsatt’s and Monroe Beardsley’s notion of ‘Intentional Fallacy’, and Roland Barthes’ 1967 article ‘The Death of the Author’, see Noël Carroll, Beyond aesthetics: philosophical essays (Cambridge, 2001), 157–180. For an analysis of artistic self-interpretations in the avant-garde, see Beyme, Zeitalter der Avantgarden, 221–235.

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and collective strategies of artistic ‘self-fashioning’.14 As evident from Pechstein’s and the other Brücke artists’ intense interest in reviews of their exhibitions, they were acutely aware of their dependence on critics’ elaborate and often contrived construction of artists’ reputation. The writings and interpretations of critics obviously did not always please artists, but sometimes they offered narrative or analytical templates that artists were only too ready to accept. It is striking how impressed Pechstein was with the results of the biography written by his friend, the art critic Max Osborn, published in 1922. To an important extent, he was simply pleased with the attention devoted to him. Having his own biography published by one of Germany’s most prestigious publishers at that time – Ullstein’s Propyläen Verlag – was evidence of having secured a place within Germany’s artistic establishment. But the biography also presented an authoritative account of how his art and life were intertwined which Pechstein embraced wholeheartedly, as evident in his autobiography which he wrote in the late 1940s and in which he modelled many passages closely on the corresponding sections of Osborn’s biography. Our own Pechstein biography is very different from Osborn’s, and would probably have impressed Pechstein less. The reader will look in vain for poetic images of Pechstein as an artist ‘who with strong hands opened the gate to an unknown country’, as presented by Osborn in his introduction.15 Our approach owes more to the works of Francis Haskell and O. K. Werckmeister who were among the first to point to the symbiotic relationship between artists, and taste-makers and opinion leaders, and who emphasized the wider cultural, commercial and media context of artistic production.16 Our book draws on an wide range of textual and visual primary sources. Pechstein was a prolific writer, leaving more than 1,000 unpublished letters and postcards spanning his entire life, which have been traced in numerous state and private archives, in Europe, South Africa and the United States. We use them to give the biography texture, and hope that they will allow the reader to enter into the painter’s worlds as he lived in them and through them. Additionally, the private papers, memoirs and diaries of fellow artists, art dealers and critics provide insights into the artistic, social and financial context of Pechstein’s life. Newspaper articles, 14 15 16

Ibid, 245–250; Uwe Fleckner, Thomas W. Gaethgens (eds.), Prenez garde à la peinture: Kunstkritik in Frankreich, 1900–1945 (Berlin, 1999), 8. Max Osborn, Max Pechstein (Berlin, 1922), 12. Francis Haskell, Patrons and Painters. A Study in the Relations between Italian Art and Society in the Age of the Baroque (New Haven, 1980 [1963]); Francis Haskell, Rediscoveries in Art: Some Aspects of Taste, Fashion and Collecting in England and France (Ithaca/ New York, 1976); Otto Karl Werckmeister, The Making of Paul Klee’s Career 1914–1920 (Chicago, 1989).

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contemporary exhibition catalogue entries, and sales prices give an idea of Pechstein’s public standing during his lifetime. Documents from archives of the Prussian Academy of Art and the Nazi Reich Culture Chamber shed further light on Pechstein’s involvement in the artistic politics of his time. The book interweaves these textual sources with a rich selection of Pechstein’s art works, covering the entire range from drawings, graphics, wood prints, paintings, sculpture, wall paintings, stained glass windows, and illustrated letters. Obviously, there is a limit to which individual art works can be analysed in great detail, and those readers expecting to find elaborate discussions of formal, stylistic, and technical developments will be better served by sampling some of the many exhibition catalogues which are included in our bibliography. Also, like all biographers, we are all to aware that the picture we construct often remains sketchy. His relationship to fellow members of art groups and organizations like Brücke, the New Secession, the November Group, and the Prussian Academy of Arts had to be reconstructed on the basis of a few indivdual postcards and letters, and the same is true of his relationship to art critics, curators, and gallery owners. For example, we lack detailed information on Pechstein’s commercial relationship to the influential Berlin art dealer, Wolfgang Gurlitt, whose private house and art gallery were destroyed in the course of the Second World War, just like Pechstein’s Berlin home base at that time, Kurfürstenstrasse 126. It is therefore impossible to tell whether specific themes were negotiated between the artist and his dealer, or how Pechstein’s contractual agreement compared to those of other artists of this time. And the constraints of the source base apply not only to the professional dimension of Pechstein’s life, but are even more acute when trying to recover some of his private life. We would have liked to write more about Pechstein’s interactions with other family members, especially his wives Lotte and Marta, but also his parents and siblings, yet hardly any written sources have survived. We can deduce from his letters and the accounts by some of his contemporaries that Pechstein was an easy-going, fun-loving and very amiable personality, who was fully integrated into the bohemian coffee house circles in Berlin – yet the world of oral debates and casual conversations, of rowdy drinking sessions and chance encounters is largely beyond reconstruction by the historian. All translations of quotations from Pechstein’s correspondence or his memoirs are ours and try to do justice to the original idiom; occasionally we give the German original to allow readers to appreciate Pechstein’s originality as a wordsmith. We realize that some scholars would have preferred the inclusion of the original German in every footnote, but unfortunately publishers have strong views on manuscript lengths. Also, as much as we would have liked to include illustrations of works by some of Pechstein’s contemporaries, the costs of reproduction and

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copyright fees are prohibitive. We are extremely grateful to the Max Pechstein Urheberrechtsgemeinschaft for waiving copyright fees for Pechstein’s works, and for providing financial assistance with the costs of including many colour illustrations. This book could not have been written without the help of many individuals. Julia Pechstein and Alexander Pechstein, two of Pechstein’s grandchildren who are the representatives of the Pechstein Estate, proved crucial to the project in providing access to the substantial private archive built up by Pechstein’s descendants over the decades. The late Günter Krüger, author of the catalogue raisonné of Pechstein’s graphic work, encouraged us as long as he lived, and his widow, Friedlinde, generously allowed us to use his private papers after his death. Archivists, librarians, curators, private collectors, and local historians in many places have gone out of their way to provide us with material and to help with information. It is impossible to list all all of those who contributed in one way or another to helping our project along the way, but we would like to use this opportunity to thank Javier Arnaldo, Jörn Barfod, Gabriele Baumer, Irene Below, Birgit Dalbajewa, Sabine Block David, Uwe Degreif, Ulrich Drumm, Angelika Enderlein, Michael S. Ewer, Stefan Frey, Winfried Gensch, Klaus Gier, Isabel Greschat, Margitta Hensel, Almut and Rolf Heym, Meike Hoffmann, Andreas Hüneke, Lydia Icke-Schwalbe, Ralph Jentsch, Wolfgang Knop, Petra Lewey, Christoph Lichtin, Anke Matelowski, Wolfgang Mecklenburg, Magdalena M. Moeller, Veronica Puchner, Thomas Rudert, Elisabeth Scheeben, Werner Schweiger (†), Silvia Teichert, Andreas Timmler, Petra Winter, Wolfgang Wittrock, and Indina Woesthoff. We are very grateful to New Hall, and Gonville and Caius College, Cambridge, for awarding us Research Fellowships which supported us through the early stages of our research. Our colleagues and students at Sidney Sussex College, Cambridge, and at ECLA of Bard: A Liberal Arts University in Berlin, have helped by providing a friendly and extremely stimulating environment in which this project was able to develop and reach completion. Finally, to the editors of De Gruyter’s Interdisciplinary German Cultural Studies, Scott Denham, Irene Kacandes, and Jonathan Petropoulos, we express our sincere gratitude for adding this volume to their series: we could not have wished for a more appropriate home for this monograph.

CHAPTER I

An Artist in the Making 1881–1906 “The pressure to earn money turned out to be a blessing, because it prevented me from working on paper only.” (Max Pechstein, Erinnerungen, 19)

Max Pechstein was born on New Year’s Eve 1881 in the industrial town of Zwickau in Saxony, at the edge of the Ore Mountains. Later in life, when the National Socialists’ obsession with racial purity forced Germans to research their ancestry, Max Pechstein took great pride in the fact that he was able to trace his father’s family back to the early sixteenth century. For centuries, his paternal ancestors had been blacksmiths in Trünzig, a little village twenty-five kilometres east of Zwickau. Max Pechstein’s grandfather, Johann Gottfried Pechstein, born in 1816, had become a blacksmith, as well, but as the smithy always went to the eldest son, he – as the youngest of six brothers – had to move on and finally found work in a textile factory in Werdau, close to Zwickau. There he married Wilhelmine Schubert, the daughter of a local shoemaker. Their son Franz Hermann was born in 1857. He was apparently very talented and there was some discussion about sending him to university, but the family’s financial situation did not allow for such ambitious plans. Franz Hermann followed in his father’s footsteps and eventually worked as foreman in the Kammgarnspinnerei Petrikowsky & Co., a big textile factory in Schedewitz, a small town just south of Zwickau. In 1879, age twenty-two, he married Lina Richter, a girl from Reinsdorf, a neighbouring village. The following year their first son, Richard, was born, followed by Max and then another five children: Walter, Gertrud, Irma, Ernst and Hugo.1 1

See ‘Abstammungsnachweis’ Max Pechstein in Bundesarchiv Berlin (BArch), ex-BDC files, Pechstein file, f. 574. For Pechstein’s pride in his father’s family history, see his letter to George Grosz, Berlin, 10 May 1933, in Houghton Library (HL), though note that ‘father’ should read ‘grandfather’ – see Max Pechstein (ed. Leopold Reidemeister), Erinnerungen (Wiesbaden, 1960), 8. See also the biographical information given by Pechstein on the ‘Personalfragebogen Magistrat von Gross-Berlin’, 6 April 1949, in Landesarchiv Berlin (LAB), B Rep 080, no. 78, f. 1–6.

2

An Artist in the Making, 1881–1906

Zwickau, in the western part of the Kingdom of Saxony, not far from the border with Bohemia, was a town with a long tradition of mining and cloth making. In the fifteenth and sixteenth century, both the textile trade and silver mining had made the town prosperous, resulting in the construction of the magnificent late Gothic St. Mary’s Church, the Cloth Hall and the City Hall. At that time coal mining was already practised but it was only in the mid-nineteenth century that it became the dominant industry in the region. In the 1840s and 1850s, numerous local mining companies were founded and began exploiting the vast reserves of coal underneath Zwickau and its surrounding villages. Over the following decades, annual production increased from just over 20,000 tons in 1840 to 2,5 million tons in 1900.2 The ancillary buildings of the deep shaft mines, huge spoil heaps which accompanied these and smoking chimneys of the coking plants became Zwickau’s most prominent landmark features. There was so much coal in Zwickau, Pechstein used to joke, that one could sniff it up for free out of the air.3 In fact, even Pechstein’s family name gave evidence of the region’s long tradition in coal mining: it described ‘the thirteenth state of coal in the Ore Mountains’, or so Pechstein claimed later in life.4 The boom in coal mining radically transformed Zwickau in other respects, too. In the decades after Pechstein’s birth the city grew from some 35,000 inhabitants in 1881 to nearly 70,000 in 1905.5 Housing shortages soon became one of the most pressing social problems, with an average of five to six people living in a single room. In 1888, the town council had to pass a decree stipulating a minimum of four square metres and nine cubic metres of airspace for each sleeping berth.6 Industrialisation turned Zwickau into one of the centres of the emerging trade union movement. According to August Bebel, one of the founding fathers of German Social Democracy, the Zwickau Miners’ Association, established in 1863, was the first modern miners’ organisation in Germany. In 1876, the Association of Saxon Miners and Steelworkers was founded in Zwickau; by 1895, when it was forcibly dissolved by the Saxon government, it had grown to include almost 10,000 members, making it one of 2 3 4 5 6

See Steinkohlenbergbauverein Zwickau e.V. (ed.), Der Steinkohlenbergbau im Zwickauer Revier (Zwickau, 2000), 508. See letter Pechstein to Paul Fechter, 8 October 1925, in Getty Research Library (GRL) Los Angeles, Special Collections, 2001.M.19. Copy of letter Pechstein to Professor Staritz, 27 September 1933, in Preussische Akademie der Künste (PrAdK) 1104, f. 122. In fact, Pechstein is the term for a particular sort of volcanic stone, a glass-like silicate rock with a bitumen-like shine. For 35,005 inhabitants in Zwickau in 1880, see Kaiserliches Statistisches Amt (ed.), Statistisches Jahrbuch für das Deutsche Reich 3 (Berlin, 1882), 11; for 1905, see Kaiserliches Statistisches Amt (ed.), Statistisches Jahrbuch für das Deutsche Reich 30 (1909), 7. Steinkohlenbergbauverein Zwickau e. V. (ed.), Steinkohlenbergbau, 193–194.

An Artist in the Making, 1881–1906

3

the largest regional trade unions in Germany.7 Saxony was also one of the electoral strongholds of the newly founded Social Democratic party. At the Reichstag elections in 1890, the SPD won over 42 percent of the votes in Saxony, more than twice as many than on average throughout Germany. In 1903, the SPD won nearly 60 percent of the votes in Saxony. In Zwickau, the Social Democrats were the dominant party right from the foundation of the German Empire in 1871; already at the Reichstag’s election of 1877, they received over 60 percent of the votes cast.8 When writing his memoirs in 1946, Pechstein described the electoral successes of the Social Democrats in ‘Red Saxony’ with some sympathy, and called them ‘a powerful expression of will by the people’.9 But this might well have been an attempt at emphasizing his working-class background and his left-wing credentials at a time when these were expedient in Allied-occupied Berlin after the end of the Third Reich. Although it is likely that Pechstein’s father was one of the many supporters of the Social Democratic party in this period he was most probably neither a party member nor actively involved in the trade union movement. Pechstein’s memoirs make no mention of such activities, apart from one episode: Once my father was elected by his working peers, with two other colleagues to go to the factory owner as speakers, to explain the economic demands of the workforce, and to ask for improvements. The conversation ended with a curtly no and the booting out of the three representatives. At the same time, the mood among the miners [in the city] was so strained that groups of them joined up with the factory workers and marched to the city hall. The father went along, and I followed suit. At the Mulden Bridge mounted policemen charged the demonstrators with bright drawn sabres so that they retreated in huddles. What the result was, if they were granted better pay, I do not know because Father never talked about these things with us children around. But I was greatly stirred, and feared from then on that there was no longer any justice in this world.10

Unfortunately no primary material has survived to corroborate this anecdote but it is certainly very plausible. Industrial action was a recurrent 7 8

9 10

Ibid., 202–208, for the history of the Zwickau miners’ associations. Gerhard A. Ritter, Merith Niehuss, Wahlgeschichtliches Arbeitsbuch, Materialien zur Statistik des Kaiserreichs 1871–1918 (Munich, 1980), 41, 89; for the results of the Zwickau electoral district between 1871 and 1907, see ‘Die Wahlen zum Deutschen Reichstag im Königreich Sachsen von 1871 bis 1907’, in Zeitschrift des Königlich Sächsischen Statistischen Landesamtes 54 (1908), 178. Pechstein, Erinnerungen, 8–9. The German reads ‘eine machtvolle Willenskundgebung des Volkes.’ See Pechstein, Erinnerungen, 9. Pechstein used an earlier draft of this section in a letter to his son Mäki in December 1945, which included the sentence: ‘Obwohl er keiner Partei angehörte, wurde er zum Sprecher für die Sozialdemokratie.’ Letter reprinted in Berliner Zeitung, 21 May 1946: ‘Max Pechstein an seinen Sohn Mäcky.’

4

An Artist in the Making, 1881–1906

phenomenon in this period; and in May 1889, at the occasion of the great miners’ strike, the military was called in to deal with the situation in the Zwickau area.11 For much of Max Pechstein’s childhood, the family lived in a small flat in a tenement block, Bahnhofstrasse 36, in the working-class area around the Zwickau train station, round the corner from the Bahnhofsschacht, one of the city’s big mining shafts. In the late 1880s, the family moved into a bigger flat, first in Hermannstrasse 30, then into nearby Spiegelstrasse.12 The father had to work hard to keep up the family. He always left home at five in the morning and walked for three-quarters of an hour before reaching his workplace at the textile factory. According to Max Pechstein’s memoirs, his father earned a weekly salary of fourteen Marks; slightly less than a miner in the coal mines which he passed on his way to work. After subtracting tax and annual expenditures like clothing, rent and school fees, the family was left with around 1,25 Marks per day for food and heating.13 To get by, Franz Hermann Pechstein often worked double-shifts throughout the night, and his wife Lina took up ironing other people’s laundry. Despite their hard work, Pechstein’s parents seem to have been cheerful people: they both liked singing, and Pechstein’s mother often told her children stories in a happy mood. In his memoirs, Pechstein described his father as a committed family man, eloquent, thoughtful and able to get enthusiastic. He apparently loved doing handicrafts and looking after his canaries, goldfishes and rabbits in the precious spare time he had. On Sundays, he often took Max and Richard on hiking tours through the villages and forests surrounding Zwickau.14 One of these trips probably led them to Eckersbach, a small town just opposite of Zwickau on the eastern side of the river Mulde. Pechstein’s father fell in love with the place, and over the years managed to save enough money to buy a small house with a garden, Trillerstrasse 30. The family moved to Eckersbach around 1900.15 The Pechstein children inherited their father’s love 11 12

13 14 15

Zwickau, Steinkohlenbergbau, 206. See also Ernst Heilman, Geschichte der Arbeiterbewegung in Chemnitz und dem Erzgebirge (Chemnitz, 1911), 224, for a reference to a textile workers’ strike in nearby Chemnitz in October 1889. A search of the official Zwickau address books gives Bahnhofstrasse 36 as the address of Franz Hermann Pechstein until the 1885/86 edition, then Hermannstrasse 30 for 1888, followed by Spiegelstrasse 53 between 1890 and 1895, and Spiegelstrasse 50 from 1895 to 1896/97. See letter Silvia Teichert (Stadtarchiv Zwickau) to authors, 26 June 2006. See Pechstein, Erinnerungen, 9; for the salary of Zwickau coal miners and a tabulation of their annual expenditure in 1882 (on which our calculation of the Pechstein family budget is based), see Steinkohlenbergbauverein Zwickau e. V. (ed.), Steinkohlenbergbau, 195. Pechstein, Erinnerungen, 9. The last address entry in the official address books for Franz Hermann Pechstein is given in 1896/97. Eckersbach did not become part of Zwickau until 1905, and only in 1906/07 does Franz Hermann Pechstein reappear, with an entry for Trillerstrasse. See letter Silvia Teichert (Stadtarchiv Zwickau) to authors, 26 June 2006.

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5

for the countryside. ‘Actually we were not particularly suited for city life, [we] were more peasant children than workers’ children’, Pechstein reported many years later. ‘In spring the flowering meadows were waiting, in summer the fields, in autumn the fruit trees, in winter the snow, the [river] Mulde that one could cross by jumping on floating ice floes, ice skating, skiing.’16 In his memoirs, Pechstein described his childhood years as a happy and untroubled period. He obviously revelled in memories of brook-jumping competitions and of battles between hordes of children dressed up as Apaches. He was regularly beaten by his parents for his pranks and misdeeds – like deserting the pram with his youngest sister when called away by friends for play – but he seems to have accepted this as an appropriate punishment for his behaviour.17 Max Pechstein went to the Einfache Bürgerschule III on Georgenplatz in Zwickau. The massive expansion of Zwickau’s population meant that schools were overcrowded; it was not atypical to find more than fifty pupils sitting in one class-room.18 At least in the first few years, Pechstein was not a particularly diligent pupil, and prone to playing truant. Things started to change at age ten when drawing lessons were introduced into the syllabus. ‘At first I only learnt to connect two points by miserable line drawings, then drawings of Greek vases watercoloured with coffee water, then light- and shade-drawings from plaster figures’, Pechstein recalled his introduction to the world of art. ‘But all of a sudden I was sitting as if mesmerized in the classroom and could not avert my eyes from the possibility that my hand should be able to reproduce something.’19 His enthusiasm and talent came to the attention of one of his uncles who was a wood turner and himself an amateur artist who painted in every spare minute he had. He lived on the top floor of an old inn in the city centre. His flat, according to Pechstein, smelled of oil paint, turpentine and wood, and was a feast for the eyes. ‘The walls were covered from floor to ceiling with paintings, of big and small format. Everything there is, animals, flowers, landscapes, genre paintings, were on display’, Pechstein wrote in his memoirs.20 From his uncle, he re16 17

Pechstein, Erinnerungen, 11. Ibid., 10–11. See also his mention ‘von den glücklichen Tagen meiner Kindheit’ in letter Pechstein to Zwickau Town Council, 17 July 1947 (Stadtarchiv Zwickau, no inv. no.). 18 See‘Personalfragebogen Magistrat von Gross-Berlin’, 6 April 1949, in LAB, B Rep 080, no. 78, f. 1. For the size of school classes, see Angelika Winter, ‘Aspekte der Entwicklung Zwickaus zur Industriestadt im 19. und frühen 20. Jahrhundert’, in Cygnea. Schriftenreihe des Stadtarchivs Zwickau 4 (2006), 13. 19 Pechstein, Erinnerungen, 11. For a discussion of the syllabus for art classes in late nineteenth-century German elementary schools, see Reiner Hespe, Der Begriff der Freien Kinderzeichnung in der Geschichte des Zeichen- und Kunstunterrichts von ca. 1890–1920 (Frankfurt/Main, 1985). 20 Pechstein, Erinnerungen, 12.

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ceived brushes, paint and wooden panels, and was introduced in their use. The earliest surviving oil painting by Pechstein probably originated under the tutelage of his uncle. It showed a dramatic mountain scene: a young woman clinging to a steep rock face, removing a young eagle from his nest, whilst being attacked by its parents. Based on a true incident in Tyrol in the mid-nineteenth century and popularized by the best-selling novel Geierwally by Wilhelmine von Hillern in the 1880s, it was an image that was reproduced in many variations in these years.21 It was only a small work, 30 by 40 centimetres, held in the naturalist style popular around this time, but an impressive achievement for a fourteen-year old. Around the same time Pechstein also joined the choir of Zwickau’s cathedral, the Marienkirche. This was not an unusual thing to do; indeed choral singing was an immensely popular pastime in nineteenth-century Germany.22 But the fact that Pechstein joined the choir of his local church instead of one of the many secular choirs that existed in Zwickau at the time indicates that for the Pechstein family, church rituals – rather than religion, one suspects – were still of major importance. Pechstein himself was baptised, and his family regularly attended Sunday service in the Marienkirche. In his memoirs, Pechstein recalled his first participation in Holy Communion at the occasion of his confirmation, age fifteen, and that he was thus ‘accepted among the circle of adults’.23 The experience of singing and the cathedral’s architectural setting made a great impression on the young teenager. ‘All this lifted me up beyond myself, and my entire being underwent a change’, Pechstein wrote. With shaking limbs I finally stood above [on the gallery] among the choir, eyes fi xed like everyone else on the baton of the cantor. Joining the sound of the organ and of the women’s and men’s voices our boys’ voices jubilated towards the altar the psalm: “Bless the Lord, O my soul; And all that is within me, bless His holy name!” Truly, I too had to become an artist.24

It is very likely that this moment of epiphany was as much the product of literary stylisation in Pechstein’s memoirs as it was grounded in his aesthetic experience of singing in Zwickau’s cathedral. But there is little doubt that his interests really shifted considerably. ‘The wild and wonderful tus21

See Helga Reichart, Die Geierwally: Leben und Werk der Malerin Anna Stainer-Knittel (Innsbruck, 1991). 22 See Dietmar Klenke, Der singende deutsche Mann. Gesangvereine und deutsches Nationalbewußtsein von Napoleon bis Hitler (Münster, 1998). 23 Pechstein, Erinnerungen, 13–14. The fact that Pechstein was baptised is evident from a letter in which he requests a copy of his baptism certificate: letter Pechstein to Gertrud, 11 November 1936, in Städtische Museen Zwickau (SMZ), 60K y 2(1). 24 Pechstein, Erinnerungen, 12.

An Artist in the Making, 1881–1906

Fig. 1.1: Geierwally, ca. 1896, oil, on canvas/cartoon, 48 × 32 cm, Städtische Museen Zwickau, Kunstsammlungen

7

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sles were a thing of the past, like the hours of angling trouts in the Marienthal brook, the illegal fishing in the Mulde or even in the carp pond of our neighbour, peasant Ehrlich’, Pechstein recalled in his memoirs. ‘I was no longer a weak pupil, I soon became one of the best, and eventually I became the best.’25 He now spent most his time reading, in open air, ‘dreamily watching beetles and butterflies, or hiding in the branches of a rowan tree, sketching the ideas that came into my head whilst reading into the margins of the book.’26 Pechstein’s new-found ambition and passion was also testified by a friend who visited him at home: Near the window stood a simple easel with a drawing bloc, on which one was able to discern the sketching of a flower piece. The morning sun […] made an amaryllis that stood on the window sill glow in a wonderful burning red. “If only I managed to recreate the red that this flower is displaying in the sunlight, I would be happy”, exclaimed the fourteen-year old.27

Pechstein’s friend was somewhat taken aback by this zeal because he himself had never been concerned with such things. Pechstein’s mother agreed with the friend’s embarrassed attempt at praising the work and commented that Max was never satisfied with his work, always wanting to do better. ‘Yes, it is not enough for me, not by far, I will and have to get there still!’ Pechstein is said to have replied almost angrily. Pechstein’s determination to become a proper artist was put to the test over the following years. When he left school after Easter 1896, age fourteen and a half, it had long been decided by his parents that he would train as a decorative painter. His father had already signed a four-year apprenticeship contract with master Rönnau, the head of a big local painting company. For the first three years, Pechstein was to attend vocational school on Sundays and the local guild school twice a week during winter. As was usual, it was an exploitative arrangement: Pechstein did not receive any money from his boss, while his father was to pay for all his living expenses, including clothes, working utensils and school books. Only in his final year was Pechstein to receive some minimal pay, of 50 Pfennig per week. He started his apprenticeship in early April 1896. An average working day started at half past six in the morning and lasted thirteen hours; in summer, it started already at six and lasted until dusk. Especially in his first year, it was hard physical labour and had precious little to do with learning to paint. ‘We apprentices had to cart the needed working utensils to and from the place of work’, Pechstein wrote in his memoirs. 25

Ibid. See also the transformation described in Pechstein’s first biography, Max Osborn, Max Pechstein (Berlin, 1922), 24–25. 26 Ibid., 13. 27 Sächsische Volkszeitung, 21 October 1945: ‘Mein Freund Max Pechstein’.

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In my first year, as the junior apprentice, I was never able to leave the cart shaft because at that moment they were lacking a dog, unless the boss ordered me to clear away the dirt scraped off at some place of work, or told me to paste wallpapers. We were also not allowed to dispose of our working clothes, however dirty they were. No wonder that passers-by gave way by themselves when they spotted us in our smudgy outfits. […] I was never able to believe that through pulling a cart, fetching breakfast and dinner, sometimes for twenty journeymen on a building site, [or] wallpapering and cleaning of dirt-besmeared walls one would become a painter.28

There was little he could learn from his master, whom he never saw holding a brush. Worse still, Pechstein was repeatedly insulted and beaten for no obvious reason. It was a thoroughly disillusioning year in which the young teenager often had to suppress his desire to cry. At the end of his first year he confided in his father who arranged to see his master. The discussion earned Pechstein some jeering words by his boss, but at least the master now acknowledged Pechstein’s desire to learn something, and as he had just admitted two new apprentices Pechstein was relieved from his previous duties. Among the over forty journeymen working for the company were some who had acquired real skills during their travels and who were happy to pass them on when they thought it was worth their while. Pechstein recalled: Among them were specialists for the painting of flowers, for landscapes, for baroque ornaments. They taught me the distribution of light and shade and the effects of theatrical perspective. One of them was particularly skilled in the imitation of wood and marble.29

Pechstein’s talent was quickly noticed, and it did not take long before he was given tasks not normally delegated to apprentices. He took considerable pride in the fact that during his third year he was asked to complete the decorations in a well-known Zwickau coffee-house when the senior journeyman who had started on them had fallen ill.30 At the beginning of his final year as an apprentice, Pechstein accentuated his special position by starting to wear the white trousers and overall which traditionally were the prerogative of journeymen. Although his cockiness earned him some disapproving glances from his colleagues noone openly challenged him. Rather than pulling the cart to their place of work, as apprentices usually had to do, he now swung his box on top of the stack of ladders and only laid a symbolic hand on the cart from behind,

28 Pechstein, Erinnerungen, 14. 29 Ibid., 14–15. 30 See Sächsische Volkszeitung, 21 October 1945: ‘Mein Freund Max Pechstein’.

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like journeymen did.31 As was to be expected, this behaviour was resented by some of the other apprentices. One of them secretly destroyed the works which Pechstein had produced over the years for his vocational school. The misdeed only came to light when Pechstein’s works were meant to be sent to an exhibition in Dresden. Pechstein was devastated. ‘Still today, when writing this down, I feel hurt by the destruction of these works which I had created taking great pains’, Pechstein wrote in his memoirs.32 The only good that came out of the incident was a change in attitude in Pechstein’s master. ‘All of a sudden it was as if all the insults which I was used to and all the beatings which I had swallowed defiantly were to be made up.’33 There were other improvements, too. Pechstein graduated from vocational school after three years with honours and now had Sundays off at his free disposal. He was also able to save a little money from the 50 Pfennig which he received as weekly pay. He mostly used it to participate in the excursions of the local gymnastics association which he had joined. Soon he was put in charge of one of their youth groups. At Easter time in 1900, exactly four years after starting his apprenticeship, Pechstein passed the guild examination and received a glowing letter of reference. He worked for his old master for another week to earn his travelling money, then, with 20 Marks in his pocket he set out for Dresden. ‘There I could see art, there I was able to learn’, Pechstein later explained his move in his memoirs.34 He had only once been to Dresden before, but the visit had clearly left a deep impression on him.35 Dresden, the capital of the Saxon kingdom, was a spectacularly beautiful city. Rebuilt in the early decades of the eighteenth century, it was a showcase of baroque architecture. The beauty of the architectural ensemble in the city centre, composed of the Royal Residence Palais, Frauenkirche, Zwinger and the Brühlsche Terraces on the banks of the river Elbe led nineteenth-century contemporaries to gush about ‘music turned into stone’, and to label the city ‘Elbe Florence’. But it was not just the cultural riches that drew Pechstein to Dresden. Over the preceding decades, the city had expanded dramatically and was now the fourth largest in Germany, with over half a million inhabitants.36 For a young journeyman looking for work as a decorative painter, Dresden was an obvious destination. His first visit was to the local labour 31 32 33 34 35 36

Pechstein, Erinnerungen, 15. Ibid. Ibid. Ibid., 16. See Osborn, Pechstein, 36. See Holger Starke, ‘Grundzüge der Wirtschaftsentwicklung in Dresden’, in Staatliche Kunstsammlungen Dresden Kunstgewerbemuseum (ed.), Jugendstil in Dresden. Aufbruch in die Moderne (Dresden, 1999), 18–30.

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exchange where he was given the name of a local master who was looking for help decorating a ballroom. In his memoirs, Pechstein described this as ‘unbelievable luck’.37 Different from Pechstein’s former master, his new employer regularly worked on his projects himself, and was widely revered amongst journeymen for his artistic skills as a decorative painter. Pechstein soon earned his respect and was trusted with designs and their executions, and he was put in charge of supervising up to twenty other journeymen. At some point during the summer of 1900 Pechstein decided to apply to the Royal School of Applied Arts in Dresden, one of Germany’s most renowned teaching institutes for the arts and crafts. It is very likely that this decision was influenced by his new friend, Alexander Gerbig, whom he got to know during one of his many painting projects that summer. Gerbig, a Thuringian from the gun-making town of Suhl, was three years older than Pechstein and had a similarly poor family background. The two young men quickly became close friends, and once Gerbig decided to sign up for School of Applied Arts Pechstein soon followed suit.38 Pechstein passed the entrance examination with flying colours which allowed him to skip the two- to three-year preparatory course which normally preceded participation in any one of the School’s ten different art courses. Together with Gerbig, Pechstein joined the course for decorative painting in October 1900.39 Their course-work was very time-intensive: every week they had to participate in sixteen hours of ‘nature painting’, ten hours of ‘ornamental and still-life painting’, and another ten hours of ‘figure painting and drawing’, as well as more than twenty hours worth of lectures on art history, anatomy, sketching of plants, and stylistic exercises in ancient, medieval, Renaissance and contemporary art. Despite this workload, Pechstein often worked much longer than the official course hours, together with Alexander Gerbig, to acquire ‘as much knowledge and as many skills as possible’, as he later recalled.40 The two young men shared a room in a so-called ‘artists’ quarter’ on Annenstrasse, not far from the city centre.41 However, it soon became ob37 Pechstein, Erinnerungen, 16. 38 See Wolfgang Knop, Schaut her – ich bin’s! Der Maler und Grafiker Alexander Gerbig (1871–1948) (Suhl, 1998), 155, 195, ftn. 492. 39 For the School’s course structures etc, Max Creutz (ed.), Kunsthandbuch für Deutschland. Verzeichnis der Behörden, Sammlungen, Lehrveranstaltungen und Vereine für Kunst, Kunstgewerbe und Altertumskunde (Berlin, 1904), 425–426. Pechstein first appears in the School’s students list for the year 1900/1901, as number 99, as a full-time student for winter and summer term, under the heading ‘Dekorationsmaler’; see Bericht über die Königlich Sächsische Kunstgewerbe-Schule und das Kunstgewerbe-Museum zu Dresden auf die Schuljahre 1899/1900 und 1900/1901, copy in possession of the authors. 40 Pechstein, Erinnerungen, 17. 41 Ibid. For the address see Knop, Gerbig, 156, 195, ftn. 495.

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vious that they would have to interrupt their studies the following summer to work and earn enough money to get through the next winter term. Somehow, the School’s Director, Karl Ludwig Graff, learned of this plan and promised Pechstein to exempt him from school fees if only he continued with his degree. He also provided Pechstein with a reference and encouraged him to apply for a scholarship from his home-town Zwickau. After the end of his first term, during the Easter vacation, Pechstein travelled home and discussed his options with his family. His elder brother Richard offered to send him fifteen Marks per month to cover his accommodation. His meeting with the mayor of Zwickau, however, resulted in a great disappointment. After questioning Pechstein about his family background, the mayor declared that considering the lack of family resources it looked unlikely that Pechstein would be able to complete his degree. The city’s scholarships were primarily used to provide assistance to university students who had at least some means of their own, because no scholarship was sufficiently large to serve as scholars’ only source of income. ‘I called attention to the fact that I intended to work in parallel but I had to realize with annoyance that he was not in the least interested in my situation’, Pechstein recalled bitterly in his memoirs. ‘He was going to send me 40 Marks once, end of story. With that the son of a small worker was shown to the door. With anger in my heart I vowed: once and never again!’42 This episode left a deep impression on Pechstein who later in life repeatedly harked back to the rejection he had experienced by his home-town. In fact, Zwickau was a little more generous than Pechstein later made out in his memoirs. Records in the city’s archives show that Pechstein eventually received a payment of 90 Marks which would have covered three terms worth of school fees; four years later he received another 100 Marks.43 But not only did the first payment take over half a year before it got through to Pechstein, it still left him desperately short of money. In summer 1901, once Gerbig had left the city to find work, Pechstein reported to his friend in a letter of how he was getting along on his own: There are a number of new [arrivals] upstairs, but mostly porcelain painters, and I was not able to bond with any of them because none of them had much in common with me, and then I still suffer from this chronic shortage of money and [hence] these mommy’s boys consider themselves superior, naturally […].44

42 Pechstein, Erinnerungen, 18. 43 See Petra Lewey, ‘Zwickau und Die Brücke. Zum 100-jährigen Gründungsjubiläum der Künstlergruppe’, in Cygnea. Schriftenreihe des Stadtarchivs Zwickau 3 (2005), 56. For the fees of the Dresden School of Applied Arts, see Bericht 1899/1900 und 1900/01, 8. 44 Letter Pechstein to Alexander Gerbig, 9 June 1901, in private collection; partly quoted in Knop, Gerbig, 156.

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He had taken on some odd jobs, Pechstein told Gerbig, to pay off his rent arrears, but he had already run out off money again. Even more than four decades later, when writing about his difficult times as a student in his autobiography, the financial plight suffered that summer still loomed large on Pechstein’s mind: ‘Often, the bread roll that my landlady delivered constituted my entire daily ration. I had to divide it into three pieces: breakfast, lunch and supper. A cup of tea or thin coffee replaced hot food. I hardly remembered the taste of meat.’45 Undoubtedly, Pechstein often went hungry during his first years at the School of Applied Arts, and yet one should be careful not to exaggerate his plight. The passage from his autobiography quoted above is modelled closely on the corresponding section in Max Osborn’s biography of Max Pechstein, published in 1922.46 Osborn was a close friend of Pechstein, and many of the anecdotes in his book would have been informed by first-hand accounts by the artist. But Osborn, an art critic and writer, was also well versed in the literary theme of the poor artist, a cultural stereotype popularized by the Biedermeier artist Carl Spitzweg and immortalized in Puccini’s opera La Bohème from 1896. Osborn’s skilful narrative of the rise of a young artist, of true genius overcoming material obstacles, owed as much to literary traditions as it did to Pechstein’s circumstances at the time, and Pechstein was only too ready to follow Osborn’s example when setting pen to paper himself in the 1940s. The summer of 1901 saw the creation of Pechstein’s first major work. During the School’s summer vacation he made his way to Goppeln, just south of Dresden, and stole an armful of giant sunflowers from one of the village’s fields at night time. [T]he janitor let me into the School’s studios’, Pechstein reminisced in his memoirs, ‘and so I painted all on my own these gorgeous leaf-reed-pyramids with their flaming flower heads, just like they had towered on the fields. […] I worked like a maniac for one week. And with the end of the vacations my painting was finished, too.47

It gave him a first taste of success: the big painting attracted considerable attention at one of the School’s exhibitions and was bought up by the State Museum of Applied Arts in Stuttgart. There it came to the attention of the publisher of the journal Dekorative Vorbilder (Decorative Examples) who published it as a full-page colour illustration in 1905.48 Pechstein’s biogra45 46 47 48

Pechstein, Erinnerungen, 18. See Osborn, Pechstein, 39. Pechstein, Erinnerungen, 19. See Dekorative Vorbilder 16 (1905), 4. For the School’s exhibitions in 1902 and 1903, see

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pher, Osborn, mentioned that Pechstein liked to define this painting as the starting point of his artistic production.49 Osborn also struggled to dispel the impression that with his sunflowers Pechstein had simply imitated Vincent van Gogh. Although van Gogh was later to exert a huge influence on Pechstein, at this point in time he was still blissfully ignorant of the Dutch artist.50 Instead, Pechstein’s work was clearly influenced by the naturalist style taught in the nature painting classes of Richard Mebert in the School of Applied Arts.51 The Dresden School of Applied Arts was one of Germany’s most renowned teaching institutes for the arts and crafts. The School’s syllabus was steeped in the ideas of the art nouveau movement which had emerged in the final decades of the nineteenth century, with an emphasis on working in a range of different media and a style characterized by organic, ornamental decorations.52 Some surviving early sketches of plants and flowers by Pechstein show how through stylization and increasing abstraction he tried to reach ornamental patterns suitable as decorative elements.53 Pechstein thrived in his new environment, and he soon became one of the School’s best students, not least because of his regular outings into the world of commercial decorative painting. ‘The need to earn money turned into a blessing’, Pechstein recalled in his memoirs, ‘because it prevented me from sketching only on paper. The fact that I executed many of my designs in practice provided me with an eye for the essential. I learned to pay attention to practicability, technique, [and] material, and this stood my entire artistic development in good stead.’54 Easter 1902 Pechstein was among the six students who received a Bronze Medal for their performance.55 The Bericht über die Königlich Sächsische Kunstgewerbe-Schule und das Kunstgewerbe-Museum zu Dresden auf die Schuljahre 1901/02 und 1902/03, 17. 49 Osborn, Pechstein, 43. 50 According to Jill Lloyd, the first reproductions of works by van Gogh were only published in 1904. See Jill Lloyd, Vincent van Gogh und der Expressionismus (Ostfildern, 2006), 19. Other scholars also emphasize that the reception of van Gogh only began to take off after 1904, see Ortrud Westheider, ‘Bekenntnis zu Vincent van Gogh’, in Heinz Spielmann (ed.), Die Brücke und die Moderne, 1904–1914 (Munich, 2004), 140–141; Magdalena M. Moeller, ‘Van Gogh und die Rezeption in Deutschland bis 1914’, in Georg-W. Költzsch (ed.), Van Gogh und die Moderne, 1890–1914 (Essen, 1990), 312–316. 51 On some of those naturalist painters, see Ulrich Thieme, Felix Becker (eds.), Allgemeines Lexikon der bildenden Künstler von der Antike bis zur Gegenwart (Leipzig, 1933), vol. 27, 546; and Thieme, Becker (eds.), Allgemeines Lexikon der bildenden Künstler von der Antike bis zur Gegenwart (Leipzig, 1913), vol. 9, 255. 52 For a comprehensive discussion of the significance of the art nouveau background to the emergence of modernist art, see Staatliche Kunstsammlungen Dresden Kunstgewerbemuseum (ed.), Jugendstil in Dresden. Aufbruch in die Moderne (Dresden, 1999). 53 Ibid., 400, illustrations 641 and 642. 54 Pechstein, Erinnerungen, 19. 55 See Bericht 1901/02 und 1902/03, 22.

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Fig. 1.2: Sunflowers, 1901, gouache, measures unknown. Published in Dekorative Vorbilder, 1905. Photograph: bpk / Kunstbibliothek, Staatliche Museen zu Berlin / Dietmar Katz.

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Fig. 1.3: Study, 1902, watercolour, 64 × 47 cm, Kunstsammlungen Chemnitz.

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following year he participated in the competitions of each of the School’s specialist departments. ‘The success was astounding’, he wrote with considerable pride in his memoirs. I owed it to my knowledge of every practice. In the furniture-, sculpture-, textiles-, Raumkunst- and interior design-competition I received the first prize, only in graphic art I received the second. Five first prizes and one second – I was taken aback myself and did not trust my own eyes when the cohort of my peers let me through to the notice board to read the published results. To get back to my studio felt like running the gauntlet.56

He also participated in a national competition for book cover designs, and two of his designs were published in Germany’s leading arts and crafts journal, Deutsche Kunst und Dekoration.57 Pechstein’s career took a decisive turn once the young architect Wilhelm Kreis was appointed as one of the School’s professors in September 1902. Kreis was one of the dynamic young reformers of the German Arts and Crafts movement, and he set up a new department called Raumkunst (spatial art), open to all of the School’s advanced students. The aim of the subject was to learn how to ‘create an overall composition of surface and space decoration’.58 While taking on board the art nouveau principle of creating an artistically shaped environment comprising not only architecture and walls but also individual objects, Kreis was also sharp critic of art nouveau’s stylistic excesses. ‘Everything shakes and rattles with ornamentation’, he wrote in one of his early articles.59 The Dresden Raumkunst movement aimed to design interiors which could be produced with mechanical assistance and bought at reasonable prices. It was part of a wider attack on the ivory-tower aestheticism of Jugendstil that intended to replace its ‘overheated luxury art’ with an affordable art characterised as ‘sachlich-

56 Pechstein, Erinnerungen, 20. The School’s report son 1901–1902 and 1902–1903 apparently lists only those School competitions which awarded money prizes; for January 1903 it reports a design competition for a brochure cover illustration, in which Pechstein won both the second and the third prize. See Bericht 1901/02 und 1902/03, 27. 57 For Pechstein’s book cover designs, see ‘Bucheinbände moderner Art’, in Deutsche Kunst und Dekoration 11 (1903), 202, 206. 58 See Gisela Haase, ‘Institutionen des Kunstgewerbes in Dresden’, in Jugendstil in Dresden, 45. For the importance of the Raumkunst movement for Brücke, see Aya Soika, ‘Malerei im Dienste der Architektur: Die Brücke-Künstler und die Dresdner Raumkunst’, in Birgit Dalbajewa, Ulrich Bischoff (eds.), Die Brücke in Dresden 1905–1911 (Cologne, 2001), 272–277. 59 Wilhelm Kreis, ‘Moderne Versuche’, in Deutsche Bauhütte (1900), 175; published and translated in Mark Jarzombek, ‘The Discourses of a Bourgeois Utopia, 1904–1908, and the Founding of the Werkbund’, in F. Foster (ed.), Imagining Modern German Culture 1889–1910 (Washington, 1996), 133.

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bürgerlich’ (objective-bourgeois).60 Together with Fritz Schumacher, one of Germany’s leading architects and another proponent of Dresden’s Raumkunst movement who taught at the city’s Technical University, Kreis was later to become one of the founding members of the Deutscher Werkbund, an association of German architects, artists and industrialists acting as early promoters of industrial design.61 Pechstein joined Kreis’s Raumkunst class in the winter term of 1902/03, and quickly earned his professor’s respect. When the School moved to into new buildings Kreis asked Pechstein to execute the interior decorations of his studio. More importantly, Kreis acted as a door-opener for Pechstein. He introduced him to a range of other architects for whom Pechstein began to produce water-colours of their projects, and interior designs for the completed buildings. In early 1903, one of Pechstein’s works for the architect Johann Schaudt, a room design for an exhibition of Raumkunst, attracted the attention of Otto Gussmann, a thirty-four year-old professor and head of decorative and mural painting at the Royal Academy of Art in Dresden.62 Gussmann was another supporter of the Raumkunst movement, and he was a very versatile artist himself. He designed many decorative schemes for murals, mosaics, windows and furniture, and even for textiles, wallpaper and jewellery which were displayed at public exhibitions and reproduced in periodicals.63 Kreis realized that Gussmann’s interest in Pechstein was a unique opportunity for his star student to develop further, and asked Pechstein if he would be interested in joining the Academy as a student of Gussmann. Pechstein did not hesitate for a moment. For the entrance examination he submitted a portfolio of works which so impressed the selection committee that he was allowed to skip not only the preparatory course but also the drawing and painting classes and was admitted directly as a master student of Gussmann, and entitled to his own studio.64 Upon leaving the School of Applied Arts Pechstein received the School’s highest prize and was told by the Director that the faculty had considered 60 Igor A. Jenzen, ‘Jugendstil – Zur historischen Begrifflichkeit’, in Jugendstil in Dresden, 200–201. 61 See Frederic Schwartz, The Werkbund: Design Theory and Mass Culture before the First World War (New Haven, 1996). 62 In Pechstein, Erinnerungen, 20, the artist refers to an International Exhibition for Raumkunst in 1902. The authors have been unable to find any historical evidence for such an exhibition that year. Pechstein might have referred to the International Art Exhibition of 1903, organized by Gotthard Kuehl. This would make more sense, because 1903 was also the year in which Pechstein became one of Gussmann’s Meisterschüler. For Dresden exhibitions around this time, see Petra Hölscher, ‘Dekorative Kunst auf Ausstellungen in Dresden – nur Dekoration?’, in Jugendstil in Dresden, 60–64. 63 For Gussmann, see Jugendstil in Dresden, 431–432. 64 Pechstein, Erinnerungen, 20.

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Fig. 1.4: The Royal Academy of Arts, Dresden. Postcard, c. 1900, private collection.

offering him a teaching position. ‘I felt quite nostalgic when taking my leave from my teachers of which I had become very fond’, Pechstein wrote later.65 The Dresden Art Academy which Pechstein joined at Easter 1903 resided in a brand-new and imposing historicist building on the banks of the river Elbe, right on the Brühlsche Terrassen.66 For a twenty-one-year-old from a working-class background who only seven years earlier had been pulling the hand-cart of a decorative painter in Zwickau, gaining entry to the Art Academy signified a huge achievement. Gussmann was aware of the unusual circumstances of his precocious student, and often helped him out financially. Even decades later, Pechstein was still full of gratitude towards his old mentor.67 Gussmann was not the only one to take a liking to the young artist. ‘The custodian, a usually grumpy former constable, favoured me’, Pechstein recalled in his memoirs. ‘He lent me working utensils and repeatedly slipped me the one or other Mark coin. The most 65 See Bericht 1901/02 und 1902/03, 22; and Pechstein, Erinnerungen, 20. 66 See matriculation lists of the Royal Academy of Fine Arts in Dresden, Easter 1897–1907, in Sächsisches Hauptstaatsarchiv, Dresden (SHD), 11126 (Akten der Kunstakademie), Nr. 111 (unpaginated). Pechstein had the matriculation number 285. 67 ‘In his kindness, my venerated Professor employed me as his assistant, and sometimes he handed me a twenty-marks coin from his waistcoat pocket.’ See Pechstein, Erinnerungen, 21.

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Fig. 1.5: Sitting male nude, 1905, drawing, 40 × 29 cm, private collection.

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21

beautiful models I got first. I was able to work until late at night and even on Sundays in my studio because he entrusted me with the key to the back gate, and I was thus able to save light and heating in my small rented room.’68 Pechstein continued to share his accommodation with his friend Gerbig who transferred to the Art Academy the following year.69 By this stage, Pechstein had already earned his first prize for one of his works produced in Gussmann’s class in monumental painting. ‘I had designed the interior decoration of a cathedral, and had painted one of its details in fullscale in tempera, three metres high, [and] two metres wide. For this work the Academic Council awarded me the Silver Medal at the distribution of prizes’, Pechstein noted with considerable pride in his memoirs.70 Those studies and sketches which have survived from Pechstein’s time at the Dresden Art Academy demonstrate the influence of his new environment. His life-drawings from this period show nudes in the carefully arranged poses so characteristic of academic studio art. Although traditional in many respects, the Dresden Art Academy was also open to new artistic developments. Among the professors were many who had spent time in France and who enthusiastically adopted the technique of plein-air painting as practiced by the French impressionists. Different from Berlin and Munich, where critics of the academic style had formed so-called Secessions in the 1890s which went on to dominate the modern art scene in these cities, in Dresden the most outspoken critics, Gotthard Kuehl and Carl Bantzer, had been appointed to professorships at the Art Academy and the Dresden Secession was formally dissolved in 1901. Kuehl, an impressionist landscape painter, had a great impact on the Dresden art world by organizing big national and international art exhibitions which exposed local audiences to recent trends in contemporary art. Among the exhibited artists were many of the major French impressionists, but also some of the leading Secessionists from Berlin, Munich and Vienna, like Max Liebermann, Franz von Stuck, Max Slevogt and Gustav Klimt.71 Yet the most powerful stylistic influence on Pechstein in these early years was that of his teacher, Otto Gussmann. This was also a consequence of the medium and techniques in which Pechstein worked during these 68 Ibid. 69 Ibid., and Knop, Gerbig, 195, ftns 485, 495. See also Wolfgang Knop, Meine Suche nach dem Maler Gerbig – Bilder, Bekenntnisse, Interpretationen (Suhl, 1989), 19. 70 Pechstein, Erinnerungen, 21. This work was part of a Pechstein exhibition staged by the Kunstverein Zwickau in November 1905, see the review in Zwickauer Zeitung, 26 November 1905: ‘Studien-Ausstellung Max Pechstein, Dresden’. As far as the authors are aware, the design has not survived. 71 See Annegret Laabs, ‘Malerei in Dresden – Eine Kunst im Aufbruch?’, in Jugendstil in Dresden, 147–154.

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years. As Gussmann’s student and assistant, he was primarily concerned with monumental mural designs that had to be integrated into architectural spaces – often churches, or public buildings – which in turn necessitated a completely different approach from small-format easel painting. Just how close the relationship was between teacher and student is demonstrated by the stylistic influence of the Swiss painter Ferdinand Hodler. After the critical acclaim which Hodler enjoyed at the Vienna Secession in 1904, leading art journals published lengthy articles on him, richly illustrated with reproductions of his monumental murals and paintings. A genuine Hodler craze followed.72 Pechstein’s design for a ceiling painting, Culture, from 1905, clearly followed in Hodler’s footsteps, and was probably designed as part of Gussmann’s decoration of the great assembly hall in the Saxon State Chancellery in Dresden which was also influenced strongly by Hodler. Similarly, Pechstein’s only surviving oil painting from 1905, Old Age, bears striking resemblance to some of the figures created by the Swiss artist. Related to that painting was the first woodcut which Pechstein is known to have produced, entitled Coming and Leaving.73 Pechstein also continued to participate in design competitions, mostly for commercial products, which again influenced his choice of stylistic elements. One of his prints from 1905, a design for an advertising postcard for Rudolf Ibach, the world’s oldest piano producing company, shows a rather striking composition drawing on James McNeill Whist ler. Pechstein was well acquainted with Whistler’s works: the Dresden Print Cabinet owned many of his graphics, and Whistler had often been exhibited by the gallery Arnold. After Whistler’s death in summer 1903, the art journal Kunst und Künstler devoted a long article to the American-born artist, including a reproduction of Whistler’s painting Piano Lesson.74 Pechstein obviously fused this work with Whistler’s iconic painting of his mother, decorated the scene with a row of winged heads of little cupids – hugely popular at the time – and submitted his design to the competition. It was 72

73

74

See Franz Servaes, ‘Ferdinand Hodler’, in Kunst und Künstler 3 (1904–1905), 47–60; Hans Rosenhagen, ‘Ferdinand Hodler – Genf ’, in Deutsche Kunst und Dekoration 14 (1904), 281–307. On Hodler’s influence on both Pechstein and Gussmann, see also Günter Krüger, ‘Ein Bildnis des jungen Kirchner von Max Pechstein im Kupferkabinett’, in Jahrbuch der Berliner Museen Neue Folge 16 (Berlin, 1966), 1, 30–31. For Gussmann’s design of the Saxon State Chancellory, see Katja Margarethe Mieth, ‘Im Dienste der Architektur – Dekorative Malerei in Dresden um 1900’, in Jugendstil in Dresden, 160–161, esp. fig. 8. For Gussmann generally, see Adolf Smitmans, Anne Peters (eds.), Otto Gussmann 1896–1926 (Reutlingen, 1992). Pechstein’s design, Culture, is reproduced in Soika, ‘Malerei’, 273. See Harry Graf Kessler, ‘Whistler’, in Kunst und Künstler 3 (1904–1905), 445–466, esp. 455. For the collection of Whistler’s works by the Dresden Print Cabinet, see ‘Dresden’, in Kunst und Künstler 1 (1903), 111; on exhibitions by the gallery Arnold, see Ruth Negendanck, Die Galerie Ernst Arnold (1893–1951) Kunsthandel und Zeitgeschichte (Weimar, 1998), 364–386.

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Fig. 1.6: Old Age (1905/1), oil on canvas, 110 × 45 cm, private collection, Germany.

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Fig. 1.7: Coming and Leaving (Childhood and Old Age), 1905, colour woodcut, 18.5 × 18.5 cm (Krüger H 1).

awarded a fourth prize and 80 Marks, and was reproduced in the art journal Deutsche Kunst und Dekoration in summer 1905.75 Pechstein drew his artistic inspiration not only from his teacher at the Art Academy and the works on display in the city’s museums, but also from the exhibitions organised by commercial art galleries like Ernst Arnold and Emil Richter which made a significant contribution to the progressive artistic climate in Dresden at this time. In May 1905, for example, the gallery Arnold showed paintings of Wassily Kandinsky and Gabriele Münter; 75

See Deutsche Kunst und Dekoration 16 (1905), 581. Rudolf Ibach was also a collector of modern art, and some years later bought several of Pechstein’s works, see Werner J. Schweiger, Rudolf Ibach – Mäzen, Förderer und Sammler der Moderne 1875–1940 (Wuppertal, 1994).

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Fig. 1.8: Design for an Ibach Piano advertisement, 1905, zincograph, measures unknown (Krüger L 1). Published in Deutsche Kunst und Dekoration 16 (1905), 581.

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in November 1905, Arnold hosted the first major exhibition of van Gogh paintings in Dresden, organized by Paul Cassirer in Berlin.76 It was the first opportunity to experience van Gogh’s paintings in their full colourful glory. Until 1904, when Julius Meier-Graefe, the pope of German modern art criticism, published his enormously influential monograph on the history of modern art in which he devoted a lengthy passage to van Gogh, the Dutch artist had been practically unknown in Germany. Some of van Gogh’s works were reproduced together with excerpts from his correspondence in the art journal, Kunst und Künstler, in 1904, but only in black and white.77 The more than fifty paintings by van Gogh on display in the gallery Arnold deeply affected some of the young students who saw the show. According to the recollections of Fritz Schumacher, Erich Heckel, one of his architectural students at the Technical University and later to become a close friend of Pechstein’s, began to draw ‘extremely disorderly’ in the wake of the van Gogh exhibition, and replied to his teacher’s exhortations that he was concerned only with capturing the ‘overall expression’.78 It is very likely that Pechstein, too, visited this van Gogh exhibition. His oil painting from early 1906, Physalis and Chili Peppers, was visibly influenced by van Gogh’s brushstroke technique, though at this point still only moderately so. Pechstein was clearly taken with his own achievement and submitted the painting to the jury of the Berlin Secession’s summer exhibition.79 The Berlin Secession, led by Max Liebermann, Lovis Corinth and Max Slevogt, was Germany’s most prominent and controversial association of contemporary artists, and widely perceived as the bastion of German Impressionism. By 1906, nearly all major German artists and sculptors whose work did not toe the traditional academic line were ei76

See Negendanck, Galerie Ernst Arnold, 406–407. Dresden was the first station of the travelling exhibition organized by Paul Cassirer, after the initial exhibition in Berlin, the first major van Gogh exhibition in Germany. See Walter Feilchenfeldt, By Appointment Only. Schriften zu Kunst und Kunsthandel, Cézanne und van Gogh (Wädenswill, 2005), 59. 77 Julius Meier-Graefe, Entwicklungsgeschichte der modernen Kunst. Vergleichende Betrachtung der Bildenden Künste, als Beitrag zu einer neuen Ästhetik (Munich, 1914 [1904]), vol. 3, 597–606. See also Lloyd, Vincent van Gogh und der Expressionismus, 19; and ‘Aus der Correspondenz Vincent van Goghs’, in Kunst und Künstler 2 (1903–1904), 364–368, 417–419, 462, 493–495. 78 See Fritz Schumacher, ‘Aus der Vorgeschichte der Brücke’, in Der Kreis. Zeitschrift für künstlerische Kultur 9 (1932), no.1, 8. See also Fritz Schumacher, Stufen des Lebens. Erinnerungen eines Baumeisters (Stuttgart, 1935), 283. 79 See Georg Reinhardt, Die frühe Brücke. Beiträge zur Geschichte und zum Werk der Dresdner Künstlergruppe Brücke der Jahre 1905 bis 1908; Brücke-Archiv 9/10 (1977–1978), 171, ftn. 333. The fact that it was not listed in the exhibition catalogue and the high entry number (1356) suggest to us that it was among the many works rejected by the jury. The 1906 Berlin Secession summer exhibition contained less than 370 paintings, graphics and sculptures in total, see Peter Paret, ‘Historischer Überblick’, in Neuer Berliner Kunstverein (ed.), Berliner Secession (Berlin, 1981), section IV (unpaginated).

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Fig. 1.9: Physalis and Chili Peppers (1906/1), oil on canvas, 65.5 × 70.5 cm, Sprengel Museum Hannover.

ther regular or corresponding members of the Berlin Secession; and its small and highly selective summer exhibition had become one of the most important exhibitions of contemporary art anywhere in Germany.80 Although the jury eventually rejected Pechstein’s painting, the submission was a significant act on the part of the young artist. The fact that Pechstein considered his own work worthy of inclusion in this elite group of modern artists gives a taste of his self-confidence at the age of twenty-four, and was a strong indication of Pechstein’s longer-term artistic aspirations. For the time being, however, Pechstein could not afford the luxury of focusing on painting van Gogh-inspired works. His financial situation 80 See Peter Paret, Die Berliner Secession. Moderne Kunst und ihre Feinde im kaiserlichen Deutschland (Frankfurt/Main, 1983), 229–230.

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Fig. 1.10: Zinnwald church, 1906, watercolour, measures unknown. Published in Moderne Bauformen 6 (1907), no. 7, figure 51.

necessitated more pragmatic artistic projects. The most important source of income for Pechstein at this time was his work for a variety of Dresden architects. Schumacher later remembered meeting Pechstein as a ‘tender stripling’ in Gussmann’s studio, and he was so impressed with Pechstein’s ‘extraordinary formal proficiency and surety’ that he began relying on him to colour his architectural sketches which strongly depended on colourful effects.81 Other architects also began to seek out Pechstein’s help in translating their technical drawings into attractive perspective views. Unfortunately, only few of these works by Pechstein have survived. A watercolour from 1906 of a church in Zinnwald, a little Ore Mountains village fifty kilometres south of Dresden, planned by the architects Lossow and Kühne gives an impression of what Pechstein delivered to his clients: an idyllic image of a church with ivy climbing up its walls, next to ripe cornfields and with flowers in the foreground. In this case – as in many others – Pechstein’s work helped to sell the architects’ project: construction started in 1908, and the church was consecrated the following year. Postcards with photographs of the completed building show a striking similarity to Pechstein’s original image, yet his watercolour was considerably more pleasing to view. This was certainly the opinion of the editors of Germany’s leading

81

Schumacher, ‘Vorgeschichte’, 9.

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journal for modern architecture, Moderne Bauformen, where Pechstein’s work was published as a full-page colour illustration.82 Pechstein’s artistic qualities made him an obvious choice for projects relating to the great ‘Third German Decorative Arts Exhibition’, taking place from May to October 1906 in Dresden. This show was widely anticipated as the year’s exhibition highlight. Unlike other arts and crafts exhibitions, the Dresden show was organised not by industry, but by artists, architects and interior designers, and aimed to promote the ideals of the Raumkunst movement, of marrying artistic quality and functional design. Even before the exhibition opened, the show generated such widespread interest among artists throughout Germany that the organisers decided to expand the exhibition’s scope considerably. Eventually, the exhibition grounds covered over 20 acres and featured a huge purpose-built exhibition palace, an art industry hall with machines and serial products, a model village including several detached and semi-detached workers’ houses, a school building, a cemetery and a chapel, as well as shops, garden pavilions and guest houses. It was also decided to construct an additional building, the so-called ‘Saxon House’, a three-wing country house dedicated exclusively to Saxon and specifically Dresden examples of Raumkunst interiors.83 A number of Pechstein’s teachers and commissioners were involved in the organisation of this major exhibition: Gussmann was in charge of the Fine Arts section, Schumacher headed the Raumkunst section, and Kreis was commissioned to build the ‘Saxon House’. The architect William Lossow, of the Lossow and Kühne architecture office, was the exhibition chairman; his colleague, Hans Max Kühne, won the competition to design the cemetery chapel and various rooms within the Saxon House. Consequently, Pechstein was commissioned to produce several murals and paintings to be incorporated in the model interiors, as well as the cover design of the weekly exhibition paper.84 Kühne asked Pechstein to contribute a painting to be installed in tiles above a fountain niche in the conservatory of the Saxon House, the so-called ‘Winter Garden’. Executed by the ceramics producer Villeroy & Boch, Pechstein’s work depicted a seated nude woman facing the viewer with her arms wide open. The fountain niche of which the painting formed part was reproduced often in the various art journals 82 83

Moderne Bauformen 6 (1907), no. 7, figure 51. See Jutta Petzold-Hermann, ‘Die Dritte Deutsche Kunstgewerbeausstellung Dresden 1906’, in Jugendstil in Dresden, 65–79. 84 Ausstellungszeitung der Dritten Deutschen Kunstgewerbe-Ausstellung 1906 (Dresden, 1906). See Günter Krüger, Max Pechstein. Das graphische Werk (Tökendorf, 1988), H2-H6. For a survey of Pechstein’s works produced for this exhibition, see Aya Soika, ‘The Public Face of German Expressionism. A Study of the Brücke Artists’ Interior Designs’, unpublished Ph.D. thesis, Cambridge 2001, 31–35.

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covering the exhibition.85 In preparation for this work, Pechstein had produced a very similar painting on cardboard, entitled The Spring. The use of the female figure as a symbol of spring and the stylistic language of the painting – the high horizon and the naturalist style – again demonstrate how much Pechstein had been influenced by the Swiss artist, Ferdinand Hodler. Yet unlike Hodler’s slender, well-proportioned and elegant nudes, Pechstein created a rather sturdy and chubby young woman which displeased some art critics.86 It was probably this work with which Pechstein won the Saxon State Prize for Art in 1906, the so-called Rome Prize. It was the most important award for young artists in Saxony, and came with a substantial travel scholarship for Italy, and free studio space in Rome.87 It was not the only prize connected to the ‘Third German Decorative Arts Exhibition’. For his former teacher, Wilhelm Kreis, Pechstein contributed a small ceiling painting showing mother and child for a salon, also in the Saxon House. ‘A woman in yellow, with green ornaments and red outlines, holding a child’, one contemporary enthused. ‘The painting glowed from the ceiling, a symbol perhaps for a human race which does not just look after itself, a monument to the generational principle which is averse to action without maturity and fertility.’88 The exhibition organisers were equally enthusiastic, and awarded Pechstein a silver medal for the mural.89 Another of Pechstein’s murals proved more controversial, and – like the Rome Prize – considerably more consequential for Pechstein’s future. The 85

See, for example, Dresdner Künstler Heft 2 u. 3. Sonderheft der Modernen Bauformen (Stuttgart, 1906), 292–293, and fig. 61 (watercolour by Max Pechstein); Deutsche Kunst und Dekoration 8 (1906), 658. See also C. H. Baer (ed.), Farbige Raumkunst. 120 Entwürfe moderner Künstler (Stuttgart, 1911), 81. 86 See Cuno Graf Hardenberg, ‘Wintergarten mit Wandelgang’, in Deutsche Kunst und Dekoration 8 (1906), 651. 87 Osborn, Pechstein, 67; Pechstein, Erinnerungen, 22. There is some confusion about when exactly Pechstein won this prize. Osborn dates the prize to 1907. However, the entry under Pechstein’s matriculation number reads ‘1906 Akad. Reisestip. von 1000 M auf 4 ½ Monate. 1907 Besondere Anerkennung’. See SHD, 11126 (Akten der Kunstakademie), Nr. 111 (unpaginated), matriculation number 285. We assume the travel scholarship mentioned was the Rome Prize. In his application for a professorship in Düsseldorf in 1910, Pechstein produced a curriculum vitae in which he included the ‘special mention’ and the ‘Academic Travel Scholarship’ without mentioning specifically the Rome Prize or a date. See ‘Lebenslauf ’, dated 27 April 1910, in Stadtarchiv Düsseldorf, VIII 108, unpaginated. However, in his covering letter to Wilhelm Kreis he writes: ‘I have sold my big competition work for the Rome Prize and the buyer is not letting it out of his hands.’ The biggest painting that Pechstein produced in 1906 was The Spring. In another – much later – curriculum vitae (written in 1949), Pechstein wrote that he was awared the ‘sächsisches Staatspreis für Italien’ in 1907, ‘verbunden mit einem Atelier in der Deutschen Akademie in Rom auf 2 Jahre’ – see ‘Personalfragebogen Magistrat von Gross-Berlin’, 6 April 1949, in LAB, B Rep 080, no. 78, f. 3. 88 Walther Heymann, Max Pechstein (Munich, 1916), 16–17. 89 See Krüger, ‘Bildnis’, 30, ftn. 12.

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Fig. 1.11: The Spring, painting of tiles executed after a design by Pechstein. Fountain niche at the Third German Decorative Arts Exhibition, Dresden, 1906. Published in Deutsche Kunst und Dekoration 8 (1906), 658.

31

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Fig. 1.12: The Spring (1906/4), oil on canvas, 102 × 112 cm, private collection, Germany.

architect Kühne asked him to create a large ceiling painting for a model vestibule within the Saxon House. Pechstein chose to depict a bed of tulips in brightly coloured red. He based his design on an oil painting which he had created earlier that year, in the wake of the van Gogh exhibition. Pechstein recalled in his memoirs: In spring I had seen a bed of flamingly red tulips in the garden of the Zwinger [the baroque palace housing the royal art collections]. It exhilarated me like the yellow sun flowers from Goppeln, or like the carvings on the roof beams and Querbalken from the Palau Islands […] in the Ethnographic Museum, which instilled in me a longing as if I already anticipated this distant tropical world. I “banged” the Zwinger’s tulip bed onto canvas. […] [I]n my eyes the red blaze represented a clarion [call].90 90 Pechstein, Erinnerungen, 22. See also the earlier, more poetical rendering of this episode by Pechstein’s friend and first biographer, Max Osborn, Pechstein, 49–50.

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The painting no longer exists, but Osborn described it in poetic detail: ‘basking in delirious red tones, resounding of colourful juice, bawdy and abruptly decisive in its outlines – not in the least based on tonal values, on floating greetings and gliding of nuances, but on real matter. Certainly rather raw, even brutal instead of elegant.’91 Pechstein’s ceiling painting for Kühne was a variation of these van Gogh-inspired tulips. But he soon had to find out that these were not to the tastes of his commissioner: [W]hen I went there before the exhibition opening I was appalled to see that the flaming red had been toned down by splashes of grey, deflated, modified towards Normalgeschmack (mainstream tastes). The scaffolding had vanished; helplessly I stood down there and was unable to reach my work above me.92

‘What does one do in such a situation, especially as a Saxon? You start swearing’, Osborn continued the episode in his biography. ‘And lo and behold: the swearing is echoed. A young man stands next to Pechstein who immediately grasps the situation and who helpfully seconds the raging artist. They introduce themselves. The name of kindred spirit is – Erich Heckel.’93 Erich Heckel, the son of a railway engineer, was two years younger than Pechstein and had grown up in Saxon city of Chemnitz. In 1904, he started his training as a student of architecture at Dresden’s Technical University. The choice of architectural studies had been a compromise solution, combining Heckel’s love for the arts with his father’s insistence on a subject with more reliable career prospects.94 Heckel and Pechstein shared several acquaintances: the architect Fritz Schumacher, for example, was one of Heckel’s teachers whose course in freehand drawing Heckel took twice. From summer 1905, Heckel took up a position in the architectural office of Pechstein’s former teacher, Wilhelm Kreis. By this point, Heckel had acquired a sufficient grasp of the technical and artistic skills required as an architect to earn money as one of Kreis’s assistants and draughtsmen. But his heart belonged to the fine arts. As evident from the paintings he produced in 1905 and 1906, Heckel was a great admirer of the

91 92 93 94

Osborn, Pechstein, 50. Pechstein, Erinnerungen, 22. Osborn, Pechstein, 50–51. For this and the following section, see the interview with Erich Heckel, reproduced in Roman Norbert Ketterer, Dialoge. Bildende Kunst – Kunsthandel (Stuttgart, 1988), 39– 40. See also Meike Hoffmann, Leben und Schaffen der Künstlergruppe Brücke 1905 bis 1913 (Berlin, 2005), 24; for Heckel’s studies at Dresden’s Technical University, see Peter Lasko, ‘The Student Years of the Brücke and their Teachers’, in Art History 20 (1997), 61–99; for his job with Kreis, see Meike Hoffmann, ‘Zeittafel’, in Heinz Spielmann, Ortrud Westheider (eds.), Die Brücke und die Moderne 1904–1914 (Hamburg, 2004), 41.

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An Artist in the Making, 1881–1906

neo-impressionist Paul Signac and – like Pechstein – of van Gogh.95 He devoted less and less time to his degree course, and in early 1906 requested leave of absence for the summer semester to pursue ‘intensive studies in the area of the applied and fine arts’.96 He continued to work for Kreis, as he needed the money, and when Kreis was commissioned to build the Saxon House for the Third German Decorative Arts Exhibition, Heckel was put in charge of the site management. Thus he met Pechstein in April 1906. Most importantly, Heckel had a small circle of friends with similar artistic interests, all of them students or former students of the Architecture Department at Dresden’s Technical University. Together with Ernst Ludwig Kirchner, Karl Schmidt-Rottluff and Fritz Bleyl Heckel had founded an artists’ group called Die Brücke, the bridge, in summer 1905. The reasons for this foundation were rather pragmatic: they hoped that as a group it would be easier to find an art dealer willing to exhibit their work. The four young men regularly came together for weekly life drawing sessions, perused art journals together, commented on each others oil paintings and experimented with new techniques like woodcutting. In November 1905, they staged their first group exhibition, mostly of woodcuts and a few watercolours, in an art gallery in nearby Leipzig. The reception was only lukewarm: one of the friendlier critics wrote, ‘The excretions of an artistic talent are not automatically works of art; but the old Goethe said: even the wildest must eventually turns into wine’. Nevertheless, it it encouraged them to continue seeking their own artistic path.97 And they were eager for new members. Just a few months before Pechstein and Heckel met, the Brücke members had visited an exhibition of works by the North German painter Emil Nolde in the Arnold gallery. They were so impressed by the ‘storms of colour’ produced by the older artist that they offered him group membership. ‘One of the aims of Brücke is to draw together all revolutionary and fermenting elements’, Schmidt-Rottluff explained in their letter of invitation. ‘The group also organises several exhibitions every year, 95

See Ortrud Westheider, ‘Die Rezeption Paul Signacs’ and ‘Bekenntnis zu Vincent van Gogh’, in Spielmann, Westheider (eds.), Die Brücke und die Moderne, 134–153. 96 Letter Erich Heckel to the Chancellor of the Technical University Dresden, April 1906, quoted in Hoffmann, Künstlergruppe Brücke, 36. See also Lasko, ‘Student Years’, 61. 97 For the reasons for Brücke’s foundation, see Heckel’s statement from 1958, in Ketterer, Dialoge, 42. Still the most comprehensive overview of the early Brücke years is given by Reinhardt, Die frühe Brücke (for the critic’s quote, see 52). For a good discussion of the legendary ‘quarter-hour life drawings’ of the early Brücke group see Hoffmann, Künstlergruppe Brücke, 71–75; and Heinz Spielmann, Hermann Gerlinger, ‘Spontanes Zeichnen: der Viertelstundenakt’, in Spielmann, Westheider (eds.), Die Brücke und die Moderne, 86–97 (also other articles for early influences). Another indispensable guide to Brücke is the 2001 exhibition catalogue edited by Dalbajewa, Bischoff (eds.), Die Brücke in Dresden, especially the overview of the group’s exhibition activities, 389–406.

An Artist in the Making, 1881–1906

35

which then tour Germany, so that the individual is freed from business concerns.’98 Nolde accepted within a few weeks. A couple of months later, when experiencing Pechstein’s rage about the vandalization of his flaming red tulip ceiling painting, Heckel was delighted to have found a new recruit. They could not know at this point that together the Brücke artists would indeed revolutionize the German art scene over the coming years.

98 Reinhardt, Die frühe Brücke, 40.

CHAPTER II

Pechstein and Die Brücke 1906–1913 ‘The painter of this disgusting monster deserves that women, whose entire sex is outrageously insulted through this, unite to give this woman-painter his comeuppance.’ (Vossische Zeitung (Berlin), 20 May 1910, on Pechstein’s painting of Lotte in the New Secession exhibition)

Even years after the event, Pechstein still enthused about his first meeting with Erich Heckel in spring 1906. ‘We were delighted to discover a complete consonance in our urge for liberation, for an art that stormed forwards unconstrained by convention’, he recalled in his memoirs.1 Heckel seems to have been similarly impressed. Fritz Bleyl reported that Heckel immediately recognized in Pechstein the ‘future artistic revolutionary’.2 Apart from their shared passion for van Gogh they both admired Old German masters like Albrecht Dürer, Matthias Grünewald and Lucas Cranach, and were fascinated by the possibilities of print-making and woodcutting. And when Heckel learned that Pechstein too loved tribal art and sculptures he introduced him to his friend Ernst Ludwig Kirchner.3 But despite the young men’s common interests, Pechstein apparently did not join the Brücke group immediately. Neither of the two exhibitions of Brücke works which opened in July 1906 (one in Braunschweig, the other in Leipzig) contained any contributions from Pechstein.4 Perhaps he was sceptical whether his new acquaintances – as students of architecture – really had the artistic potential to help promote his own career. After all, he 1 2 3 4

Max Pechstein (ed. Leopold Reidemeister), Erinnerungen (Wiesbaden, 1960), 22–23. See Fritz Bleyl, ‘Erinnerungen’, in Magdalena M. Moeller (ed.), Fritz Bleyl 1880–1966. Brücke-Archiv 18 (1993), 214. See Pechstein’s answers to various questions about his early contacts with Brücke, sent to him by the art historian Christian Töwe (dated 20 January 1947), copy in Günter Krüger papers, Berlin. See ‘Verzeichnis der Ausstellungen und Publikationen der Künstlergruppe Brücke 1905– 1911’, in Birgit Dalbajewa, Ulrich Bischoff (eds.), Die Brücke in Dresden 1905–1911 (Cologne, 2001), 390.

Pechstein and Die Brücke, 1906–1913

37

had himself just submitted a work to the Berlin Secession, Germany’s leading art association of progressive contemporary artists. As a prize-winning student of Dresden’s Art Academy, it was not immediately obvious what he had to gain from membership in an amateur artists’ association like Brücke. On the other hand, there may have been more practical reasons for Pechstein’s slow entry into Brücke. He probably left Dresden at the end of the Art Academy’s summer term, as usual, to earn money as a decorative painter. In August, he spent a few days hiking in the Harz mountain range, followed by a trip to Hamburg.5 It was thus only upon his return to Dresden in mid-August that Heckel could approach him with the proposal to participate in the Brücke’s first public exhibition in Dresden as an active member of the group. Pechstein quickly discovered that the Brücke group was more than simply an exhibition association, at least for some of its members. For Kirchner and Heckel it was also a study group based on the joint exploration of artistic innovations.6 The intensity of discussions and the enthusiasm for art appealed to Pechstein, and he soon joined Kirchner and Heckel in the little cobbler’s workshop at 60, Berliner Strasse – in the middle of Dresden’s working-class area around the Friedrichstadt railway station – which Heckel had rented as a studio and storage room for the Brücke group. There they often worked together, especially for joint life drawing sessions. They relied on female friends and acquaintances as models, and engaged in quick sketching sessions which they called ‘quarter-hour nudes’. The idea was to produce spontaneous sketches, capturing the models’ natural movements, so to avoid the laboured poses and rigid norms of academic style.7 They also continued with their experiments in woodcutting. Unusually, the Brücke artists never produced preparatory drawings for their woodcuts, but drew their motifs immediately onto the wood, again to emphasize the spontaneity of the design.8 The print The Model probably

5 6

7

8

See postcards Pechstein to Gerbig, 14 August 1906 and 18 August 1906, both in private collection. For a thorough discussion of the Brücke founders’ self-conception, see Meike Hoffmann, Leben und Schaffen der Künstlergruppe “Brücke” 1905 bis 1913 (Munich, 2005), 149–209, especially the group’s artistic ‘autograph’ album, Odi Profanum. Pechstein only contributed to the third volume of Odi Profanum; one of his five drawings is dated 26 September 1906. As the second volume included a work from Heckel ‘June 06’, it seems likely that Pechstein only joined Brücke after the summer. Pechstein, Erinnerungen, 23. See also Sandra Mühlenberend, ‘Vom Stillstand zum Leben. Die Herkunft des „Viertelstundenaktes“’, in Dalbajewa, Bischoff (eds.), Die Brücke in Dresden, 278–282; Heinz Spielmann, Hermann Gerlinger, ‘Spontanes Zeichnen: der Viertelstundenakt’, in Heinz Spielmann, Ortrud Westheider (eds.), Die “Brücke“ und die Moderne 1904–1914 (Hamburg, 2004), 86–87. See Hoffmann, Leben und Schaffen, 75.

38

Pechstein and Die Brücke, 1906–1913

Fig. 2.1: The Model, 1906, woodcut, 14.4 × 9.5 cm (Krüger H 40).

Pechstein and Die Brücke, 1906–1913

39

originated during one of their joint working sessions. It showed Kirchner’s then girl-friend, Dodo, acting as model, and in the background Kirchner at the easel.9 Decades later, art historians were to emphasize this commonality as one of the defining characteristics of the early Brücke group. Certain models appear in all of the artists’ oeuvres, sketched or painted at the same time (though obviously from different perspectives), providing visual evidence for their joint endeavours in stylistic development. But this working community was not without its tensions.10 Osborn spoke of ‘unverfälschter Atelierruppigkeit’ (unadulterated studio gruffness) when describing the atmosphere of intense competition and mutual criticism which characterized their meetings: ‘What one of them creates, the others have a go at, take apart caustically, [and] judge without mercy.’11 Competition also became the working principle for the design of their first exhibition: every one of the artists submitted a draft for the invitation card and the exhibition poster; together, the group then identified the best submission. The group also decided together on which works were to be included in the show.12 Some years later, the intensity of this internal rivalry was to destroy the group. At this early stage, however, the feedback they gave each other spurred them on and provided them with an almost missionary belief in their own artistic calling. For their Dresden show, Kirchner produced a programme which expressed their artistic credo:

9

10

11 12

Reinhardt was the first to note the similarity between Pechstein’s model and that used by Fritz Bleyl for the the first Brücke exhibition poster in September 1906. See Georg Reinhardt, Die frühe “Brücke”. Beiträge zur Geschichte und zum Werk der Dresdner Künstlergruppe “Brücke” der Jahre 1905 bis 1908; Brücke-Archiv 9/10 (1977–978), 21, 32. But like Heinz Spielmann and Hermann Gerlinger, we think that the model in question is not the fifteen-year old Isabella but Kirchner’s then twenty-year old girl-friend Dodo. See Spielmann, Gerlinger, ‘Spontanes Zeichnen’, 88–89, and Heinz Spielmann, ‘Plakate in eigener Sache’, 128–129, both in Spielmann, Westheider (eds.), Die “Brücke“ und die Moderne. In 1947, when commenting on his quarrels with Kirchner in Goppeln in the summer of 1907 (see below), Pechstein added the telling qualification ‘but that did not mean that much since we were all at each other’s throats often’ [doch hatte dies nicht viel zu sagen, da wir uns Alle oft in den Haaren lagen]. See Pechstein’s reply to a list of questions sent to him by the art historian Christian Töwe 20 January 1947, copy in Günter Krüger papers, Berlin. Contemporary evidence for such quarrels comes from a postcard by Fritz Bleyl, 8 November 1906, in which he writes to his fiancee: ‘I have just returned from the Brücke people once more quite dissatisfied’, quoted in Hermann Gerlinger, ‘Bleyls Anteil an den Aktivitäten der “Brücke”’, in Hermann Gerlinger, Heinz Spielmann (eds.), Fritz Bleyl und die frühen Jahre der “Brücke”. Brücke Almanach 1999 (Schleswig, 1999), 27. Max Osborn, Max Pechstein (Berlin, 1922), 51–52. The original reads: ‘Was der einzelne schafft, wird von den anderen vorgenommen, scharf durchgehechelt, ohne Erbarmen abgeurteilt.’ Bleyl, Erinnerungen’, 215–216; Reinhardt, Die frühe “Brücke”, 73.

40

Pechstein and Die Brücke, 1906–1913

With faith in evolution, in a new generation of creators and appreciators, we call together all youth. And as youths, who embody the future, we want to free our lives and limbs from the longestablished older powers. Anyone who renders his creative drive directly and genuinely is one of us.13

The show, which opened in late September 1906, took place in a a rather unusual exhibition space: the newly-built showroom of a lamp factory situated in the working-class district of Dresden-Löbtau.14 Heckel had supervised its construction during the summer, and had asked the owner, one Karl-Max Seifert, whether Brücke could put up a show of their works along the walls of the new gallery. Seifert, who had a strong interest in the decorative and fine arts, did not just agree to one exhibition, but allowed Brücke more generally to use the new gallery as their local exhibition space.15 Apparently he hoped that display of contemporary art would be an effective promotion of his modern lighting fixtures. Not everyone was convinced that this combination worked. The art critic of the regional Social Democratic newspaper commented that it took some time getting accustomed to the hundreds of lamps dangling from the ceiling like ‘threatening swords of Damocles’.16 Unfortunately, only few visitors were able to form an impression since hardly anyone found their way to the show.17 It certainly did not help that the exhibition poster (a lithograph designed by Fritz Bleyl showing a naked women in the same pose as Pechstein Model) did not make it past the police censors, who banned it by invoking Paragraph 184, the pornography clause of the National Penal Code.18 One of the few visitors was the art critic of the conservative Dresdner Anzeiger who labeled the oil paintings on display ‘painters’ jokes’, criticizing their ‘close imitation of

13 14 15

16 17 18

Reproduced in Dalbajewa, Bischoff (eds.), Die Brücke in Dresden, 13, fig. 4. For an exhaustive account of the show, see Reinhardt, Die frühe “Brücke”, 64–82. In the invitation to Nolde from early April 1906, Schmidt-Rottluff still mentions ‘the creation of our own exhibtion space’ as one of the group’s objectives; in early September 1906, Heckel’s invitation to Cuno Amiet states that ‘we have our own exhibition space in Dresden’. See Hoffmann, Leben und Schaffen, 41, ftns 105 and 106. The intended use of the Seifert lamp gallery as Brücke’s permanent exhibition space also explains why Nolde was so disquieted to hear about Seifert’s insolvency in late December 1906: ‘But how is it going to continue with all our dear child Brücke now that Seifert is insolvent?’, letter to Schmidt-Rottluff, 28 December 1906, quoted in Dalbajewa, Bischoff (eds.), Die Brücke in Dresden, 328. Otto Sebaldt, ‘Dresdner Kunstschau II’, in Sächsische Arbeiter-Zeitung, no. 246, 23 October 1906; quoted in Reinhardt, Die frühe “Brücke”, 76. See Heckel’s recollections, in Roman Norbert Ketterer (ed.), Dialoge. Bildende Kunst – Kunsthandel (Stuttgart, 1988), 44. Bleyl, ‘Erinnerungen’, 216. See also Sherwin Simmons, ‘Ernst Ludwig Kirchner’s Streetwalkers: Art, Luxury, and Immorality in Berlin, 1913–1916’, in The Art Bulletin 82 (March 2000), no. 1, 3–4.

Pechstein and Die Brücke, 1906–1913

41

French-Belgian fashion, abundantly endued with the influence of Japanese art’.19 The very limited attendance at the exhibition did not dampen Pechstein’s enthusiasm for Brücke, on the contrary. Pechstein proudly reported in his memoirs: We caused wild clamouring, not just in the Dresden press, but in the entire art scene. For the well-behaved philistine […] we were welcome objects for ridicule and derision. But that did not bother us. Proudly we considered ourselves carriers of a mission, artistically related to the Dutchman van Gogh and the Norwegian Edvard Munch.20

The group continued to meet regularly, and Pechstein produced numerous woodcuts, not least the first group portrait, Under the Bridge, of his colleagues Heckel, Schmidt-Rottluff and Kirchner. Their self-confidence received a further boost when they learned, in mid-November, that the Berlin Secession had accepted several of their drawings for its winter exhibition of works on paper, which opened in Berlin’s leading gallery for contemporary art, Paul Cassirer. Pechstein had three works in the show (one drawing and two woodcuts), Kirchner and Schmidt-Rottluff one drawing each.21 Spurred on by this success, the group decided to devote its next exhibition in the Seifert lamp gallery to woodcuts. Pechstein was asked to design the exhibition poster and the invitation card.22 Reflecting the group’s increasing ambition, Brücke invited a range of international artists to contribute to the exhibition, among them the Russian Wassily Kandinsky (who contributed six works), the Finnish artist Axel Gallén-Kallela, the Danish graphic artists Kristian Kongstad Rasmussen, and Edvard Munch (who never replied).23 The show, which opened in early December, attracted considerably more press attention than the first one, and confirmed the group’s impression that they were making headway. Even the fact that the Seifert company had to declare insolvency at the end of December 1906, and that Brücke thereby lost its local exhibition space, did not discourage them.24

19 20 21 22 23 24

Richard Stiller, ‘Die Brücke’, in Dresdner Anzeiger, no. 275, 26 September 1906; quoted in Reinhardt, Die frühe “Brücke”, 75. Pechstein, Erinnerungen, 23. Pechstein jumbles the first and the second Seifert exhibition in his memoirs. Dalbajewa, Bischoff (eds.), Die Brücke in Dresden, 391. For a contemporary review, see Kunstchronik 18 (1906/7), no. 10 (28 December 1906), 146. See WV 18 and WV 19 in Hoffmann, Leben und Schaffen, 245–248. Reinhardt, Die frühe “Brücke”, 106–128. See letter Nolde to Schmidt-Rottluff, 28 December 1906, quoted in Dalbajewa, Bischoff (eds.), Die Brücke in Dresden, 328. For a list of press reviews, see ibid, 391.

42

Pechstein and Die Brücke, 1906–1913

Fig. 2.2: Under the Bridge, 1906, woodcut, 20.8 × 21.2 cm (Krüger H 25).

Brücke’s innovative approach to exhibition management quickly paid dividends. Numerous regional art associations, galleries and museums all over Germany were happy to accept the offer of ready-made exhibitions which required minimum curatorial input from their part. In the course of 1907, Heckel, the group’s organisational genius, managed to coordinate a total of five different Brücke collections touring nineteen German cities.25 The group also began to attract an increasing number of so-called ‘Passive Members’ who were prepared to subsidize the group’s exhibition activities with a small annual membership fee, for which they received in turn the ‘Jahresmappe’, a yearly collection of four graphic works from Brücke artists. It was an ingenious idea, providing the group not only with a steady source of revenues, but more importantly with an ever-growing network of supporters and collectors promoting the Brücke artists.26 Everything seemed 25

See Reinhardt, Die frühe “Brücke”, 129. For a detailed list, see Dalbajewa, Bischoff (eds.), Die Brücke in Dresden, 392–395. 26 See Hoffmann, Leben und Schaffen, 46–54; Dalbajewa, Bischoff (eds.), Die Brücke in Dresden, 82–86, 309–313, 338–348.

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43

to be going well, and the group spirit accordingly ran very high. When Emil Nolde and his wife Ada visited Dresden in March and April 1907, they were deeply impressed by their encounters with the other Brücke artists. Full of enthusiasm, Ada Nolde wrote to the Swiss member of Brücke, Cuno Amiet: ‘Brücke is now the finest [artists’] association in Germany, but it will probably only be ackowledged as such in ten years time’.27 But even if Brücke provided him with new exhibition opportunities and plenty of artistic stimulation, Pechstein still had to work to make a living. Fortunately, his successes at the Third German Decorative Arts Exhibition made things considerably easier for him. Two Berlin-based architects, Bruno Schneidereit and Alfred Wünsche, noticed his colourful designs and asked him to come to Berlin to help with various of their projects.28 Pechstein met them in early December 1906, and immediately began to work for them. Among other things, he was asked to produce designs for several stained glass windows. It was through this work that Pechstein got to know Gottfried Heinersdorff, the owner of Berlin’s most prestigious glass workshop, and Germany’s leading promoter of stained glass as an art form, who over subsequent years commissioned Pechstein with numerous designs.29 Pechstein also continued to work on wall paintings, stained glass windows and mosaics for churches and public buildings in Dresden and its vicinity.30 The only decorative work to have survived from this period is a cycle of stained glass windows that Pechstein produced for a city hall in the small provincial town of Eibenstock, 30 kilometres south of Zwickau, in the Ore Mountains. It was Pechstein’s first major public commission, procured for him by his professor, Otto Gussmann.31 He spent the better part of the winter and spring of 1906/07 in his studio in the Art Academy, to work on the design of his stained glass cycle.32 He eventually came up with four allegorical figures representing the major areas of responsibility of local government: education, water management, construction, and nursing. The figures’ long draperies and their attributes resembled the depiction of 27 Letter Ada Nolde to Cuno Amiet, 24 April 1907, quoted in Reinhardt, Die frühe “Brücke”, 141. 28 Pechstein’s encounter with them in Berlin is documented by a postcard which he sent to his friend Gerbig, signed by both Wünsche and Schneidereit: postcard Pechstein to Gerbig, Berlin, 9 December 1906, in private collection. 29 For their first contact, see letter Heinersdorff to Pechstein, 14 February 1907, copy in Günter Krüger papers, Berlin. See also Aya Soika, ‘The Public Face of German Expressionism. A study of the “Brücke” artists’ interior designs’, unpublished Ph.D, University of Cambridge, 2001, 48–58. 30 See Pechstein, Erinnerungen, 22. 31 Osborn, Pechstein, 67. 32 By early July 1907 Pechstein’s designs were with the Eibenstock Stadtbauamt, as evident from two letters from Pechstein to the Stadtbauamt (dated 4 and 15 July 1907), in Kreisund Verwaltungsarchiv Aue-Schwarzenberg, 09456 Annaberg-Buchholz, no inv. no..

44

Pechstein and Die Brücke, 1906–1913

Fig. 2.3: Stained glass windows in the town hall of Eibenstock, 1906, executed after designs by Max Pechstein. Photograph: Ina Gläser, Eibenstock.

medieval saints or virtues. Stylistically, they seemed a far cry from Pechstein’s van-Gogh-inspired easel work. And yet here too was evidence of his new preoccupation with colour and expanse. ‘Just like on canvas, where I placed colours immediately next to each other in strong contrasts, I proceeded with the stained glass windows, for which I was able to use glass of the most wonderful, deep colour’, Pechstein recalled in his memoirs.33 Copying medieval techniques, he only used the supporting strips of lead and black paint to shape his figures. His commissioners were somewhat disconcerted when faced with Pechstein’s glowing colours. It needed the reassuring words of his professor, Gussmann, to convince the city authorities of the quality of the final work.34 At first, Gussmann, too, had been deeply sceptical when learning about his student’s new association. But after a visit to Brücke’s meeting room in Berliner Strasse he recognized the sincerity of their creative urge and their artistic passion, and signed up as one of the earliest Passive Members.35 Gussmann continued to defend Pechstein against scornful abuse even after it had become apparent that his student had broken with academic art.36 33 34 35 36

Pechstein, Erinnerungen, 24. Ibid. See Dalbajewa, Bischoff (eds.), Die Brücke in Dresden, 341. See statement Pechstein to the art historian Christian Töwe, undated (late January 1947), copy in Günter Krüger papers, Berlin.

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45

In May 1907, Schmidt-Rottluff left Dresden for an extended stay in Dangast, a small fishing village at the North Sea; a month later, Heckel followed him there.37 Kirchner and Pechstein also decided to take to the countryside for inspiration, but they chose the neighbouring villages of Goppeln and Golberode, six miles south of Dresden, from where Pechstein had taken the sunflowers for his first big oil painting in 1901. They drew and painted everything village life had on offer, but concentrated on nudes. As none of the local village girls volunteered as a model, Kirchner’s girlfriend Dodo had to help out once more.38 Although the village community had got used over the years to frequent visits by artists from the Royal Academy, Kirchner and Pechstein stood out, not only because of their sketching of the naked Dodo.39 The paintings, with their thick impasto brushstrokes and pure, powerful colours, departed markedly from anything the villagers had seen before. Many of the works they created this summer – like Pechstein’s Flower Garden – owed much to the stylistic influence of Vincent van Gogh.40 Despite this shared enthusiasm for the great Dutchmen, the two young men often quarrelled ‘because our outlooks diverged’, as Pechstein later recalled.41 Yet from the outside, these differences were difficult to make out, as their exhibition in the gallery Richter in Dresden showed in September. The Richter gallery was one of the city’s most prestigious art galleries, centrally located, and an important point of reference for anyone interested in contemporary art. The Brücke exhibition included nearly 60 paintings and 100 graphics.42 ‘At first one is mightily startled when looking at the things’, commented the art critic of the liberal Dresdner Neueste Nachrichten, Paul Fechter. ‘Van Gogh is a mere Academy professor in 37 Spielmann, Westheider (eds.), Die “Brücke“ und die Moderne, 44. 38 For drawings of Dodo, see Pechstein, Erinnerungen, 25; and fig. 116, in Dalbajewa, Bischoff (eds.), Die Brücke in Dresden, 130. For mention of Golberode, see letter Pechstein to Alexander Gerbig, 2 November 1907, in private collection. 39 In the 1970s, an old woman from Goppeln could still remember an instant where these two ‘ungestümen Malerhelden’ (boisterous painter heroes) had been pointed out to her by her father (undoubtedly concerned for her moral well-being). See Reinhardt, Die frühe “Brücke”, 136. 40 Reinhardt, Die frühe “Brücke”, 136–140. In December 1906, Pechstein saw an entire room full of van Gogh drawings in the Berliner Secession exhibition (see Kunstchronik NF 18 (1906/7), no. 10 (28 December 1906), 145–148). For the influence of van Gogh on Brücke more generally, see Christiane Remm, ‘Dresde a la luz de Van Gogh’, in Javier Arnaldo, Magdalena M. Moeller (eds.), Brücke. El Nacimiento des Expresionismo Alemán (Madrid, 2005, 113–131, 378–380; and Jill Lloyd, Vincent van Gogh and Expressionism (Ostfildern, 2006). 41 See Pechstein’s comment to the art historian Christian Töwe, undated (late January 1947), unpaginated, copy in Günter Krüger papers, Berlin. 42 It was their second touring collection of paintings and graphics of 1907, which had previously been shown in Flensburg (in June 1907) and in Hamburg (in July/August 1907). See Dalbajewa, Bischoff (eds.), Die Brücke in Dresden, 393–394.

46

Pechstein and Die Brücke, 1906–1913

Fig. 2.4: Garden of Flowers (1907/2), oil and tempera on cardboard, 36 × 37.5 cm, private collection.

comparison […]. One is left with the impression that the name Brücke is actually far too timid; this is well beyond all transition.’43 Although generally benevolent in his judgement, Fechter criticized the young artists for turning van Gogh into a programme.44 And Fechter was not the only one to make this observation. Nolde, upon seeing the exhibition, is said to have made the biting remark that the group should not call itself Brücke but ‘van Goghiana’.45 It is difficult to render the aesthetic shock that many viewers 43 Paul Fechter, ‘Kunstsalon Richter’, in Dresdner Neueste Nachrichten, no. 247, 10 September 1907, 1. 44 ‘In place of the academic style they use more or less conciously a – shall we say modern one, for one formula another is taken. But formula remains formula, whether it is Anton v. Werner or Vincent van Gogh. All this wildness is not spontaneous means of expression […] but agenda, theory […].’ Ibid. 45 See Hans Fehr, Emil Nolde. Ein Buch der Freundschaft (Cologne, 1957), 53. Ironically, of all Brücke artists, Nolde himself was most strongly influenced by van Gogh. Jill Lloyd

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47

felt when confronted with these storms of colour. The owner of the gallery Commeter in Hamburg, who had been talked into showing a Brücke collection by one of the group’s Passive Members, was quite appalled when she saw the artworks that she had agreed to put on display; later that year, even Cuno Amiet was somewhat taken aback when coming face to face with his colleagues’ paintings for the first time.46 Pechstein’s time as a student at the Royal Academy of Art in Dresden came to an end in late September 1907.47 ‘Now all there was to do was to collect from the Saxon Finance Ministry the first bit of the Rome Prize in golden coins’, Pechstein recalled in his memoirs the transition to his new life.48 Together with the payment for his Eibenstock stained glass windows, Pechstein now had sufficient funds to head south.49 After a short stopover in Munich, where he visited the Oktoberfest, Pechstein left for Italy on 3 October.50 He travelled via Innsbruck to South Tyrol where he spent some time hiking in the mountains. From there he went to Verona, ‘into the Promised Land’, as he called it in a letter to his friend Gerbig. ‘I have to say, the first impression was good, despite the quite considerable stench in the alleyways […].’51 He toured through Northern Italy, with stops in Padua, Venice, and Ravenna, and then made his way via Bologna to Florence, where he stayed for a couple of weeks. From there, he visited Pisa and Siena, and finally made his way to Rome in late October. ‘I have already seen loads, and I believe I have benefited from it too, hopefully this will show at some later point’, he wrote to Gerbig in early November.52 He was much taken with the mosaics, frescoes and paintings that he encountered in various churches (‘anywhere you spit there’s a church’, he observed). He thinks that it was Nolde’s dissatisfaction with the superficial stylistic imitation of van Gogh by his Brücke colleagues (which contrasted with his own, more spiritual appropriation) that eventually led to his departure from the group in late 1907; see Lloyd, Vincent van Gogh and Expressionism, 58–59. 46 See Indina Woesthoff, „Der glückliche Mensch“. Gustav Schiefler (1857–1935) Sammler, Dilettant und Kunstfreund (Hamburg, 1996), 269; for Amiet’s reaction to the exhibition in Solothurn, see Reinhardt, Die frühe “Brücke”, 186, ftn. 698. 47 According to his matriculation entry, his graduation date was ‘Michaelis 1907’, i.e. St. Michael’s day, 29 September. See SHD, 11126, Nr. 111, matriculation number 285. 48 Pechstein, Erinnerungen, 24. 49 Osborn reports the scholarship was worth 1,200 Marks: Osborn, Pechstein, 67. The entry under Pechstein’s matriculation number gives the figure of 1,000 Marks. He also earned an additional 600 Marks for the interior decorations executed in late September 1907 in a church in the Saxon town of Falkenstein/Vogtland. See letter Pechstein to Alexander Gerbig, 2 November 1907, from Rome, in private collection. 50 See postcard Pechstein, 2 October 1907, from Munich, to Gerbig. Quoted in Wolfgang Knop, “Schaut her – ich bin’s!” Der Maler und Grafiker Alexander Gerbig (1871–1948) (Suhl, 1998), 157, 196, ftn. 511. 51 Letter Pechstein to Gerbig, 2 November 1907, from Rome, in private collection. 52 Ibid.

48

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was particularly overwhelmed by the works of early Renaissance artists. He told Gerbig: So far, it has confirmed my view to pursue simplicity [by] combining generosity with beautiful colours. Above all Giotto, Mantegna, oh my dear god Bottizelli [sic] with his Spring, one does not know where to leave all these impressions in the meantime. To look at these things is a delight, [but] at the end one stops noticing, one takes it for granted to be seeing the most beautiful works everywhere […]. I have not yet been to any museum or so here in Rome, to give these impressions time to set in my memory, otherwise I will suffer from headaches.53

Despite Pechstein’s enthusiasm for the abundance of art that he encountered in Italy, he had made up his mind even before arriving in Rome that he would not stay in the official art studio that had been allocated to him. ‘Next I want to go to Naples, [then] Sicily, then back to Genoa by ship, Parma, Milan, Lucerne, Geneva and then Paris, where the real work is meant to begin’, he announced in early November 1907.54 Meeting other German artists in Rome only reinforced Pechstein’s intention to seek out the French capital as a more appropriate working environment for him. He wrote to Gerbig about his compatriots: You will not believe what cissies and parasites there are here in Italy, what a dishonour for Germany […]. These fellows suppose that they are at the pure spring of art and that they simply have to be here and open their muzzle and then it will percolate through them and turn into art. What comes out is something completely different, you can imagine what […].55

His own artistic output in Italy was confined to drawings of landscapes and buildings, much to his sorrow. ‘I have tried repeatedly to get one of these damned Italians to agree to being immortalized/portrayed. Nothing doing, not to mention the skirts, at least not those which one would like to draw, and the harlots have – I believe everywhere in the world – this pe-

53

Ibid. The original reads: ‘Bis jetzt bin ich in Rom in gar kein Museum usw. gegangen, um sich erst den Nudeltopf in meinem Gedächtnis mal setzen zu lassen, denn schon kommen die Kopfschmerzen.’ Apart from the frescoes by Giotto and Fra Angelico, Pechstein’s friend and biographer Osborn specifically mentions the mosaics of St. Apollinare and the mausoleum of Galla Pacidia in Ravenna, the frescoes in the Vatican Library, and Etruscan art. See Osborn, Pechstein, 68. 54 Letter Pechstein to Gerbig, 2 November 1907, from Rome, in private collection. 55 Letter Pechstein to Gerbig, 22 November 1907, from Rome, in private collection. The original reads: ‘Du glaubst gar nicht, welche Jammerlappen und Schmarotzer hier in Italien, welche Schmach für Deutschland […]. Die Kerle vermeinen, Ihnen fließt hier die reine Quelle der Kunst u. sie brauchen bloß dazusein u. das Maul aufzusperren, so filtrierte sich da bei ihnen zu Kunst. Heraus kommen tut aber was ganz anderes, was kannst Du Dir denken […].’

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culiar expression round their mouth’, he reported to Gerbig.56 But he was reasonably happy with his own progress: I have already produced numerous drawings, and I am glad that the latest are becoming ever more simple and linear compared to the first, where a good number of lines felt wrong, this is not claiming that these latest [drawings] are good, because I have sofar always noticed that once I have completed something new the previous [work] appears quite imperfect.57

In early December 1907, Pechstein made his way to Paris. He took a room in a small hotel next to the Musée de Cluny, in the Quartier Latin, in order to be close to the Louvre and the Jardin de Luxembourg. Full of expectation and eager to delve into the world of contemporary French art, he was somewhat disappointed in the first few days. ‘I have once heard it being said that in order to see the good French one has to go to Germany’, he wrote in his first letter from Paris. ‘I am almost ready to believe that, as so far I have not seen a single one of those [artists’ artworks] that I cherish […]. Here too the saying holds true: a prophet has no honour in his own country […].’58 Eventually he tracked down some art galleries that had works by Gauguin, Cézanne, Sisley, and other of his favourite artists.59 In January 1908, the art salon Bernheim Jeune staged a massive van Gogh exhibition ‘[…] I am very eager to see what delights my eyes will be offered’, Pechstein wrote three weeks earlier); in February, it showed works by Vuillard; in March he was able to see an exhibition of Kees van Dongen in the gallery Daniel-Henry Kahnweiler.60 ‘They have here fantastic exhibitions all the time, where there is always a lot to see’, he enthused in early 1908.61 But he was not an uncritical disciple of all contemporary French art. When the Salon des Indépendants opened its doors in late March, Pechstein disapproved of much that was on show in the huge glass buildings on Cours de la Reine. ‘Last Friday the first Salon opened here, and I can only 56 57 58 59 60

61

Letter Pechstein to Gerbig, 2 November 1907, from Rome, in private collection. Ibid. Letter Pechstein to Gerbig, 9 December 1907, from Paris, in private collection. See letter Pechstein to Gerbig, 19 December 1907, from Paris, in private collection. Ibid. See also Reinhardt, Die frühe “Brücke”, 143–144. Nothing in Pechstein’s extensive correspondence from Paris suggests that he acutally met van Dongen, who became an active member of Brücke in late 1908. In an undated letter to Schmidt-Rottluff, probably written in early October 1908, Pechstein writes that he has been told by Kirchner to include van Dongen in their list of active members. He comments: ‘I am very much in favour of him, but he already quite a big affair in France, who knows if he will accept!’ But should he accept, Pechstein concluded ‘it would be a great joy’. See undated letter Pechstein to Schmidt-Rottluff, from Berlin, in private collection. In our view, previous accounts that have explained van Dongen’s Brücke membership with Pechstein’s trip to Paris have been wrong. Letter Pechstein to Gerbig, 9 March 1908, from Paris, in private collection.

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tell you I consider myself to be modern, however what my eyes got to see there was simply unbearable […]’, Pechstein wrote full of indignation, ‘I cannot begin to convey how dreadful an impression this exhibition made on me […].’62 Upon leaving the exhibition he suffered from headaches, and claimed unable to sleep all night. He struggled to convey his feelings to Gerbig: Damn it, you have no idea unless you have seen it. If I wanted to give you a description I would have to write on red paper with some terrible substance. Everything has its downsides, so too an exhibition without a jury, there is too much chaff to be separate from the wheat, [though] then again one sees some quite fantastic stuff too.63

Among the 6,700 works on display were works by some of Pechstein favourites, like Felix Valloton and Edvard Munch; all the major Fauves painters like Henri Matisse, André Derain, Raoul Dufy, and Maurice de Vlaminck; and – with George Braque’s Grand Nu – even one of the earliest exhibited works of Cubism.64 Somewhat surprisingly, Pechstein later claimed in his memoirs to have participated in the show with three oil paintings.65 But there was more to Paris than simply its contemporary painters. Pechstein frequently visited the collection of medieval art in the Cluny Museum, and admired the Gothic artworks in St. Denis and Nôtre Dame.66 He also made numerous trips to the Louvre, and was fascinated 62

Letter Pechstein to Gerbig, 17 March 1908 from Paris, in private collection. The original reads: ‘Am vergangenen Freitag wurde hier der erste Salon eröffnet, und kann ich Dir bloß schreiben, ich denke doch modern zu sein, aber was da meine Augen zu sehen bekamen, es war einfach nicht zum Aushalten, […] ich kann das gar nicht niederschreiben, wie grässlich diese Ausstellung auf mich gewirkt, denn da es keine Jury gibt, sieht man alles.’ 63 Ibid. The original reads: ‘Donnerwetter nochmal, man kann sich keinen Begriff davon machen, wenn man’s nicht gesehen. Wollte ich Dir eine Schilderung geben, müsste ich auf rotem Papier mit irgendeiner schrecklichen Substanz schreiben. Es hat alles seine Schattenseite, so auch eine Ausstellung ohne Jury, man muss zuviel Spreu vom Weizen sondern, entgegengesetzt sieht man auch wieder ganz famose Sachen.’ 64 See exhibition catalogue Société des Artistes Indépendents (ed.), 24me Exposition 1908. Du 20 Mars au 2 Mai (Paris, 1908); for Braque, see Edward F. Fry, ‘Cubism 1907–1908: An early eyewitness account’, in The Art Bulletin 48 (March 1966), no. 1, 70. 65 In his memoirs (written in 1946), Pechstein recalled: ‘In the spring exhibition of the Salon des Indépendants I was also represented with three works, a still life, a landscape and the portrait of a young Russian.’ See Pechstein, Erinnerungen, 32. A few years later, in a short biographical account submitted to the Berlin Senate, he made no mention of the spring exhibition, but wrote: ‘Before leaving Paris, I exhibited for the first time in the “Autumn Salon 1908” in Paris’, see LAB, B Rep 080, no. 78, f. 3. As both exhibition catalogues do not include an entry by Pechstein it is impossible to know whether he did indeed participate, though it is possible that he submitted his works shortly before the exhibition openings and was therefore not included in the catalogue. 66 Pechstein, Erinnerungen, 28.

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by its rich collection of drawings and Old Masters. ‘[T]hese are tremendous works’, he enthused about Rembrandt’s Slaughtered Ox and Bethsabée, ‘and when seeing them I think come what may, I will certainly not give up painting, once one has overcome the greatest obstacles one will find oneself going from strength to strength.’67 More than anything else, Pechstein loved delving into the Parisian streetlife. In his frequent letters to Gerbig he gave vivid descriptions of his sights on the boulevard, like the milliners whom he encountered on his first day, ‘some of whom looked rather funny, as if their heads had been dunked into a barrel of flour and a small boy had then painted them quite lovely rosy cheeks’.68 He observed the earlymorning traffic at Les Halles, the central marketplace which reminded him of Zola; he marvelled at the workers ‘with their striking features, wooden shoes and barbarously wide trousers’ (he decided he had to get some of the latter himself); and he was genuinely impressed by what he called the ‘Lebemann’ (the bon vivant): ‘a mighty elegant beast, I tell you!’69 In the evenings, he donned top hat and tails to hit the town. This ‘civilian uniform’, as he called it, helped him get into expensive places and allowed him to experience – at least as spectator – Paris’ famous nightlife.70 He was very impressed with the French way of celebrating Christmas and New Year. ‘In contrast to Germany all of Paris spends Christmas night on the streets’, he reported to Gerbig in January 1908, ‘and it was simply great how many skirts approached me who offered their love for the minute and the night, I only returned home at 4 a.m. in the morning, the first Christmas that I have spent this way […]. New Year was quite similar.’71 Not surprisingly, he announced in the same letter that he was very much hoping to stay in Paris for an extended period of time. The wealth of visual impressions that Pechstein gathered on the streets of Paris greatly stimulated his creative urge. ‘I have seen so much I would like to do that reason tells me, wait and see, you are here for the first and not the last time’, he noted already a few days after his arrival.72 Women in particular caught his eye: ‘I have observed really gorgeous types of women, [and] it must be a delight to paint one of these racy dames one day […]’, 67 Letter Pechstein to Gerbig, 9 March 1908, from Paris, in private collection. 68 Letter Pechstein to Gerbig, 9 December 1907, from Paris, in private collection. 69 See letters Pechstein to Gerbig, 19 and 9 December 1907, from Paris, in private collection. The original reads: ‘ich sage Dir, das ist ein verflucht elegantes Viech!’ 70 Pechstein, Erinnerungen, 30. In 1919, he recalled that he had spent his time in Paris ‘sauntering about at nighttime, working at daytime’, see letter Pechstein to Georg Biermann, 6 August 1919, from Berlin. Reprinted in Georg Biermann, Max Pechstein (=Junge Kunst, Band 1) (Leipzig, 1919 [Leipzig, 1920]). 71 Letter Pechstein to Gerbig, 15 January 1908, from Paris, in private collection. 72 Letter Pechstein to Gerbig, 9 December 1907, from Paris, in private collection. For some of the works on paper he produced in this period, see Pechstein, Erinnerungen, 28–32.

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Fig. 2.5: Max Pechstein in Paris, Winter 1907/08. Unknown photographer.

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he wrote to Gerbig.73 But models were ‘awfully expensive’; one session cost Pechstein five Francs.74 This was a luxury that he could ill afford, so he mostly made do with subjects he came across during his walks through the city. At first, he found it difficult to process the various impressions and to decide on the adequate artistic expression. ‘It is bubbling and simmering in me like in a damned overboiling noodle pot’, he complained to Gerbig in mid-December 1907. ‘This afternoon I tried to draw at the Seine [but] it did not turn out right yet. There is a particular air that covers the scenery here, and one understands why plein-air painting originated in France.’75 From January 1908 he resumed painting, after a break of almost four months. ‘[I] am not yet clear in my mind about many a thing, and I would like to do something big once again to experiment’, he told his friend.76 However, canvas and oils were very expensive in Paris, so he mostly produced ‘stamps’, as he put it ironically.77 By early February, he had already painted numerous of these, ‘though I have thrown away even more, or if not that, then at least painted them over’, as he told Gerbig.78 He considered his output rather pragmatically as ‘small paintings-for-sale’: the ‘monumental works’ were still in gestation.79 He continued to note down ideas for bigger paintings, and he told Gerbig that he intended to work them out in the following winter.80 Only occasionally did he venture into big formats. ‘A Russian visited me’, he informed Gerbig in early March 1908, ‘and as it was raining, I painted him quickly, in an hour on a canvas of 2 m[etres] x 1 m[etre], but the main thing was that it succeeded, I kept it to a minimum, and yet everyone recognizes him as I succeeded in putting him on canvas as a whole person. He is a sickly person with a greenish face, into which in effect I only put the pupils, and stretched the mouth a bit.’81 Around the same time, he also worked one of his ideas for a bigger work into a slightly larger painting: ‘I painted it heartily in one go from early in the morning until dawn, and I am not going to add another stroke now’, he reported in one of his letters. ‘I took much pleasure in it, and I once more found oblivion in my work like I did as a boy, when nothing

73

Letter Pechstein to Gerbig, 9 December 1907, from Paris, in private collection. The original reads: ‘Wirklich prächtig Typen von Weibern habe ich beobachtet, das muß eine Lust sein, mal so ein rassiges Frauenzimmer runterzustreichen […]’. 74 Letter Pechstein to Gerbig, 17 January 1908, from Paris, in private collection. 75 Letter Pechstein to Gerbig, 19 December 1907, from Paris, in private collection. 76 Letter Pechstein to Gerbig, 15 January 1908, from Paris, in private collection. 77 Letter Pechstein to Gerbig, 17 January 1908, from Paris, in private collection. 78 Letter Pechstein to Gerbig, 4 February 1908, from Paris, in private collection. 79 Ibid. 80 Letter Pechstein to Gerbig, 9 March 1908, from Paris, in private collection. 81 Ibid.

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Fig. 2.6: Seine Bridge with small steamer (1908/1), oil on canvas, 46,5 × 55 cm, National Gallery of Australia, Canberra.

could disturb me.’82 It was probably the painting Seine Bridge with Little Steamboat that he referred to, and which he sent – together with four other oils and many woodcuts and drawings – back to Germany in early March 1908.83 ‘You should not think that I take very seriously the works that I sent you’, he told Gerbig once he had heard that they had safely arrived, ‘I consider them as nothing but a waypoint, not even a good one, because I had not painted anything for quite a while, and after all one has to keep practising.’84 He was not a little worried that his friend – in whose judgement he had great trust, and whom he knew to be more inclined towards an Impressionist style of painting – would be taken aback by his most 82 83

Ibid. Ibid. See also letter Pechstein to Gerbig, undated (between 17 February and 9 March 1908), from Paris, in private collection, for five little sketches of the oil paintings he sent to Gerbig. 84 Letter Pechstein to Gerbig, 17 March 1908, from Paris, in private collection.

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recent output. ‘Now I am a little annoyed to have sent you these works’, he commented in another letter, ‘because as far as I remember them they will give you a wrong idea of what I want to do, and they will probably also still be lacking in what one would call personality. It appears to me as if I have only just begun to see […].’85 This eye-opening process was probably triggered by Pechstein’s encounters with Fauve paintings in the winter of 1907/08. Certainly, his painting Seine Bridge with small Steamer (one of the very few works from this period to have survived) showed typical Fauve traits, with its light colour palette, the short and broad brushstrokes that allowed the white ground of the canvas to shine through, and its chosen perspective. Yet Pechstein was not simply imitating the Fauves. The way he organised the brushstrokes was uncharacteristic of Fauve paintings: when painting the surface of the river, for example, Pechstein made the brushstrokes flow together in a swirling pattern as if to suggest the river currents, an expressive handling that owed more to Van Gogh than to André Derain or Maurice de Vlaminck.86 Despite the strong affinity to Fauvism, however, it is rather unlikely that Pechstein actually visited some of the Fauve artists in their studios during his time in Paris.87 Later in life, Pechstein recalled having met André Derain at the Salon des Indépendents in March 1908, but this chance encounter probably remained the only time they met.88 In his biography of Pechstein, Osborn claimed that the young artist stayed away from the Café du Dôme, the headquarters of the Fauve group around Matisse.89 Certainly, the extensive correspondence of this period with his friend Gerbig contains no mention of encounters with any French artists. One reason 85 Letter Pechstein to Gerbig, 9 March 1908, from Paris, in private collection. 86 See Michael Lloyd, Michael Desmond, European and American Paintings and Sculptures 1870–1970 in the Australian National Gallery (Canberra, 1992), 96. 87 Because of the stylistic and thematic similarities of Pechstein’s works from this period, this is what several art historians have assumed. See for example Reinhardt, Die frühe Brücke, 142–143, or Meike Hofffmann, ‘Max Pechstein in Paris’, in Magdalena M. Moeller (ed.), Max Pechstein. Sein malerisches Werk (Munich, 1996), 76–77. For a more recent assessment, see Aya Soika, ‘“Um die guten Franzosen kennen zu lernen, muß man nach Deutschland gehen!” Max Pechstein und die französische Moderne’, in Magdalena M. Moeller (ed.), Deutscher Expressionismus 1905–1913. Brücke-Museum Berlin 150 Meisterwerke (Munich, 2009), 45–55. 88 For a mention of the encounter with Derain, see his statement to the art historian Töwe, undated (late January 1947), copy in Günter Krüger papers, Berlin. 89 See Osborn, Pechstein, 70. In his memoirs, Pechstein also emphasized that he frequented the Café d’Harcourt, not the Café du Dôme where ‘the painters’ met: Pechstein, Erinnerungen, 30. According to a letter by Pechstein to the art historian Peter Selz in 1952 ‘he had no contact with Purrmann, Moll, Grossmann – that is, with the Café Dome group who made up most of the Matisse school in 1907 and 1908. But he goes on to say: ‘I had to resolve the impressions of the French Fauves.’ See letter Pechstein to Peter Selz, 23 September 1952, in Peter Selz, German Expressionist Painting (Berkeley, 1957), 110.

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for this limited interaction was Pechstein’s imperfect mastery of French. In Italy, Pechstein had enjoyed using his smattering of Italian and had thus managed to get by. French proved a much greater challenge. ‘[T]here is nothing to be done, it always only swishes and whizzes in the ears, and always at lightning speed’, Pechstein complained a few days after his arrival in Paris.90 In February 1908, when asked by Gerbig how his French was coming along, he reported that he was already speaking a little with the housemaid and the models. He wrote this passage in French, added a few wooden phrases about the weather to show off, before commenting that this was his first letter in French and probably full of mistakes, so he would switch back to writing in German.91 Pechstein’s French was simply not good enough to enter into a meaningful conversation with a French artist. This also explains why Pechstein tried to get to know other Germanspeaking colleagues in Paris. ‘Coincidentally I read in the newspaper that a German-Austrian artists’ association was to be founded on Monday’, he wrote in one letter. ‘Of course I went and I got my money’s worth, because to see how such an artists’ association was founded in a really bourgeois manner was certainly worth an hour’s time […]’.92 Similarly, Pechstein’s encounters with a group of young Russian artists, emigrés of the failed revolution of 1905 whom he had got to know by playing chess in the Café d’Harcourt, did not really correspond to his idea of a satisfying exchange of artistic ideas. he complained to Gerbig: I don’t like these fellows, they can talk the hind legs off a donkey and you can imagine that I am not really amused having to argue about artistic views all the time, not least [since] these chaps are on a mediocre paint shop level and terribly taken with their works.93

However, in his memoirs, written almost forty years later, he transfigured the Russians retrospectively into friends: ‘Thus I had no associations with German compatriots, and that was good. Because when I argued with my Russian friends […] I was forced to formulate my ideas clearly.’94 But in fact Pechstein found the lack of like-minded company, like Gerbig, Heckel or Kirchner in Dresden, quite frustrating. ‘I am always on my own here, and am having problems hooking up with someone’, he reported rather unhappily in February 1908. ‘I do have acquaintances, yes, but these are certainly no friends in whom I would confide, and therefore I am struggling

90 91 92 93 94

Letter Pechstein to Gerbig, 9 December 1907, from Paris, in private collection. Letter Pechstein to Gerbig, 17 February 1908, from Paris, in private collection. Letter Pechstein to Gerbig, 19 December 1907, from Paris, in private collection. Letter Pechstein to Gerbig, 15 January 1908, from Paris, in private collection. Pechstein, Erinnerungen, 30.

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quite a bit sometimes to choke back my sad hours […].’95 However, even if his Russian acquaintances let him down as potential soulmates, he probably owed them access to the legendary artists’ residence La Ruche (‘Beehive’) in Passage de Dantzig in Vaugirard, not very far from Montparnasse. Founded by the successful sculptor and philanthropist Alfred Boucher in 1902, it provided young artists with low cost studios, shared models and an exhibition space open to all residents. Located in a decrepit area next door to the Vaugirard slaughterhouses, it was labelled the ‘Villa Medici of the Poor’ by some, and mostly accommodated Eastern European immigrants, among them some of Pechstein’s chess players. In his memoirs, Pechstein described La Ruche as ‘one of the weirdest studio houses’: ‘It was a roundhouse in which the studios were located next to each other like cells; a beehive that accommodated one big family.’96 There were around 150 artists who lived in the ramshackle building and the surrounding pavilions, as well as the usual array of drunks, misfits and other penniless souls needing a roof over their head. Pechstein moved there in January 1908; later that year Fernand Léger moved in too, though apparently the two never met. In fact, over subsequent years La Ruche became home to an impressive number of pioneers of twentieth-century modern art, like Alexander Archipenko, Robert Delaunay, Amedeo Modigliani, Guillaume Apollinaire, and Chaim Soutine. Marc Chagall, who moved there in 1910, allegedly claimed that ‘At La Ruche, you either snuffed it or departed famous.’97 Unlike some other artists who were washed up in Paris and remained there for a long time (if not forever), Pechstein never intended his stay in France as anything other than a transitional stage in his career. Throughout his time there, he had his eyes clearly set on the German art world, and made sure that he would not be forgotten during his absence. In November 1907, he sent Gerbig some drawings for submission to the Berlin Secession’s black and white exhibition; in December this was followed by a whole stash of works produced in Italy and Paris which he asked Gerbig to show to the owner of the Arnold gallery in Dresden, Ludwig Gutbier.98 He hoped to be able to mount an exhibition in Dresden’s best-known gallery, not least for financial reasons as his money started to run out: ‘if he 95 Letter Pechstein to Gerbig, 17 February 1908, from Paris, in private collection. 96 Pechstein, Erinnerungen, 30. For La Ruche, see also Juan Antonio Ramírez, The Beehive Metaphor. From Gaudi to Le Corbusier (London, 2000), 70–77; and Klaus von Beyme, Das Zeitalter der Avantgarden (Munich, 2005), 84. 97 Quoted in Valérie Bougault, Paris Montparnasse: The Heyday of Modern Art, 1910–1940 (Michigan, 1997), 41. 98 See letter Pechstein to Gerbig, 19 December 1907, from Paris, in private collection. For the Berlin Secession, see letter Pechstein to Gerbig, 20 November 1907, from Rome, in private collection.

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only managed to sell a little, that would already be very welcome’.99 When Gutbier declined, Pechstein was outraged about this ‘merchant’ who only approved of popular and sellable works: ‘There I am, struggling and slaving away, not being able to sleep at night, and then such a small lordling announces condescendingly […] “You take things too easy”!’100 But he was not disheartened for very long, and sent off some more works to Gerbig for the Great Dresden Art Exhibition. In total, Pechstein submitted twenty-five drawings and woodcuts and three oil paintings to the exibition jury.101 Only two works were eventually accepted: a gouache, and a drawing of the view from his studio window. Still, Pechstein was satisfied, as he had originally expected to have everything turned down.102 He also tried to get his works into the spring exhibition of the Berlin Secession, but, like in 1906, without luck. For autumn, he envisaged a solo exhibition of his works in in the Richter gallery in Dresden.103 Nothing in Pechstein’s correspondence from Paris over the winter of 1907/08 suggests that he saw in Brücke anything more than another such exhibition possibility. When sending his drawings in December 1907, he asked Gerbig to show them to Heckel too (‘perhaps he can use something for Brücke’), but this remained his only reference to the artists’ association in Dresden.104 The problem was only that for someone who ‘no longer placidly academicized along’, as he put it in March 1908, establishing himself in the art world was significantly more difficult than for someone who followed the beaten track. It was important to be utterly convinced of one’s artistic credo, he told Gerbig, ‘otherwise one is only following the latest style, and when one masters one’s craft one is able to build a house, so no need to be afraid of the laughter and pity of the public and of other colleagues, one will make one’s way eventually […]’.105 And when Pechstein wrote of ‘making one’s way’, he did not just think of artistic reputation but also healthy finances. He dismissed the romanticized notion that artists produced their best works when on the verge of starvation as ‘Blödsinn’ (nonsense); and made clear that exhibitions were not by themselves the be all and end all of artistic activity: ‘one does not paint in order to exhibit, but one exhibits in order to earn the necessary dough for further work and 99 See letter Pechstein to Gerbig, 17 January 1908, from Paris, in private collection. 100 Letter Pechstein to Gerbig, 4 February 1908, from Paris, in private collection. 101 See letters and postcards Pechstein to Gerbig, 17 February 1908, undated (late February 1908), 9 March 1908, 15 March 1908, 25 March 1908, all from Paris, in private collections. 102 See letter Pechstein to Gerbig, 9 March 1908, from Paris, in private collection. 103 Ibid. 104 See letter Pechstein to Gerbig, 19 December 1907, from Paris, in private collection. 105 Letter Pechstein to Gerbig, 9 March 1908, from Paris, in private collection.

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Fig. 2.7: Rooftops (View from the artist’s studio), 1908, drawing, 48.6 × 38.4 cm, private collection.

59

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Fig. 2.8: Haus Cuhrt, watercolour, 1908, measures unknown. Published in Moderne Bauformen, Monatshefte für Architektur und Raumkunst 7, 4 (1908), 25.

advancement.’106 This pragmatic attitude also explains why he continued working in the field of applied arts. In February 1908, he completed several perspective views for a building project of the architects Wünsche and Schneidereit in Berlin for publication in the journal Moderne Bauformen: ‘so at least there will a visible sign once more that I am still alive’, he told Gerbig.107 At the end of winter, Pechstein’s money ran out, to his great frustration. ‘[A]fter working myself through all kinds of things I have found my rest and indeed better works evolve and I wish for nothing but to be able to 106 Letter Pechstein to Gerbig, 17 February 1908, from Paris, in private collection. 107 Letter Pechstein to Gerbig, 4 February 1908, from Paris, in private collection. See also Moderne Bauformen 7 (1908), no. 4, figs. 25, 28 and 29.

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continue working, but then as always the money is gone and so I am thrown back […] once more’, he complained in March 1908.108 He returned to Zwickau, stayed with his family for Easter, and then continued to Dresden.109 After his experience of Paris, life in the Saxon capital appeared rather provincial, and Pechstein decided to make his way back to France. It is unclear how he managed to get his hands on the funds to do so, whether he borrowed from friends or worked on some projects as a decorative painter. In any case, when he arrived back in Paris he had to make do with almost no money. He recalled in his memoirs: For months I delayed paying my rent and according to Parisian artists’ customs that was no dishonour; it simply meant moving. That was no problem: one took one’s little iron stove, bedframe, a few stools, […] easel, a suitcase with one’s little clothes and laundry, sketches and work utensils; friends watched out that the Concierge did not catch one. The belongings were loaded onto a voiture. Thus one made it to a different district. I changed my quarters several times that way.110

He sold drawings to some second-hand book dealers for a handful of francs; and battled hunger with roasted chestnuts bought from streetvendors for a sou. In his memoirs, he romanticized this period of privation: ‘Wonderful the ease with which one could forget the demands of the stomach! If one had money for once, one threw it together and drank a few bottles of burgundy with friends.’111 Yet at the time he was soon disillusioned with being down and out in Paris. In the summer of 1908, when he received an urgent plea from the architects Wünsche and Schneidereit to help paint the Berlin tenement house that he had sketched for Moderne Bauformen, he did not take long to make up his mind. The offer of free accommodation and studio space and the prospect of regular income through other decorative jobs like this, proved irresistible. At the end of July, Pechstein packed his belongings and moved to Berlin.112 He could not know at this point that he was to remain in Berlin for the rest of his life. In many ways, Berlin was the obvious destination for a young man who wanted to gain a foothold in Germany’s modern art scene in the first decade of the twentieth century. Since 1871, when it became the capital of the unified Germany, Berlin had developed into the country’s industrial 108 109 110 111 112

Letter Pechstein to Gerbig, 9 March 1908, from Paris, in private collection. See postcard Pechstein to Gerbig, 9 April 1908, from Zwickau, in private collection. Pechstein, Erinnerungen, 32. Ibid. See letter Pechstein to Gerbig, 27 September 1908, from Berlin, in private collection. See also Pechstein, Erinnerungen, 32.

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and commercial centre. By 1908, its population had more than doubled and stood at over 2 million. This unprecedented economic growth also transformed Berlin’s art world. Progressive museum directors like Wilhelm Bode and Hugo von Tschudi helped create and nurture an ever increasing network of private collectors and patrons of the arts unrivalled anywhere in Germany. Wealthy industrialists, entrepreneurs, and professionals like Carl Bernstein, Eduard Arnhold, Otto Gerstenberg, and Harry Graf Kessler were among the first collectors outside of France to build up substantial collections of Impressionist art. These collectors in turn allowed gallery owners like Fritz Gurlitt and Paul Cassirer to prosper, who were passionate advocates of the new art.113 By the turn of the century, the reputation of Berlin’s art galleries and wealthy patrons had lured many artists into the German capital, which was now widely considered the most significant art market after Paris.114 With the Berlin Secession, the city hosted Germany’s most prestigious association of contemporary artists who were breaking new aesthetic grounds.115 And last, but not least, Berlin was home to the great majority of influential art critics at this time.116 Kurfürstendamm 152, where Pechstein lived in the attic, was one of the last additions to the new boulevard that opened up the so-called City West. The building fitted quite well into the range of other stately apartment houses which – because of their stylistic eclecticism and ostentatious façades – had induced critics to coin the derogatory term ‘Kurfürstendamm architecture’.117 Pechstein spent six weeks decorating the building 113 See Michael Dorrmann, Eduard Arnhold (1849–1925): Eine biographische Studie zu Unternehmer- und Mäzenatentum im deutschen Kaiserreich (Berlin, 2002), 126–129; Wolfgang Hartwig, ‘Drei Berliner Porträts: Wilhelm von Bode, Eduard Arnhold, Harry Graf Kessler: Museumsmann, Mäzen und Kunstvermittler – drei herausragende Beispiele’, in Günter and Waldtraut Braun, Mäzenatentum in Berlin: Bürgersinn und kulturelle Kompetenz unter sich verändernden Bedingungen (Berlin, 1993), 39–72; Stefan Pucks, ‘Von Manet zu Matisse. Die Sammler der französischen Moderne in Berlin’, in Johann Georg Prinz von Hohenzollern, Peter-Klaus Schuster (Hrsg.): Manet bis van Gogh; Hugo von Tschudi und der Kampf um die Moderne. Munich, New York 1996, 386–390; Barbara Paul, Hugo von Tschudi und die moderne französische Kunst im Deutschen Kaiserreich (Mainz, 1993); Anja Walter-Ris, Kunstleidenschaft im Dienst der Moderne: Die Geschichte der Galerie Nierendorf Berlin/New York 1920–1995 (Zurich, 2003), 20–31. 114 See Sigrid Achenbach, Mathias Eberle (eds.), Max Liebermann in seiner Zeit (Munich, 1979), 80. 115 See Peter Paret, Die Berliner Secession. Moderne Kunst und ihre Feinde im kaiserlichen Deutschland (Frankfurt/Main, 1983). 116 Ten of the twenty-five art critics singled out for attack by the Nazi ‘Degenerate Art’ exhibition in 1937 were Berlin-based, see Peter-Klaus Schuster (ed.), Die ‘Kunststadt’ München 1937. Nationalsozialismus und ‘Entartete Kunst’ (Munich, 1998), 173. 117 For the derogative use of the term, see Deutsche Kunst und Dekoration 26 (1910), no.9, 209; and Paul Fechter, Menschen auf meinen Wegen: Begegnungen gestern und heute (Gütersloh, 1955), 152.

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Fig. 2.9: Reception Room in Haus Cuhrt, watercolour, 1908, measures unknown. Published in Moderne Bauformen, Monatshefte für Architektur und Raumkunst 7, 4 (1908), 29.

in August and September 1908, a task he performed without great enthusiasm: ‘[…] all of summer was wasted [by working] for others, without drawing a salary, apart from living for free, at least something’, he wrote after finishing the job.118 He regretted not being able to escape into the countryside and had many a wistful hour because of this ‘lost summer’.119 At the beginning of autumn he began to have second doubts about his move to Berlin. ‘[S]o far I do not like it here, I think [it is] because I do not yet know my way round here, perhaps that will still come […]’, he told Gerbig. ‘Once more I am completely on my own and have no-one with whom to discuss my observations.’120 He was also missing the Seine, with 118 Letter Pechstein to Schmidt-Rottluff, 17 September 1908, from Berlin, in private collection. 119 Letter Pechstein to Gerbig, 3 November 1908, from Berlin, in private collection. 120 Letter Pechstein to Gerbig, 27 September 1908, from Berlin, in private collection. Also quoted in Wolfgang Knop, ‘Briefliche Mitteilungen Max Pechsteins über seine “Eroberung von Berlin” an den Malerfreund Alexander Gerbig’, in Forschungen und Berichte 28 (1990), 319–334, here 322.

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its rich and varied life along the riverbank, for which he had yet to find an equivalent in Berlin. But he was intent on staying on, and his membership in Brücke strengthened this resolve. After the preceding months of artistic solitude, he now threw himself into work for the group, producing prints for membership cards of passive members, as well as putting together a new collection of prints and colour drawings for future Brücke exhibitions.121 Through his correspondence with Kirchner and Schmidt-Rottluff he participated in the latest developments of the group: he took a lively interest in press reviews of Brücke’s second big exhibition at the art gallery Emil Richter in Dresden (‘I too was seriously annoyed. No idea what these people think, it is almost like in school, [with] grades every year […]’), and welcomed Kirchner’s suggestion to invite Kees van Dongen to become an active member of Brücke.122 And he promised his colleagues that the moment he was better integrated into the Berlin art scene he would ‘try to see if there is nothing to be done for us [here]’.123 Pechstein soon followed up this promise with concrete steps. ‘So on Monday I took a bunch of works, wood cuts, etchings and drawings and set off to conquer Berlin’, he wrote to Gerbig in mid-October. He decided to seek out some of the leading protagonists of modern art in Berlin: Max Liebermann, the president of the Berlin Secession; the gallery owner Paul Cassirer, the most prominent commercial promoter of French Impressionism; and Emil Orlik, member of the Berlin Secession and professor at the Academy of the Royal Museum of Applied Arts. While the latter two were too busy to see him personally, his meeting with Liebermann left Pechstein in a state of euphoria: [I] was welcomed significantly more warmly than expected, and he remembered some of my earlier works, in fact [he] displayed a very strong interest and I spent 121 See letter Pechstein to Schmidt-Rottluff, 17 September 1908, from Berlin, in private collection. In a biographical account written in 1949, it appears as if there was little contact to his Brücke colleagues during his time abroad: ‘At the beginning of Winter 1908/1909 I returned to Germany (Berlin) und reestablished contact with my like-minded colleagues of the artists association Brücke, which I had joined through Heckel and the Raumkunstausstellung in 1906.’ See LAB, B Rep 080, no. 78, f. 3. 122 Letter Pechstein to Schmidt-Rottluff, undated (late September/early October 1908), from Berlin, in private collection. This letter makes clear that van Dongen’s Brücke membership was not initiated by Pechstein during his Paris visit, but by Kirchner’s reaction to the works of the Dutch artist that he encountered in the exhibition of Fauve art at the gallery Emil Richter, which ran parallel to the Brücke show there in September 1908: ‘Furthermore, Kirchner writes to me to include van Dongen as a member. I am all in favour of him, but he is already a big name in France, and who knows if he will accept! […] should we be able to get him I would be much delighted.’ The other suggested candidate, Nölcken, pleased him less: ‘I would have preferred Munch and van Dongen […].’ 123 See letter Pechstein to Schmidt-Rottluff, 17 September 1908, from Berlin, in private collection.

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three-quarters of an hour with him, during this time he showed me his treasures of Frenchmen, simply wonderful representations of Manet, Degas, Daumier, Van Gogh and all the rest of them, [he] offered me a cigar, and dressed down Cassirer for his behaviour towards me […], and in order to help me, he provided me with two unsolicited references, one for the publisher of Lustige Blätter, so that I can make money through illustrations, and one for the publisher of Kunst und Künstler. If these were to turn out useless, I should come back. While spending time with him I felt as if I had known Liebermann for a long time […].124

In later years, Liebermann would prove to be significantly more sceptical towards art produced by the Brücke artists. But at this point, the doyen of Impressionism in Germany found in the graphic works presented by Pechstein the sort of French influence that also inspired his own work. In November, Liebermann selected all five of Pechstein’s submissions for the Berlin Secession’s Winter Exhibition of works on paper.125 Like Liebermann, other connoisseurs of modern art appreciated what they perceived as Parisian influences. One reviewer of the Berlin Secession’s exhibition approvingly singled out Pechstein, ‘who transposes onto stone Parisian scenes with a sauciness trained by Lautrec […]’.126 The encounter with Liebermann greatly bolstered Pechstein’s confidence, and he was accordingly in high spirits when Heckel and SchmidtRottluff arrived in Berlin to visit him for a fortnight in the second half of October. They had spent most of the year in Dangast, and were now on their way back to Dresden. It was the first time Pechstein met them again since his departure for Italy in the previous autumn, and he greatly enjoyed their company.127 His Brücke colleagues likewise had a good time. ‘It is very jolly here’, Heckel wrote in a letter.128 They worked together, as evident in some portraits that Pechstein produced of his friends during this time.129 The visit also inspired Pechstein to pick up the painting brush again, after months of exclusively working on prints. He wrote to Gerbig in November: 124 Letter Pechstein to Gerbig, 14 October 1908, from Berlin, in private collection; partly quoted in Knop, ‘Briefliche Mitteilungen’, 325–326. 125 See Aya Soika, Max Pechstein. Das Werkverzeichnis der Ölgemälde (Munich, 2011), vol. 2, 42. 126 Max Osborn in Kunstchronik, NF 20 (1908/09), no. 14 (29 Januar 1909), 213. 127 See letter Pechstein to Gerbig, 4 November 1908, from Berlin, in private collection: ‘Heckel and Schmidt-Rottluff were here until Saturday for 14 days, and I felt greatly at ease, after spending all summer among such terrible people, and not being able to escape into nature, as I had to work here […].’ 128 Postcard Heckel and Schmidt-Rottluff to Ernst Beyersdorff, 27 October 1908, in Gerhard Wietek, Schmidt-Rottluff. Oldenburger Jahre 1907–1912 (Oldenburg/Mainz, 1995), 127. 129 See L 13 – L 16, in Günter Krüger, Das druckgraphische Werk Max Pechsteins (Tökendorf, 1988), 72–73.

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I have not painted for a terribly long time and I am now almost too timid to begin, but I am eager to see how nature will show herself to me, in black and white I have now felt many a thing quite differently compared to earlier times, and [I] have worked much more unconsciously until facing the finished work, whereas in the past I wanted to achieve too much and therefore nature could not inspire me so strongly.130

A few months later he elaborated further his understanding of the painter’s relationship to nature: I now feel very strongly that one has to submit oneself completely to nature, then she creates in oneself [i.e. the painter] too, and one beautiful day there is a blossom like in spring, and this then turns into fruits too. To confront nature with a will is probably mistaken, because then one only sees what one wishes to see […]. For my current work I [personally] find neither reproval nor praise, because I do not know but only feel what is being created.131

In many ways, this claim that the artist created his art in response to unconscious urgings, in a symbiotic relationship with untamed nature, had strong Romantic overtones, though none of the Brücke artists ever reflected explicitly on this tradition.132 Benevolent critics, however, gave credit to the Brücke artists generally, and Pechstein in particular, for their attempt to find a new ‘Ausdrucksform’ (form of expression). ‘Pechstein has to be mentioned first here’, the art critic Paul Fechter noted on Brücke’s exhibition at Richter in Dresden in September 1908. ‘He has been in Paris, and the one can see the influence everywhere.’133 Despite ‘echoes of others and some awkwardness’, there was ‘much quality’ on display, ‘one sees paths, taken and still to be taken, and is filled with hope.’134 Significantly, some of the leading contemporary artists concurred with this view. In April 1909, the selection committee of the Berlin Secession, led by Liebermann, approved of Pechstein’s three submissions for the Secession’s Eighteenth Exhibition: Green Cloth, a still life of yellow tulips in a blue vase on a table covered by a green carpet; March Snow, a landscape with a Berlin railway embankment and an approaching steam engine; and Women with Yellow Cloth, a huge canvas showing three female nudes in a

130 Letter Pechstein to Gerbig, 3 November 1908, from Berlin, in private collection. Quoted in Knop, ‘Briefliche Mitteilungen’, 327. 131 Letter Pechstein to Gerbig, 10 February 1909, from Berlin, in private collection. 132 See Petra Kuhlmann-Hodick, ‘Nature and Primitivism: The Brücke’, in Keith Hartley et al. (eds.), The Romantic Spirit in German Art 1790–1990 (London, 1994), 370–372. 133 Dresdner Neueste Nachrichten, 17 September 1908: ‘Kunstsalon Richter’. 134 Ibid.

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harem.135 The latter was one of the ideas conceived in Paris, inspired by Pechstein’s encounter with Rembrandt’s Bethsabée in the Louvre and his admiration for Cézanne and Gauguin, and worked out into a big format over the subsequent winter. There is no evidence to suggest that Pechstein consciously set out to scandalize viewers with this painting, and yet he was aware that his composition would attract attention. The choice of subject matter, and its stylistic rendition, immediately invited comparison to another centrepiece of this exhibition, Bathsheba, by Lovis Corinth, one of the Secession’s leading members. ‘On the opening day I was myself startled to find how strongly and definitely my style asserted itself in the face of Impressionism’, Pechstein wrote later about seeing his works in the exhibition.136 Not everyone approved. The critic of the art journal Cicerone – who much loved Corinth’s work – thought that many of the nudes on display were simply ‘fleshed out versions of the painter’s gospel according to the two Gallic dioscuri Cézanne and Gauguin.’ This ‘Cézanne fare’ strangely agreed with some artists, he conceded, but in Pechstein’s ‘Gauguin-mad colour orgies’ he found only ‘all the repulsiveness of bad digestion’.137 Other reviewers also saw distinctively French influences at work in Pechstein’s offerings. In a caricature of the Secession exhibition in Lustige Blätter, one of Germany’s most popular weekly humour magazines, Pechstein’s Women with Yellow Cloth featured side by side with works by van Gogh, Gauguin, and Rodin.138 A scathing reviewer in one of Berlin’s leading newspapers called the painting ‘the most ludicrous, absurd botch job of all’.139 It was not the only violently hostile reaction. In his memoirs, Pechstein recorded that his paintings

135 In his memoirs, Pechstein desribes another painting as that exhibited under the title March Snow, repeating the mistake made by his biographer Max Osborn. See Pechstein, Erinnerungen, 33, and Osborn, Pechstein, 73. The fact that it was the railway painting that was exhibited is ascertained by a 1909 Berlin Secession label on the back of that canvas, see 1909/7 in Soika, Werkverzeichnis, vol. 1. Pechstein also recalls the painting Green Cloth as Yellow Tulips – we follow here the catalogue entry Berlin Secession 1909, no. 193. 136 Pechstein, Erinnerungen, 33–34. Max Osborn wrote in a review at the time that ‘The younger [artists] almost strike dead the older ones with their carefree and untamed colour intensity and –energy […]’, in Zeitschrift für Bildende Kunst NF 20 (1909), 239. 137 Hermann Voß, ‘Die Achtzehnte Ausstellung der Berliner Sezession’, in Cicerone 1 (1909), no. 9, 299 [‘aus dessen Gauguintollen Farbenorgien der ganze Ekel schlechter Digestion zu uns spricht’] 138 See caricature by W. A. Wellner, ‘Das secessionistische Knusperhäuschen aus modernen Künstler-Pfefferkuchen’, in Lustige Blätter 25 (1910), no. 50. 139 Vossische Zeitung, 30 April 1909: ‘Die Ausstellung der Sezession’.

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Fig. 2.10: Women with Yellow Cloth (1909/47), oil on canvas, measures unknown, lost.

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were ‘reviled and spat on’ by parts of the public.140 But he also recalled ‘benevolent colleagues slapping me on the back with sympathy’.141 Pechstein revelled in the experience of being part of the Secession’s show. At the formal dinner on the opening night he overindulged in the wine on offer, started a heated debate with other artists present, and yet remained so cheerful and likeable that at the end of the evening Konrad von Kardorff, a member of the Secession and protégé of Liebermann’s, volunteered to help him home.142 Pechstein was immensely proud not only of having been included in the exhibition, but also of the fact that his Women with Yellow Cloth was one of the few works reproduced in the exhibition catalogue. Better still, his landscape painting was bought on the first day of the exhibition for 300 Marks by one of Berlin’s most prominent patron’s of modern art, the industrialist Walther Rathenau. Rathenau – who later became Foreign Minister in the Weimar Republic, and was murdered by right-wing terrorists – was a cousin of Liebermann, and a great admirer of Edvard Munch.143 For members of the tightly-knit network of the modern art scene in Berlin, this purchase was the closest any young artist could get to an official seal of approval. The painting Green Cloth was sold soon after.144 For Pechstein, these sales signified a breakthrough, not least in terms 140 Pechstein, Erinnerungen, 34. It may be that he was exaggerating here, or confounding audience reactions with those to his works in the New Secession exhibition of 1910, see below. Edwin Redslob recorded in his memoirs an anecdote relating to the exhibition of Pechstein’s Women with Yellow Cloth at an exhibition in Bremen in 1912: ‘In Bremen, one of the typically reserved Hanseatic society ladies turned on her heels […] in front of Max Pechstein painting The Yellow Veil and called out with an overly loud voice, which then startled herself: “And this Herr Dr Reedslooob considers beautiful!”’ See Edwin Redslob, Von Weimar nach Europa (Jena, 2002 [Berlin, 1972]), 172. 141 Pechstein, Erinnerungen, 34. 142 Ibid. See also letter Pechstein to Gerbig, 26 April 1909, from Berlin, in private collection. The original reads: ‘Dietze [a mutual friend] war auch zur Eröffnung und habe mich etwas mit ihm verlustiert, ich selbst war scheußlich besoffen und habe mich mit den Kerls gezankt, kannst Dir denken wie.’ 143 Munch’s full-size portrait of Rathenau from 1907 was exhibited at the Berlin Secession exhibition in summer 1908, and greatly influenced Pechstein’s Brücke colleague, Ernst Ludwig Kirchner. See Donald E. Gordon, Ernst Ludwig Kirchner (Munich, 1968), 59– 60. In his memoirs, Pechstein commented that he was delighted by Rathenau’s purchase because ‘I respected him immensely as a person of intellectual significance, and because of the marvelous portrait that Munch had painted of him’. See Pechstein, Erinnerungen, 34. 144 For the sale of his first painting, see letter Pechstein to Gerbig, 26 April 1909, from Berlin, in private collection; and letter Pechstein to Rosa Schapire, 1 May 1909, from Berlin, in Stiftung Historische Museen Hamburg, Altonaer Museum für Kunst und Kulturgeschichte, Hamburg (AM), 1963/270. See also Osborn, Pechstein, 73, and Pechstein, Erinnerungen, 34. For the second sale, see letter Pechstein to Gerbig, 21 June 1909, from Tilsit, in private collection, quoted in Wolfgang Knop, ‘Illustrierte Künstlerpost. Dokumente der Künstlerfreundschaft zwischen Max Pechstein und Alexander Gerbig’, in Bibliothek und Wissenschaft 23 (1989), 223.

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of his financial situation. In numerous letters over the previous months he had complained bitterly about his lack of money.145 In late March, the situation had become so bad that he was no longer able to continue painting as he had run out of oils, and could not afford to buy new stocks.146 This forced him to take on the sort of mundane decorative jobs which he considered a waste of his time, even if it allowed him to continue working as a ‘proper’ artist. Now, for the first time in his life, it looked as if he was indeed going to be able to live off his art. The proceeds from his sales allowed Pechstein to fulfil a dream that he had harboured since his arrival in Berlin: to leave the city and seek out nature. ‘[…] I long to be able to make off and to turn my back on all this misery’, he wrote to Gerbig just a month before the Secession exhibition. I only regret that I physically I have not the resilience that I used to have in previous years, and wished I had never ended up in this mess, at least then I would have kept some energy. But I hope that this summer, which I will probably spend in Lithuania, will help me up. Alas, how I will be able to afford living there I do not know yet.147

Even without the income from his sales at the Berlin Secession exhibition, Pechstein would probably have left Berlin in summer 1909 for a short stay at the Baltic Sea: after all, Paris had taught him how to survive on very little money. But the money earned at the Secession now allowed him to ‘indulge for an entire summer in my own free work’, Pechstein later acknowledged in his memoirs.148 Until mid-June 1909 he stayed in Berlin, waiting for the weather to improve. At this point, he was really desperate to leave the city behind. ‘[…] I hope to be able to escape soon’, he wrote to Heckel, ‘I am so sickened by the entire caboodle.’149 In mid-June he finally 145 ‘And then the pecuniary reward is after all still missing absolutely […]’, in letter Pechstein to Gerbig, 3 November 1908, from Berlin, in private collection, quoted in Knop, ‘Briefliche Mitteilungen’, 327; ‘As far as the material side of things is concerned, well, things are looking pretty bad’, in letter Pechstein to Gerbig, 10 February 1909, from Berlin, in private collection; ‘here almightily cold and lots of snow and no money’, in postcard Pechstein to Erich Heckel, 10 March 1909, from Berlin, in AM, 1964/140; ‘My wallet is pulling a damn long face […]’, in postcard Pechstein to Gerbig, 19 March 1909, from Berlin, in private collection, quoted in Knop, ‘Briefliche Mitteilungen’, 326. 146 See letter Pechstein to Rosa Schapire, 19 March 1909, in Kunsthalle Mannheim, G 3954. 147 Letter Pechstein to Gerbig, 21 March 1909, in private collection; quoted in Knop, ‘Briefliche Mitteilungen’, 322. 148 In his memoirs Pechstein only mentions the sum of 300 Marks received by Walther Rathenau; see Pechstein, Erinnerungen, 34. But in one of his letters to Gerbig from East Prussia at the time, he writes: ‘ [I] have sold two paintings at the Secession [exhibition] and can hence work a little [for myself]’, see letter Pechstein to Gerbig, 21 June 1909, from Tilsit, in private collection, quoted in Knop, ‘Illustrierte Künstlerpost’, 223. 149 Postcard Pechstein to Heckel, 25 May 1909, from Berlin, in AM, 1964/120. The original reads: ‘ich hoffe bald verschwinden zu können, ekelt die ganze Bande an.’

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left Berlin in the direction of Tilsit, a city in the northeasternmost part of the German Reich, in East Prussia, on the border to Lithuania. At that moment in time, he had no specific plan where to go: once there, he told the Brücke patron Rosa Schapire, he would be looking for a good place to work.150 He eventually opted for the small fishing village of Nidden (today Nida), on the Curonian Spit, a 100 kilometre-long narrow peninsula dividing the sea from a shallow lagoon, the Kurische Haff. Nidden’s surrounding countryside was dominated by spectacular rolling sand-dunes (earning the area the label ‘Sahara of the North’), forests of pine and fir inhabited by elk and deer, and dotted with fishing communities featuring colourful houses and boats. From the late nineteenth century onwards, this combination of spectacles had turned Nidden into an increasingly popular location for artists from the Königsberg Art Academy who considered the Curonian Spit ‘a real treasure trove of artistic subjects’, as one contemporary noted in 1897.151 By the turn of the century, an increasing number of tourists visited the region. It may well be that Pechstein had been told about Nidden by his friend and colleague, the architect Bruno Schneidereit, who was a native of nearby Tilsit; or that he had encountered paintings of Nidden by Eduard Bischoff-Culm in the exhibitions of the Berlin Secession.152 But it was not just the scenery that attracted Pechstein to this remote village. Already in one of his letters from Tilsit he reported how ‘agreeable to his nerves’ he found the ‘simple life’ of the fishermen he encountered there.153 In contrast to Berlin, Nidden represented a lost paradise, a sort of Utopia untouched by the corruption of modern civilization: this at least was the impression Pechstein strove to create in his memoirs, in which he gave a vivid account of his difficulties getting to the remote fishing village. Having missed the weekly paddle steamer that served the Curonian Spit from Tilsit, he made his way to a small market-town near the lagoon to find a passage with one of the Nidden fishermen offering his fare there. He eventually boarded a small fishing smack loaded with chicken, piglets, and even a young cow. ‘I felt as excited as a discoverer on his way to virgin territory’, Pechstein recorded in his memoirs.154 150 ‘I plan to leave on Sunday [13th June] for Tilist and to find myself a place to work next week’, in postcard Pechstein to Rosa Schapire, 11 June 1909, from Berlin, in AM, 1963/270f; reproduced in Gerd Presler, „Brücke“ an Rosa Schapire (Mannheim, 1990), 55. 151 Quoted in Jörn Barfod, Nidden – Künstlerort auf der Kurischen Nehrung (Fischerhude, 2005), 22. 152 Günter Krüger, ‘Nidden auf der Kurischen Nehrung’, in Gerhard Wietek, Künstlerkolonien und Künstlerorte (Munich, 1976), 142–153. See also Barfod, Nidden, 27; and Peter Vergo, The Thyssen-Bornemisza Collection. Twentieth-century German painting (London, 2003), 326. 153 Letter Pechstein to Gerbig, 21 June 1909, from Tilsit, in private collection. 154 Pechstein, Erinnerungen, 35.

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Pechstein arrived in Nidden on 24 June 1909, and stayed until early September.155 ‘Very nice [here]’, he reported in a postcard to Heckel on the day after his arrival, ‘on one side freshwater in the lagoon, on the other the Baltic sea, one could paint nudes very well on the sea-side – it is so deserted. Only four summer visitors here.’156 He did not want to stay in one of Nidden’s few guesthouses, and after a lot of toing and froing managed to rent a small, empty hut situated by the lagoon from one of the local fishermen. ‘It is good here, just a little expensive. 80 M[ark] a month’, he wrote to Rosa Schapire.157 But the location was well worth the money. ‘There I was able to live and work unhindered by other people’, he recalled in his memoirs. ‘Thus it was that I was eventually able to produce considerable numbers of sketches, gradually feeling my way towards nature, the mighty shifting sand dunes and the lagoon, and thus it was that, for the very first time, I experienced the intoxicating and never-ending rhythm of the sea.’158 The first few weeks in Nidden were dominated by bad weather: ‘here storm and rain [ – ] autumn weather, but no summer, no sun’, he wrote to Heckel in July.159 To Schapire, too, he complained about the rain, and yet in view of the wealth of motifs around him he did not regret coming to Nidden: ‘[…] I am satisfied with the choice, [and] have already painted numerous paint155 See postcard Pechstein to Heckel, from Nidden, 25 June 1909, in AM, 1962/180d; postcard Pechstein to Heckel from Nidden, probably from 30 August 1909 (in which he announces his intention to leave Nidden in the following week), in AM, 1964/144; and postcard Pechstein to Heckel, 7 September 1909, from Seebuckow, in AM, 1962/180c. For a succinct summary of the controversy about whether or not Pechstein joined Heckel and Kirchner in Moritzburg near Dresden in August 1909, and the role that the dates of the above postcards play in this, see Andreas Hüneke, ‘Verzeichnis der Brücke-Korrespondenz’, in Dalbajewa, Bischoff (eds.), Die Brücke in Dresden, 337, ftn. 1. We agree with the date 30 August 1909, following the first publications of the Altonaer Museum of this postcard in 1970 and 1971, when the post-stamp was apparently still easier to decipher. See Gerhard Kaufmann, Manfred Meinz (eds.), Kunst und Postkarte (Hamburg, 1970), no. 111; Günter Krüger, ‘Zu Arbeiten von Max Pechstein im Besitz des Altonaer Museums’, in Gerhard Wietek (ed.), Altonaer Museum in Hamburg. Jahrbuch 1971, Band 9 (Hamburg, 1971), fig. 6, 20. This also squares with Pechstein’s memoirs where he comments in the extensive section on his first stay in Nidden that he stayed there ‘until late autumn’, see Pechstein, Erinnerungen, 36. On the basis of all available evidence, we are absolutely certain that Pechstein spent all summer in Nidden, and did not join Heckel and Kirchner in Moritzburg in 1909. 156 Postcard Pechstein to Heckel, from Nidden, 25 June 1909, in AM, 1962/180d. 157 Postcard Pechstein to Schapire, from Nidden, 25 June 1909, in Museum Ludwig; published in Magdalena M. Moeller (ed.), Expressionistische Grüsse. Künstlerpostkarten der „Brücke“ und des „Blauen Reiter“ (Stuttgart, 1991), 227. 158 Pechstein, Erinnerungen, 35–36. 159 Postcard Pechstein to Heckel, from Nidden, ‘July 1909’, in AM, 1962/180f. See also his remarks about bad weather in his postcard to Heckel, from Nidden, 16 July 1909, in AM, 1962/180e; and postcard Pechstein to Schapire, from Nidden, 22 July 1909, quoted in Presler, „Brücke“ an Rosa Schapire, 81.

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ings, though I am not [yet] content’.160 Pechstein spent countless hours at the beach, sketching and painting the fishermen’s boats and the coastline around Nidden; he also produced a variety of portraits of the village’s inhabitants. Already in mid-July, he had to order some new colours to be able to continue painting.161 He wrote to Heckel: I am constantly painting the Curonian colours are blue and green, a lot of blue, […] everything very scenic, perhaps it is better [weather] in autumn. I want to stay until October, as long as the fishermen hold their sales in the pub on Saturday evenings, unfortunately the most interesting heads refuse to let themselves be painted, and when they notice that they are being sketched they begin to rant and leave, but I have already caught a few.162

Pechstein’s relationship to these fishermen improved dramatically once he offered to help out on their week-long fishing trips. He apparently made a decent deck-hand during these trips; and he also indulged with a lot of gusto in the schnapps with which the sale of the catch was sealed at the end of the week. It did not take long until he had won the locals’ hearts.163 Not only did various fishermen now agree to have their portraits painted, Pechstein’s experiences on the sea also gave him further motifs.164 Many decades later, in his memoirs, Pechstein still revelled in the synthesis of life, work and art achieved in the ‘painter’s paradise’, Nidden, in the summer of 1909: I soaked up light and colour in this nature unspoilt by humans. […] I sketched and painted the sand dunes, the sea, the lines of waves, the crests, the foamy froth, the fishermen – rowing, fighting against the elements, plodding over the beach, mending the nets or skittering in a rescue boat – and their wives and girls when bathing […], the resting barges with their steep masts, clouds and storm. My art, the work as a fisherman’s deckhand and the joys connected with this were inseparable.165

160 Postcard Pechstein to Schapire, from Nidden, 22 July 1909, quoted in Presler, „Brücke“ an Rosa Schapire, 81. 161 See postcard Pechstein to Heckel, from Nidden, 16 July 1909, in AM, 1962/180e. 162 Postcard Pechstein to Heckel, from Nidden, ‘July 1909’, in AM, 1962/180f. 163 In his memoirs, Pechstein described his stay in Nidden as a period of bliss right from the beginning. See Pechstein, Erinnerungen, 36–37. Nearer the time, however, his friend and biographer Max Osborn gave a more accurate account of the dynamics with the local population: ‘After some initial distrust, the people in Nidden will not have considered Pechstein a stranger. His sense of handicrafts prepared him very well to share in the primitive handlings which one has to apply when sailing and rowing and fishing.’ See Osborn, Pechstein, 88. 164 Osborn, Pechstein, 83–84. 165 Pechstein, Erinnerungen, 37.

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Fig. 2.11: Lagoon (1909/9), oil on canvas, 65.5 × 65 cm, Museo Thyssen-Bornemisza, Madrid.

His fond memories of Nidden were certainly coloured by the fact that for the first time in his life, Pechstein did not need to take on decorative painting jobs. With sufficient money to restock colours and canvas, he was able to indulge in painting as he had never done before. At the end of his stay in Nidden, after ten weeks, his works filled a big transport box which weighed well over 100 kilogram. When unpacking the box upon his return to Berlin, Pechstein was overjoyed with his summer’s ‘booty’.166 Stylistically, he was still drawing heavily on van Gogh and Cézanne, with short and fluffy brush strokes which ocassionally allowed the canvas to shimmer 166 Ibid., 38. The catalogue raisonné of his oils lists thirty-six works produced in Nidden in 1909, see Soika, Werkverzeichnis, vol. 1, 165–200.

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Fig. 2.12: Morning (1909/16), oil on canvas, 50 × 65.5 cm, unknown private collection.

through. In many works, Pechstein went into a considerable level of detail. His portrait of a Curonian bride, for example, showed careful attention to the foliage of the head wreath, her jewellery, and the line of her eyebrows. His preoccupation with light and its reflections, as evident on the girl’s cheekbones and on her sleeves, showed his indebtedness to the Impressionist tradition. And yet his composition also showed many of the elements which he was going to develop further in subsequent months, in particular the build-up of tensions between boldly rendered planes of starkly contrasting colours, and the emphasis placed on contours. When writing his memoirs after the Second World War, Pechstein claimed that this summer in Nidden had provided his artistic expression with a crucial boost.167 167 Pechstein, Erinnerungen, 38. For an extensive discussion of style and subject matter of Pechstein’s Nidden paintings (from 1909, and subsequent years), see Osborn, Pechstein, 79–92. Hüneke claims that during this summer, the Fauves – Matisse, Derain, van Dongen – were still influencing Pechstein greatly. See Andreas Hüneke, ‘ “Es ist unglaublich, wie stark man die Farben hier findet.” Die Sommeraufenthalte der “Brücke”-Maler bis 1914’, in Künstler der Brücke in Moritzburg. Malerei, Zeichnung, Graphik, Plastik von Heckel, Kirchner, Pechstein, Bleyl (Moritzburg, 1995), 25–34, here 27.

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Fig. 2.13: Curonian Bride (1909/37), oil on canvas, 56 × 51.5 cm, unknown private collection.

Throughout his time at the Baltic Sea, Pechstein stayed in touch with Heckel, who, after returning from an extended stay in Rome in mid-June, was spending his summer with Kirchner painting around the Moritzburg lakes near Dresden. Like Pechstein, they were experimenting stylistically, using planes of bright and contrasting colour to explore the tensions between the depiction of space and the two-dimensionality of their canvas. They had the great advantage of being able to take models from Dresden with them, allowing them to paint nudes. This was the one thing that Pechstein missed bitterly in Nidden, and that probably induced him to leave earlier than initially planned. ‘At the end of next week I will be leaving Nidden’, he wrote to Heckel at the end of August, ‘greetings to you all, and to hell with your nudes, there are none to be found here’.168 A week 168 We are translating rather loosely here his colloquial German. The original text reads: ‘[…] hol der Teufel Eure Akte, hier giebts gar nichts’. See postcard Pechstein to Heckel from Nidden, (probably) 30 August 1909, in AM, 1964/144. See also Hüneke, ‘Verzeichnis der Brücke-Korrespondenz’, 337, ftn. 1.

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Fig. 2.14: Fishermen in a Boat (1909/30), oil on canvas, 75 × 100 cm, unknown private collection.

later, already half-way on his way to Berlin, he wrote another postcard: ‘Am glad to return to Berlin to paint nudes’.169 This was undoubtedly true, and yet there was more to this remark than meets the eye. Pechstein was not thinking of nudes in a generic way, but probably of one model in particular: Lotte. Pechstein had met Charlotte “Lotte” Kaprolat during the previous winter. She was a lively sixteen-year old, self-confident and with a ribald sense of humour which Pechstein much appreciated.170 But what attracted him most was her striking looks: Lotte was of a surprisingly dark complexion, and with her full lips looked more like some South Sea beauty than the offspring of East Prussian working-class parents. Her mother, Maria, ran a little ironing shop on Savignyplatz in Berlin-Charlottenburg, her father Carl Gustav was a waiter.171 Where and how Pechstein had met 169 Postcard Pechstein to Heckel, 7 September 1909, from Seebuckow [today Bukowo Morskie], in AM, 1962/180c. 170 Lotte was born on 22 January 1893 in Berlin-Charlottenburg. She died 18 January 1965. 171 Precious little is known about Lotte Kaprolat’s family. The name Kaprolat exists in East Prussia, and means ‘son of the corporal’. Lotte had a brother, Harry, who was also portrayed by Pechstein.

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Fig. 2.15: Lotte Pechstein, 1917. Photograph: Minya Diez-Dührkoop, private collection.

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Fig. 2.16: The Brücke exhibition at the Emil Richter gallery, 1909. In the background Pechstein’s After the Bath (1909/46). Photograph: Ernst Ludwig Kirchner, Kirchner Museum Davos.

Lotte for the first time is unknown. What is clear is that he somehow managed to convince her to pose as model for his painting Women with Yellow Cloth with which he made it into the Secession exhibition.172 It only took a few days painting Lotte in his studio before Pechstein had fallen in love. ‘I have now indulged in my spring feelings for 14 days’, Pechstein wrote to Heckel on a postcard showing a portrait of Lotte in March 1909.173 In another painting, After the Bath, a variation of Women with Yellow Cloth, Lotte again took centre stage. It was a giant tableau showing six oriental-looking female nudes at a waterside, and was chosen by Pechstein as his main submission for the big Brücke exhibition in the Richter gallery in Dresden that summer.174 In early April 1909, he painted her as a reclining 172 See Pechstein, Erinnerungen, 50. Pechstein’s son Frank later remembered having been introduced to the sculptor Georg Kolbe at Pechstein’s fiftieth birthday celebration in 1931. Kolbe told him then that Lotte had been his model, and that Pechstein allegedly got to know her in his studio. 173 Postcard Pechstein to Heckel, 20 or 26 March 1909, copy in Günter Krüger papers, Berlin. 174 1909/46, in Soika, Werkverzeichnis , vol. 1, 201. One of the more benevolent reviewers of the 1909 Richter exhibition, Paul Fechter, described it as ‘a big audience shocker’, see

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Fig. 2.17: Reclining Nude with cat (Lotte), 1909, watercolour and pastels, 34.5 × 45.5 cm, Brücke-Museum, Berlin. Photograph: Roman März, Berlin.

nude with a cat, and he used the same motif on two postcards to Heckel and the Brücke patron Rosa Schapire, in which he referred to Lotte as ‘my girl’.175 After ten weeks in Nidden with no naked female body in sight the appeal of returning to Berlin – and Lotte – was all too powerful. Lotte was not the only change to Pechstein’s life in Berlin that year. In autumn 1909, he set out to find new accommodation. Although his studio at Kurfürstendamm 152 was rent-free, it had the considerable disadvantage of obliging him to undertake decorative jobs for the architects Schneidereit and Wünsche. After his success at the Berlin Secession and a summer of uninterrupted work in Nidden, Pechstein felt that it was time to move on, not least to gain greater independence. He eventually found something suitable in the affluent residential area of Wilmersdorf, south of Kurfürstendamm. It was a spacious studio-apartment on the second floor Dresdner Neueste Nachrichten, 26 June 1909: ‘Kunstsalon Richter. Dritte Ausstellung der K.G. Brücke’. 175 See postcard Pechstein to Heckel, 9 April 1909, from Berlin, in AM, 1964/111, and postcard Pechstein to Schapire, from Berlin, 9 April 1909, in Hamburger Kunsthalle, reproduced in Presler, “Brücke” an Dr. Rosa Schapire, 80.

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of the garden house of Durlacher Strasse 14, fully equipped with steam heating, as he proudly reported to Heckel in November.176 The sculptors Richard Scheibe and Gerhard Marcks had their studio in the same building. The new studio did not come cheap: ‘650 Marks per year, you can well imagine that I am in need of money’, Pechstein wrote to his friend Gerbig. But he was now able to claim with some pride ‘that I got to where I am today without hanging on anybody’s coattails’.177 His self-confidence was boosted further by the fact that five of his works were included in the Secession’s winter exhibition of works on paper, even if he described that show to Heckel as ‘the most appalling black-and-white exhibition that I have seen sofar’.178 In late November 1909 Kirchner and Schmidt-Rottluff visited Pechstein to attend the opening of the Secession exhibition, which included a couple of their own works, too. The three artists also used the opportunity to work together once again. For their life-drawing sessions, they drew on Pechstein’s girl-friend Lotte who was joined by another model, and two old friends: Hans and Emmy Frisch. The two siblings had been neighbours and school-friends of Kirchner’s back in their childhood days in Chemnitz. Hans was working as a curator in Dresden’s Ethnographic Museum, and had in the past regularly joined Brücke’s drawing sessions; Emmy was a photographer now based in Berlin, who had been one of Kirchner’s first models.179 In a letter to Heckel, Kirchner reported of the initial problems of getting the session in Pechstein’s studio under way: ‘S-R [Schmidt-Rottluff] is not really plagued by initiatives, and it is quite complicated to bring about some interaction when faced with the passive reserve of Hans, the reluctant impatience of Karl, Max’s bawdiness and the at least initially timid female nudes.’180 But on the whole, the session went well and Kirchner announced that Heckel could expect ‘a lot of interesting things’ to come

176 Postcard Pechstein to Heckel, from Berlin, 12 November 1909, in AM, 1964/134. 177 Letter Pechstein to Gerbig, from Berlin, 5 December 1909, in private collection; reproduced and quoted in Knop, ‘Briefliche Mitteilungen’, 323, 327. 178 Postcard Pechstein to Heckel, from Berlin, 1 December 1909, in AM, 1964/122. See ‘Verzeichnis der Ausstellungen’, 400. 179 For Emmy Frisch, see Gerd Presler, E.L. Kirchner. Seine Frauen, seine Modelle, seine Bilder (Munich, 1998), 9–13. See also Annemarie Dube-Heynig, Ernst Ludwig Kirchner. Postkarten und Briefe an Erich Heckel im Altonaer Museum Hamburg (Cologne, 1984), 221. 180 Undated letter Kirchner to Heckel (probably 28 November 1909), reproduced in DubeHeynig, Postkarten und Briefe an Erich Heckel, 54–58, 226–227. Pechstein’s ‘bawdiness’ was often referred to by contemporaries. In this instant, it was evident in a comment made by Pechstein on a joint postcard to Heckel, in which he dubbed Hans Frisch as ‘the dirtiest Turk whom I know’. See postcard Kirchner, Pechstein and others to Heckel, 28 November 1909, reproduced in Dube-Heynig, Postkarten und Briefe an Erich Heckel, 50–51.

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his way soon.181 Although Kirchner described Pechstein in this letter as the ‘most honest’ among his colleagues, he was quite patronizing where his artistic potential was concerned. ‘It will be good if you could stay for a little in Berlin’, he explained to Heckel. ‘The two of us could then induce more easily this robust character [i.e. Pechstein] in a way so that he produces real force.’182 Pechstein was probably unaware that Kirchner thought of him as someone in need of artistic guidance. There was little reason for Pechstein to assume that the works which he had produced in the course of 1909 were in any way weaker than those of his Brücke colleagues. When the art critic of the Dresdner Neueste Nachrichten reviewed the big Brücke exhibition in the Richter gallery in June 1909 for which Pechstein had designed the exhibition poster, he observed that Kirchner and Pechstein made ‘the greatest impression’, and that Pechstein was ‘stronger, more forceful than Kirchner, especially in terms of colouring’.183 In any case, the fact that the Berlin Secession had selected Pechstein’s paintings for inclusion in its spring exhibition in 1909, while rejecting the submissions of his Brücke colleagues, suggested to contemporary art critics that Pechstein was the most accomplished member of the group. In retrospect, Pechstein’s success at the Berlin Secession exhibition in April 1909 can be seen as a crucial stepping stone for Pechstein’s artistic career, and the development of the Brücke group more generally. In the words of his biographer, Max Osborn, Pechstein’s exhibition success signified his ‘emergence from the esoteric Dresden conventicle [and his appearance] in front of the general art public’.184 ‘I was the first among my Brücke colleagues to have achieved this aim’, Pechstein proudly recorded his Secession success several decades later in his memoirs.185 The success at the Berlin Secession gave Pechstein’s self-confidence a great boost, and whetted his appetite for more. Yet his ambitions now went further than merely participating in yet another Secession exhibition. ‘I want to try to go further even than the Secession, and I am very preoccupied with the idea to call into life a jury-free exhibition’, he wrote to his friend Gerbig in early December 1909.186 The plan was to establish a 181 Undated letter Kirchner to Heckel (probably 28 November 1909), in Dube-Heynig, Postkarten und Briefe an Erich Heckel, 55, 226. 182 Ibid. 183 Paul Fechter, ‘Kunstsalon Richter. Dritte Ausstellung der K.G. Brücke’, in Dresdner Neueste Nachrichten, 26 June 1909. 184 The original reads: ‘Das bedeutet ein Hervorgleiten aus dem esoterischen Dresdner Konventikel an die breite Kunstöffentlichkeit.’ See Osborn, Pechstein, 73. 185 Pechstein, Erinnerungen, 33. 186 Letter Pechstein to Gerbig, from Berlin 5 December 1909, in private collection; reproduced and quoted in Knop, ‘Briefliche Mitteilungen’, 323, 327. The public debate about

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Fig. 2.18: Poster for the Brücke exhibition at Emil Richter gallery, Dresden, 1909, woodcut, 83,8 × 60 cm (Krüger H 85)

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major new exhibition forum in Berlin for the latest art movements, akin to the Salon des Indépendants in Paris. Unlike the Berlin Secession, where a jury acted as gate-keeper rejecting most submissions from non-Secession members, a jury-free exhibition would guarantee Pechstein and his Brücke colleagues access to the Berlin art market on an annual basis.187 But in order to have an impact comparable to the Salon des Indépendants it was important to bring on board all of Germany’s most prominent modern artists, and in January 1910, Pechstein apparently tried to secure the support of Max Liebermann, the Secession’s President, for his project.188 After his convivial reception in 1908, Pechstein probably hoped that Liebermann would once more prove supportive. But this time, he hit a wall: Liebermann was a great believer in the necessity of a jury system, and there was no obvious reason for the Secession to support an undertaking that implicitly questioned its raison d’être, the selection and presentation of the artistically most valuable art works.189 Unperturbed, Pechstein pursued the idea further. In February 1910 he proudly reported to his Brücke colleagues that he had ‘got the jury-free exhibition started’.190 As if to make a point, the Berlin Secession rejected an unusually high number of submissions by younger artists for its spring exhibition in April

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the establishment of a jury-free exhibition had intensified in the second half of 1909, see Werkstatt der Kunst 8 (1908/9), 577–578; 594–595; 605; 621–622; 634–636; Werkstatt der Kunst 8 (1909/10), 212, 241–244; 299, 324, 369. For its spring exhibition in 1910, the Berlin Secession received 3,000 submissions, of which it selected only around 10 per cent. See the opening speech of Max Liebermann, reprinted in Werkstatt der Kunst 9, no. 30, 25 April 1910, 408. Pechstein’s project of a jury-free exhibition coincided with his strenuous efforts to secure the Brücke a collective exhibition in one of Berlin’s leading art galleries, Gurlitt. See his postcard to Heckel, 19 January 1910, from Berlin, in AM, 1964/137; and his postcard to Heckel, 11 February 1910, from Berlin, in AM, 1964/137. In a letter from 11 January 1910 (in private collection), Liebermann apologized for not being able to meet up with Pechstein as he was currently very busy, and suggested that Pechstein should put the reason for a meeting in writing. Although no evidence has survived of a subsequent written communication or meeting, we suspect that Pechstein intended (and eventually managed) to discuss the jury-free exhibition with Liebermann. See the speech of Max Liebermann at the occasion of the opening of the Secession’s exhibition on 16 April 1910, in which he engaged at some length with the idea of a jury-free exhibition in Berlin. See Werkstatt der Kunst 9, no. 30, 25 April 1910, 408. Postcard Pechstein to Heckel, 12 February 1910, in AM, 1964/112. An appeal was published in the official journal of the General German Art Association, Werkstatt der Kunst 9 (1909/10), no.22, 28 February 1910, 299, for Berlin artists to indicate their willingness to participate and to petition the Prussian Ministry of Culture to make available exhibition space in the exhibition building of Lehrter Bahnhof, the venue of the annual Große Berliner Kunstausstellung. See also letter Kirchner to Heckel and Pechstein, from Dresden, 31 March 1910, reproduced in Dube-Heynig, Postkarten und Briefe an Erich Heckel, 78–85, 235. Kirchner seems to have welcomed Pechstein’s initiative and asked for news of further developments. He also predicted that after the Secession’s selection there would ‘plenty of pictures for this’.

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1910, among them all the Brücke artists.191 Pechstein was one of the many who learned – only two days prior to the exhibition opening – that none of the four paintings that he had submitted had made it past the Secession jury.192 After his success in 1909, Pechstein was not prepared to simply accept the decision. In his memoirs, he described how he set out to find out about the reasons for his refusal: As chance would have it, I bumped into Liebermann near the Secession’s exhibition building on Kurfürstendamm. I stated my grievances to him. He listened calmly, and then replied in the Berlin jargon which he often used: ‘Ya know, I gotta tell ya somethin. I am in the same position as Hans von Bülow was with Rossini, when people tried to convince Bülow to listen just once to the music of Rossini. Nah, he said, nah, ya know, if I listen to that I might end up liking that crap.’193

Later in life, when working closely as a fellow juror with Liebermann within the Prussian Academy of Arts, Pechstein was to hear this anecdote often: it was obviously one of Liebermann’s set pieces in such situations. In 1910, however, Pechstein felt incensed at the way he was treated. And listening to Liebermann’s opening speech at the exhibition opening the following day did not improve his mood. Liebermann vehemently criticized the concept of a jury-free exhibition and defended the selection made by the Secession jury. ‘We probably rarely encounter a situation where we are wrong because – as is well known – geniuses are few and far between’, he announced to the assembled crowd. Many young artists were trying to pick up where real geniuses had left off; but rather than first acquiring a secure mastery of existing modes of expression they immediately tried straight to create something new. This had led to a general decline in vital technical skills, ‘the basis of art’, Liebermann claimed.194

191 Anke Daemgen, ‘Kirchner und die “Neue Secession”’, in Anita Beloubek-Hammer (ed.), Ernst Ludwig Kirchner: Erstes Sehen. Das Werk im Berliner Kupferstichkabinett (Munich, 2004), 32–38, here 33. 192 In his memoirs, Pechstein recalled having submitted three paintings – however, the subsequent exhibition of the refused art works by the New Secession included four Pechstein works. See Pechstein, Erinnerungen, 39, and Neue Secession, Ausstellung von Werken Zurückgewiesener der Berliner Secession, I. Ausstellung (Berlin, 1910). 193 It is almost impossible to translate Berlin idiom. The original runs: ‘Er hörte mich gelassen an und erwiderte dann in dem Berliner Jargon, dessen er sich oft bediente: “Wissense, ick will Ihnen mal wat sagen. Det jeht mir jenau so wie dem Hans von Bülow mit dem Rossini, als man dem Bülow zuredete, er soll sich die Musike von dem Rossini mal anhören. Nee, hat er gesagt, nee, wissense, wenn ick mir det noch anhöre, dann jefällt mir der Dreck am Ende noch.”’ See Pechstein, Erinnerungen, 40. 194 The speech, held on 16 April 1910, is reproduced in Werkstatt der Kunst 9, no. 30, 25 April 1910, 408.

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Pechstein was not the only one to feel that this was an outright rejection of all ‘innovators’ who were not singing from the Impressionist hymn sheet.195 Although the term ‘Expressionists’ was not yet in use at this moment in time, the shared experience of being rejected outright by the standard bearers of modern art in Germany provided many of the – mostly younger – artists a sense of collective identity, despite the considerable stylistic differences of their work.196 The day after the exhibition opening, Pechstein joined three fellow sufferers who were considering organizing an exhibition of the refused works.197 Over the next few days, the artists met repeatedly in the Café des Westens and hammered out details. Less than a week after Liebermann’s controversial speech, they had founded a new artists’ association called ‘New Secession’ and made all the necessary arrangements to stage a counter-exhibition in May. Pechstein was elected Chairman of the New Secession’s executive board, probably because of the prominence achieved through the 1909 Secession exhibition and because of his ability to bring on board his Brücke colleagues.198 ‘Max is at the centre of the entire project’, Kirchner reported to Heckel after a short visit to Berlin in May 1910.199 Right from the start, the founders of the New Secession strove to publicize their undertaking to the greatest possible extent. They were able to tap into a well-established journalistic tradition of interpreting conflicts between Secessions and official Salons as a generational 195 In his memoirs Pechstein stated that the ‘categorical rejection’ had affected all ‘Neuerer’, see Pechstein, Erinnerungen, 41. 196 For the history of the term Expressionism, see Ron Manheim, ‘“Expressionismus”: Zur Entstehung eines kunsthistorischen Stil- und Periodenbegriffs’, in Zeitschrift für Kunstgeschichte 49 (1986), 86–94. 197 They were Georg Tappert, Heinrich Richter and Moritz Melzer. For the following, see Anke Daemgen, ‘The Neue Secession in Berlin 1910–1914: An Artists’ Association in the Rise of Expressionism’ (unpublished PhD thesis, University of London, 2001); Gerhard Wietek, Georg Tappert. Ein Wegbereiter der Deutschen Moderne 1880–1957 (Munich, 1980), 27–30; Heinrich Richter-Berlin, ‘Mein Leben’, in Kunstblätter der Galerie Nierendorf (Berlin, 1974), no.32, 8. More recently: Anke Daemgen, ‘Die Neue Secession in Berlin’, in Stiftung Brandenburger Tor (ed.), Liebermanns Gegner: Die Neue Secession in Berlin und der Expressionismus (Cologne, 2011), 18–36. 198 Pechstein asked Heckel to provide him with information on birth place, year of birth and current address for Heckel and Kirchner, for inclusion in the New Secession’s exhibition catalogue, in a postcard 25 April 1910, from Berlin, in AM, 1964/115. This means that at this moment in time already his Brücke colleagues had agreed to participate in the new venture. Kirchner’s controversial chronicle of the Brücke group of 1913 stated: ‘In order to support Pechstein’s position within the New Secession, Heckel, Kirchner and Schmidt-Rottluff became members too.’ Reprinted in Lothar-Günther Buchheim, Die Künstlergemeinschaft Brücke (Dresden, 1957), 104. This conceals the fact that the Brücke members were all extremely eager for exhibition opportunities in Berlin. 199 Letter Kirchner to Heckel, 22 May 1910, from Dresden, reproduced in Dube-Heynig, Postkarten und Briefe an Erich Heckel, 109, 246. [Max steht im Vordergrund der ganzen Sache.]

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Fig. 2.19: Poster for the exhibition of the “Neue Secession”, the rejected artists of the Secession Berlin, 1910, colour lithograph, 71.5 × 99.2 cm (Krüger L 110).

conflict, a revolt of the young against the old.200 Pechstein’s design of the New Secession’s exhibition poster also played on this topic of conflict and did not fail to attract further press attention. ‘Such a miserly and smudgy [and] mean botch-job by a bungler as this poster drawing has probably never before dared to appear in the light of day’, railed one critic in the Vossische Zeitung. ‘A kneeling, fat naked human being black on white painted with incredible rawness and broad contours by a miserable dauber, with a completely shapeless face from which a pair of thick, awful blackamoor’s lips is protruding.’201 According to the conservative Kunstwart, Germany’s most widely read art journal, the poster had to be interpreted programmatically, as ‘the mutiny of primitive, raw art instincts against civilization, culture and taste in art.’202 200 See Daemgen, ‘The Neue Secession’, 59, 71, 84; Paret, Berliner Secession, 58; Robert Jensen, Marketing Modernism in Fin-de-Siècle Europe (Princeton, 1996), 167. 201 L.P. [Ludwig Pietsch], ‘Die Ausstellung der Neuen Secession’, in Vossische Zeitung, 235, 20 May 1910. 202 Erich Vogeler, ‘Die “Neue Secession”, in Kunstwart 23 (1909/10), no.23, 314. Pechstein first used this motif on his postcard to Heckel, 25 April 1910, from Berlin, in AM, 1964/115.

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Fig. 2.20: Woman (Lotte) (1910/56), oil on canvas, measures unknown, lost.

Such critics found their views confirmed once the exhibition opened in the art gallery Maximiliam Macht, not far from the Berlin Secession, in midMay. They were particularly appalled by the works of the Brücke artists that had been united in a special room with bright red walls. Some of the works here ‘would probably be bearable, if one looked at them from very, very far away; or drove past them in an express train’, one critic scoffed.203 Numerous reviewers referred to this Brücke room as a ‘chamber of horrors’, or a ‘padded cell for the eye’.204 Pechstein’s works attracted the most vitriolic comments, especially his painting of a reclining nude (Lotte).205 ‘With […] alarm one sees a Woman’, wrote a Frankfurt correspondent. ‘That is what the catalogue states. Without it one would mistake this big-headed, slit-eyed beauty with her dislocated, swollen, greenish limbs for an artisti-

203 General-Anzeiger für Frankfurt a. M., 20 May 1910: ‘Die Refusierten’. This article also appeared in Neue Hamburger Zeitung, 19 May 2010; and in Breslauer General-Anzeiger, 21 May 1910. 204 Daemgen, ‘Kirchner’, 34. See also Frankfurter Zeitung, 19 May 1910: ‘Die Neue Sezession in Berlin’; Der Tag, 14 May 1910; Tägliche Rundschau, 14 May 1910: ‘Aus dem Kunstleben’. 205 1910/56, in Soika, Werkverzeichnis, vol. 1, 269.

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cally-minded water-logged corpse.’206 The art critic of the Vossische Zeitung thought that the woman had hardly any resemblance to a human being. ‘The painter of this disgusting monster deserves that women, whose entire sex is outrageously insulted through this, unite to give this woman-painter his comeuppance’, he told his readers.207 A few days after this article one visitor heeded this advice, and spat on all of Pechstein’s paintings.208 This incident induced the gallery to ask one of its clerks, a sixteen-year old girl, to act as an attendant. However, this led to further complications when the father of that girl sued the gallery for ordering his daughter to spend time with single men in the presence of such ‘immoral’ paintings.209 The girl refused to go to work, and in the absence of an attendant another anonymous visitor drove a huge nail through the canvas of Pechstein’s Woman.210 These incidents of iconoclasm intensified further media interest in the exhibition. Wilhelm Morgner, a fellow artist who read about these events in provincial Westphalia, even suspected an ‘advertising trick’ on Pechstein’s part: ‘Who should be interested in doing such nonsense?’211 Many decades later, when writing his memoirs, Pechstein focussed on the hostile reception of the New Secession exhibition and recalled that this ‘struggle’ strengthened the group spirit of Brücke.212 But it would be wrong to reduce the dynamics of Brücke’s establishment in the German art scene to the usual trope of modernist outsiders triumphing in the face of adversity. By this moment in time, the arousal of conservative outrage had become de rigeur for aspiring avant-garde artists. One critic even spoke of the ‘comedy which for years now is being played out at such occasions between defiantly provoking revolutionaries of art and a morally indignant audience’, which the New Secession exhibition had successfully staged.213 In fact, not all critics dismissed the show as scandalous. On the contrary, 206 General-Anzeiger für Frankfurt a. M., 20 May 1910: ‘Die Refusierten’. The original reads: ‘Man […] sieht mit Erschrecken ein „Weib“. Der Katalog sagt’s. Ohne ihn hielte man diese dickköpfige, schlitzäugige Schöne mit den verrenkten, gequollenen grünlichen Gliedern für eine akrobatisch veranlagte Wasserleiche.’ 207 Vossische Zeitung, 235, 20 May 1910. 208 See BZ am Mittag, 24 May 1910: ‘Ein Bilderstürmer in der Neuen Sezession’; Berliner Tageblatt, no. 257, 24 Mai 1910; Magdeburger Zeitung, 25 May 1910: ‘Ein Bilderstürmer in der Neuen Sezession’; Kladderadatsch, 23, 5 June 1910: ‘Unsaubere Kritik’. 209 See Berliner Tageblatt, 31 Mai 1910: ‘Die neue Secession und die alte Moral’; Neues Tageblatt (Stuttgart), 2 June 1910: Die neue Berliner Sezession und die alte Moral.’; Berliner Tageblatt, 13 June 1910: ‘Fräulein Lieschen und die unsittlichen Bilder’. 210 See Berliner Tageblatt, no. 276, 3 June 1910; Kladderadatsch, 24, 12 June 1910: ‘Das vernagelte Bild’; Kunstchronik NF 21 (1909/10), 24 June 1910, 489. 211 Letter Wilhelm Morgner to Georg Tappert, 5 June 1910, in Christine Knupp-Uhlenhaut (ed.), Wilhelm Morgner. Briefe und Zeichnungen (Soest, 1984), 18. 212 Pechstein, Erinnerungen, 41. 213 Kunst und Künstler 8, 1 July 1910, 524.

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many reviewers found warm words for the exhibition, and praised Pechstein in particular.214 Writing in the art journal Kunst für Alle, Curt Glaser described him as the ‘strongest talent’ on display.215 And Pechstein’s idea to concentrate all Brücke works in a special room paid dividends, too: some of Germany’s leading art critics took note of the group for the first time, and carefully praised their potential. Karl Scheffler, editor of Kunst und Künstler, admired their ‘often fine ornamental colouring’ and stated that he was looking forward to the New Secession’s autumn exhibition because ‘at least one can be sure of encountering there talented graphic works by this artists’ group which calls itself “Brücke”’.216 This kind of public acknowledgement – even if grudging – as innovators in the German art scene undoubtedly provided the Brücke artists with a confidence boost, and encouraged them further to experiment stylistically, not least by spending time working together. In early June 1910, Pechstein joined Heckel and Schmidt-Rottluff in their summer retreat in Dangast near the North Sea.217 In his memoirs, Pechstein claimed that his trip was partly motivated by his attempt to find out why it was so difficult to forge a closer relationship with SchmidtRottluff.218 Compared to Kirchner, who in spring 1910 had a heated encounter with Schmidt-Rottluff in Dresden, Pechstein apparently managed to get on relatively well with his taciturn Brücke colleague. ‘On a personal level he behaved like a friend’, Pechstein recalled his time in Dangast in

214 E.g. Berliner Morgenpost, 13 May 1910: ‘Der Salon der Zurückgewiesenen’; Deutsche Nachrichten, 15 May 1910: ‘Neue Sezession 1910’; Frankfurter Zeitung, 19 May 1910: ‘Die “Neue Sezession” in Berlin’. In a letter to Heckel 22 May 1910, Kirchner reported after his trip to Berlin that reviews were ‘partly quite good’: reproduced in Dube-Heynig, Postkarten und Briefe an Erich Heckel, 109, 246. See also Birgit Dalbajewa, ‘Erwünschte Opposition. Die Brücke im Spiegel der zeitgenössischen Kritik 1905–1911’, in Dalbajewa, Bischoff (eds.), Die Brücke in Dresden, 317; Daemgen, ‘Kirchner’, 34. 215 Curt Glaser, ‘Die Neue Sezession’, in Kunst für Alle 25 (1910), 1 July 1910, 448–452, here 450. 216 Kunst und Künstler 8, 1 July 1910, 524–525. See also the review (probably by Max Osborn) in Kunstmarkt 21 (1909/10), no. 26 (20 May 1910), 440–441, which Pechstein mentioned to Heckel in a letter 1 June 1910, in AM, 1964/152. 217 According to a letter to Heckel, 1 June 1910, from Berlin to Dangast (in AM, 1964/152), Pechstein wanted to get some rest before the planned stay in Moritzburg. According to Schmidt-Rottluff, Pechstein had been staying with Heckel in Dangast since ‘early June’ and they were going to ‘leave soon to escape high season’, see postcard to Gustav Schiefler, 29 June 1910, quoted in Wietek, Schmidt-Rottluff, 133. Kirchner sent his regards to Pechstein in a postcard to Heckel, 6 June 1910, reproduced in Dube-Heynig, Postkarten und Briefe an Erich Heckel, 130. Pechstein produced drawings of a horse race held in Dangast on 12 June 1910, and signed a postcard 14 June 1910 which Heckel sent from Dangast to Rosa Schapire, see Wietek, Oldenburger Jahre, 60, 245. 218 See Pechstein, Erinnerungen, 44. Contrary to Pechstein’s recollections, his trip to Dangast preceded his stay in Moritzburg.

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Fig. 2.21: Fisherhouse (1910/7), oil on canvas, 68.5 × 79.5 cm, private collection, New York.

his memoirs.219 But as far as their work was concerned, there was little perceived commonality, and even less cooperation. On the day of his arrival, Heckel allegedly warned Pechstein that he sometimes felt crushed by their colleague. When encountering Schmidt-Rottluff’s most recent works Pechstein understood what Heckel meant.220 Schmidt-Rottluff’s paintings were characterized by an uncompromising use of large planes of primary colours and a brutal simplification of forms.221 Rather than being inspired by this, 219 Pechstein, Erinnerungen, 46. For the conflict between Kirchner and Schmidt-Rottluff, see letter Kirchner to Heckel, undated, reproduced in Dube-Heynig, Postkarten und Briefe an Erich Heckel, 150–153, 257. We agree with Hüneke who dates this letter to midApril 1910, see Hüneke, ‘Verzeichnis der Brücke-Korrespondenz’, 337, ftn. 2. 220 Pechstein, Erinnerungen, 44–46. It is amazing that Pechstein should describe SchmidtRottluff ’s output at this point as ‘still at the border of the impressionist technique’ – nothing could be further from the truth. It is worth noting, however, the recollection of artistic distance expressed in this observation. 221 The best overview of Schmidt-Rottluff ’s artistic output in Dangast can be found in Wietek, Oldenburger Jahre.

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Pechstein apparently felt constrained by Schmidt-Rottluff’s impressive output of landscape paintings. [F]or weeks we saw much in the countryside that Schmidt-Rottluff had already framed, therefore being taboo for us’, he recalled in his memoirs. ‘Well, Heckel and I befriended some shrimpers and peasants […] as well as some summer guests and found some models among them and the locals.222

During his four weeks in Dangast, Pechstein produced over a dozen oil paintings, and numerous watercolours. Some of his landscapes still resembled his works of the previous summer in Nidden in style, colouring and composition; some showed certain similarities with the works produced by Schmidt-Rottluff during this time, especially in his use of planes of stark red. Very occasionally, he and Heckel seem to have worked next to each other – as evident in Heckel’s powerful painting of the sleeping Pechstein. Mostly, however, Pechstein worked on his own apparently. In his memoirs, he recalled that only at the very end of their stay in Dangast Heckel and he showed each other their works.223 The contrast with his subsequent stay at the Moritzburg lakes near Dresden, from mid-July to late August, could not have been greater.224 During one of Heckel’s and Kirchner’s joint visits to Berlin earlier in 1910 the three Brücke artists had decided to spend part of the summer together, and chose the little village of Moritzburg since they knew it was possible in the surrounding countryside to paint nudes in the open air.225 They recruited rather unusual models: apart from Kirchner’s then girl-friend, Dodo, they used a young girl whom Kirchner had befriended in Dresden, ten-year-old Fränzi Fehrmann, nicknamed ‘Marcella’, and her elder sister, Johanna Rosa. The advantage of using such amateur models was that they would guarantee them ‘movements devoid of studio training’, as Pechstein recalled in

222 Pechstein, Erinnerungen, 44–46. 223 Ibid., 46. 224 After Dangast, Pechstein first returned to Berlin. He was still there 17 July 1910, see postcard to Rosa Schapire, 17 July 1910, with Berlin post-stamp, in Brücke Museum, 76/67, reproduced in Presler, „Brücke“ an Rosa Schapire, 43). On 19 July 1910, Kirchner sent a letter to Gustav Schiefler, in which he wrote: ‘At the moment, we – i.e. Heckel, Pechstein and I – are again in Moritzburg. There is nothing more appealing than nudes in nature.’ See Wolfgang Henze (ed.), Briefwechsel: 1910–1935/38; mit Briefen von und an Luise Schiefler und Erna Kirchner sowei weiteren Dokumenten aus Schieflers KorrespondenzAblage. Ernst Ludwig Kirchner; Gustav Schiefler (Stuttgart, 1990), 27. They were still in Moritzburg on 16 August 1910, see postcard to Gustav Schiefler, signed by Kirchner, Heckel and Pechstein, reproduced in Künstler der Brücke in Moritzburg, no. 23. Nothing indicates that this came from the very end of their stay in Moritzburg. 225 Ibid., 41–42. See also letter Kirchner to Heckel, 31 March 1910, reproduced in DubeHeynig, Postkarten und Briefe an Erich Heckel, 78–85, 235–237.

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Fig. 2.22: Erich Heckel, Sleeping Pechstein (Vogt 1910/8), 1910, oil on canvas, 100 × 74 cm. Buchheim Museum, Bernried.

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his memoirs.226 Once the girls’ mother had given permission, they left for Moritzburg where they took up residence in the Old Brewery.227 Over the following weeks they threw themselves wholeheartedly into work. ‘Early in the mornings we painters would set off, loaded with our heavy gear, while the models would follow behind with bags full of eatables and drinkables. We lived in absolute harmony; we worked and we swam. If a male model was needed as an antipole, one of us three would step into the breach’, Pechstein recalled in his memoirs.228 ‘Off and on the mother would appear to convince herself like a scared chicken that nothing evil was happening to her ducklings 226 Pechstein, Erinnerungen, 42. In this section Pechstein claims that he organized the children through help of an old acquaintance, the custodian of the Art Academy, who knew a performer’s widow with two daughters. Pechstein allegedly managed to convince the mother of the artists’ earnestness, and she then gave permission for her girls to act as models. This passage raises numerous questions. Why should Kirchner and Heckel, who knew a variety of young girls in Dresden at this time, need Pechstein’s assistance in finding suitable amateur girl models? One of the girls in Moritzburg was nine-year-old Franziska ‘Fränzi’ Fehrmann, whom Kirchner gave the nickname ‘Marcella’. She did have a sister – eighteen-year-old Johanna Rosa. However, their father was not a performer but a metalworker, and still alive at this moment in time. Unless Pechstein completely made up this passage – which we consider implausible, despite the memoir’s numerous inaccuracies – the only possible explanation is that in 1946, Pechstein remembered Kirchner’s portrait of Fränzi on a sofa, exhibited at Galerie Arnold in September 1910 under the title ‘Artistin’ (which Pechstein cut in wood for the exhibition catalogue), and therefore associated Fränzi with a performer’s family. Although it is impossible to ascertain, it is very plausible that the girls’ parents needed convincing before letting their children accompany an artists’ party to Moritzburg – and that Fränzi would only be allowed to go if chaperoned by her elder sister. In his memoirs, Pechstein may have presented himself in a somewhat more active role than he actually played. Interestingly, many years later when Kirchner met Fränzi in Dresden in the mid–1920s, and they reminisce about their time in Moritzburg, Kirchner’s notes of the meeting also record the whereabouts of the (unnamed) elder sister; see Presler, E.L. Kirchner, 45. For the controversy around the identity of Fränzi/Marzella, see Volkmar Billig, ‘Et in Arcadia ego. Zum historischen Kontext von Heckels, Kirchners und Pechsteins Schaffen an den Moritzburger Teichen’, in Künstler der Brücke in Moritzburg, 17, ftn. 36; Klaus Albers, Gerd Presler, ‘Neues von Fränzi, Daten, Fakten, Erkenntnisse zum jüngsten “Brücke”-Modell’; in Weltkunst 68 (1998), 2440–2442; Andreas Hüneke, ‘Fränzi und Moritzburg’, in Weltkunst 68 (1998), 2850; Klaus Albers, Gerd Presler, ‘Neues von Fränzi II’, in Weltkunst 69 (1999), 727–729; Klaus Albers, Gerd Presler, ‘ “Fränzi” – Modell und Muse der “Brücke”-Maler Erich Hekkel, Ernst Ludwig Kirchner und Max Pechstein’, in Christine E. Stauffer (ed.), Festschrift für Eberhard W. Kornfeld zum 80. Geburtstag (Bern, 2003), 205–218; Birgit Dalbajewa, Volkmar Billig, ‘Von Fränzi nichts Neues oder vom Nutzen und Nachteil biographischer Anekdoten für die Kunstgeschichtsschreibung’, in Weltkunst 73 (2003), 202; Ulrike Lorenz, Brücke (Cologne, 2008), 52; and, most recently, Gerd Presler, ‘Fränzi und Marcella. Zwei Brücke-Modelle schreiben Kunstgeschichte’, in Norbert Noris et al. (ed.), Der Blick auf Fränzi und Marcella. Zwei Modelle der Brücke-Künstler Heckel, Kirchner und Pechstein (Hannover, 2010), 13–22. 227 For the Old Brewery, see the address given on the postcard sent from Moritzburg by Heckel to his brother Manfred, 11 August 1910, signed by Kirchner and Pechstein, reproduced in Künstler der Brücke in Moritzburg, no. 21. 228 Pechstein, Erinnerungen, 42.

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Fig. 2.23: Open Air (1910/33), oil on canvas, 70 × 80 cm, Stiftung Wilhelm Lehmbruck Museum, Duisburg.

swimming on the pond of life. Each time she returned to Dresden with her mind quietened and full of respect for our work.’229 The three Brücke artists produced countless drawings, watercolours and paintings during their stay in Moritzburg. Often, they set up their easels next to each other, and painted the same scene. Together, they strove to translate into oil the immediacy and spontaneity of the ‘quarter-hour nudes’ of their early years. They used bright and unmixed primary colours, diluted with turpentine which allowed rapid and broad brushstrokes, and they simplified forms in the extreme. Nude bodies, in particular, were reduced to basic shapes of yellow, red or orange, as in Pechstein’s painting Open Air. The process of creation took precedence over the final product, and the attempt to capture the first, immediate impression resulted in a sketchiness of their oils which was unprecedented in German art. Pech229 Ibid., 42–43.

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Fig. 2.24: Horsemarket (1910/18), oil on canvas, 70 × 81 cm, Museo Thyssen-Bornemisza, Madrid (loan from the Carmen Thyssen-Bornemisza Collection).

stein’s Horsemarket in Moritzburg, painted in early August 1910, signified a highpoint of this new style. Here, he managed to condense the movement of the horses’ bodies and the bustle of market life into a composition that exuded speed and energy. In many of the works produced in Moritzburg this summer, the influence of non-Western art was conspicuous. In the background of Pechstein’s depiction of Fränzi in a black-and-yellow bathing suit, for example, the figures walking through the meadow – represented through a few angular brushstrokes – seemed to have walked straight from the carved Palau beam in the Ethnographic Museum in Dresden into Pechstein’s painting. Kirchner’s and Heckel’s works in particular were characterized by jagged and angular human figures which owed much to their reception of African and Oceanic art. Pechstein, however, could sometimes not resist the temptation of depicting the female curve as he saw it, as evident in his painting of Fränzi on a towel, Seated Nude. Large planes of lush green, yellow and red resulted in stark contrasts, and like in most

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Fig. 2.25: Yellow-black tricot (1910/31), oil on canvas, 68 × 78 cm, Brücke-Museum, Berlin (loan from private collection).

paintings produced during this time, the perspective was shortened which made for an almost depth-less background. But his use of gently sweeping lines and curves – and the use of black to emphasize the outlines of the body – owed much to Gauguin, and indicated his future stylistic trajectory. It may have been this painting of Fränzi which featured in an incident that scared them ‘like hell’, as Pechstein recalled in his memoirs.230 Without them noticing, the local policeman had followed them, and accosted them in the middle of a painting session. He asked us what was going on here. Well, we were gobsmacked. Quickly, the two girls got into their bathrobes, and we stood in front of him, in his view caught in a gross sin against morality. It was no use trying to explain to him that painting nudes was part of our professional work, and that not only we but also the painting seminars of the Royal Saxon Academy needed nude humans 230 Ibid., 43.

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Fig. 2.26: Seated Fränzi (1910/27), oil on canvas, 80 × 70 cm, Staatliche Museen zu Berlin, Nationalgalerie. Photograph: bpk, Staatliche Museen zu Berlin / Klaus Göken.

in God’s free nature for studying. He confiscated the painting that I had just completed as a corpus delicti and promised us a merciless complaint of an offence with the State Prosecutor. What he anticipated did not occur: we did not beg for mercy as penitent sinners. And that angered him even more. Foaming about the outrageous occurrence he left. The only one to accompany him was his dachshund, wagging friendly with his tail. Before he vanished in the forest I called after him that he would be liable if my work were to be damaged. Naturally there was no response. Well, we were slightly embarrassed but we decided to continue our work on an island. So we swam across, clothes wrapped around

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head and trunk, canvasses rolled together, with the stretchers taken apart; within thicket on the island no gendarme spotted us. We continued to work even more fiercely.231

The incident did not have serious consequences for Pechstein. He was summoned by the Dresden County Court several months later, but armed with a reference from his former teacher Gussmann who confirmed his status as a freelance artist, he managed to convince the State Prosecutor to drop proceedings. In his memoirs, he recalled that the State Prosecutor heartily laughed about the story, then ‘handed me my painting which had dried with him in the meantime, and energetically shook my hand. He was glad, he said, to have met someone who pursued his aim so earnestly, and he wished me luck.’232 In fact, the Brücke artists could count themselves lucky. There is some evidence that Heckel – and possibly Kirchner too – had sexual intercourse with ten-year-old Fränzi. Had they been caught in the act by the Moritzburg gendarme, they would certainly have had to serve a prison sentence for paedophilia.233 Much later in the twentieth century, in the decades after the Second World War, when art historians, museum directors and curators were rehabilitating artists defamed during the Nazi dictatorship, the Brücke group played a central role for the definition and re-evaluation of German Expressionism. The collective development of a ‘group’ style in 1910 which at times made it difficult to tell which of the Brücke artists had created a particular picture was portrayed as a pinnacle of the so-called ‘classical modernity’: the weeks spent in Moritzburg not only resulted in works which flew in the face of artistic norms allegedly prevailing in late Wilhelmine Germany, they were also seen as the product of an entire alternative life scheme developed by a group of like-minded non-conformists who sought to explode the distinction between life and art, and men and nature. The summer of 1910 thus became the cornerstone of the subsequent Brücke ‘myth’ which focussed on the rebellious and anti-establishment nature of this artists’ collective.234 231 Ibid. 232 Ibid., 44. 233 See Kirchner’s diary entry of 30 September 1925, in Lothar Grisebach (ed.), Ernst Ludwig Kirchners Davoser Tagebuch (Cologne, 1997), 97. There is precious little engagement with this highly problematic topic in the existing literatur on Brücke, apart from Hansdieter Erbsmehl, ‘“Wir stürzen uns auf die Natur in den Mädchen”. Ernst Ludwig Kirchner und die “Kindermodelle” der Künstlergruppe “Brücke”’, in Georges Bloch-Jahrbuch des Kunsthistorischen Instituts der Universität Zürich 9/10 (2002/2003), 113–149. For the penalty for sex with under-age girls in this period, see Tanja Hommen, Sittlichkeitsverbrechen. Sexuelle Gewalt im Kaiserreich (Frankfurt/Main, 1999), 57. This probably also accounts for the ‘hellish’ scare that the incident gave them. 234 See Lucius Grisebach, in Jürgen Balitzki, ‘Ekstasen des Erlebens. Brücke – Entwurf

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And yet this reading gives short shrift to the Brücke artists’ professional aspirations at the time. All they wanted was to carve themselves a niche in the existing German art world. Pechstein, for example, applied for a wellpaid teaching position in Decorative Monumental Art at the Düsseldorf School of Applied Arts at the same time as he was setting up the New Secession in spring 1910. And it would be wrong to see this application as evidence for Pechstein’s ‘conformity’ which set him apart from the rest of Brücke. In fact, it was Heckel who had learned about the vacancy and who initiated Pechstein’s application. He wrote to the Director of the School, his former employer Wilhelm Kreis, and recommended his friend most warmly: In Berlin I have seen very good works – wall paintings in private houses, stainedglass windows etc – by Pechstein. […] He has already set standards to an amazing extent in Berlin. I have met a goodly number of architects, painters and sculptors who are strongly influenced by him, and who have produced good works because of his influence.235

And Heckel did not exaggerate: several stained glass windows designed by Pechstein were exhibited in Berlin in summer 1910 and attracted nothing but praise from reviewers.236 Pechstein’s application for the Düsseldorf job was unsuccessful not because he was deemed too radical but probably due to his inability to submit the required work proofs.237 Just how one-dimensional it would be to base Pechstein’s artistic identity exclusively on der Dresdner Künstlergemeinschaft’, manuscript of radio broadcast, first broadcast by Deutschlandradio on 7 June 2005, available at http://www.dradio.de/download/96147/, last accessed 1 July 2011. 235 Undated letter Heckel to Wilhelm Kreis (probably early April 1910). Together with Pechstein’s letters of application from 23 and 27 April 1910 to Wilhelm Kreis, in Stadtarchiv Düsseldorf, VIII 108, unpaginated. The same file includes a letter from Kreis to Pechstein, 25 April 1910, encouraging him to apply and providing information on the starting salary: 2,700 Marks plus 660 Marks housing allowance. We are grateful to Elisabeth Scheeben for making this material accessible to us. 236 Pechstein triptych ‘Three standing nudes’ – now in the Brücke-Museum, Berlin – was exhibited at the ‘Second Exhibition of the Clay, Cement and Chalk Industry’ which opened in early June 1910. For contemporary reviews, see Die Werkkunst 5 (1910), 148; ‘Von der II. Ton-, Zement- und Kalkindunstrie-Ausstellung in Berlin-Baumschulenweg’, in Berliner Architekturwelt 13 (1910/1911), 192. See also Soika, ‘Public Face of German Expressionism’, 50. For his designs exhibited in Warenhaus Wertheim in summer 1910, see Fritz Hellwag in Kunstgewerbeblatt NF 21 (1910), 219; and Robert Breuer, in Werkkunst 5 (1910), 135, 151, 163–164; Günter Krüger, ‘Die Jahreszeiten, ein Glasfensterzyklus von Max Pechstein’, in Zeitschrift des Vereins für Kunstwissenschaft 19 (1965), no. 1/2 , 77–94, here 88. 237 Kreis, who had taught Pechstein in Dresden, was very positive about his application, see his letter to the Mayor of Düsseldorf, Wilhelm Marx, 6 May 1910. For Pechstein’s explanation why he was unable to submit the requested proofs of work, see his letter to Kreis, 27 April 1910, both in Stadtarchiv Düsseldorf, VIII 108, unpaginated.

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Fig. 2.27: Stained glass window for the music room of House Tetzner, Chemnitz, 1909. Executed after a design by Pechstein. Published in Deutsche Kunst und Dekoration 26 (1910), 311.

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his Brücke membership becomes strikingly obvious when contrasting his paintings produced at Moritzburg with the design which he submitted in summer 1910 – together with the architect Wünsche and the sculptor H. Schmidt –to a competition for a national Bismarck monument, the largest such competition ever to be held in Wilhelmine Germany. Entitled Proclamation, the trio envisaged a huge statue of Bismarck in military uniform, set on giant perron covering the entire hilltop of the designated site, looking over the river Rhine near the town of Bingen. The jury awarded it a cash prize and included it in the exhibition of the prized designs in Berlin in February 1911. It attracted a considerable number of positive press reviews, and Pechstein did not hesitate to accept praise for his contribution.238 But even if the Brücke members cannot really be stylized into a group of art revolutionaries, there can be little doubt that the weeks spent in Moritzburg strengthened the group identity enormously. This expressed itself in particular in their preparations for their big group exhibition at the gallery Arnold, Dresden’s leading gallery for modern art, which opened in early September 1910. For the show the Brücke artists created a catalogue which included twenty woodcut reproductions of some of the exhibited works: and rather than cutting their own paintings, Heckel, Kirchner and Pechstein produced woodcuts of each other’s works.239 Pechstein – who had returned to Berlin prior to the exhibition opening – was much taken with the catalogue. The format was one which he thought ought to be applied to the forthcoming New Secession catalogue too. In fact, there can be little doubt that Pechstein wanted Brücke to dominate the New Secession’s public appearance. ‘[W]e should also get hold of the N.[ew] S.[ecession]’, he wrote to Heckel in early September 1910, in the run-up to the New Secession’s first exhibition of works on paper, ‘because Sauermann [i.e. the owner of the gallery Macht] does nothing himself, members are meant to submit designs for the poster for the black-and-white-exhibition, I think 238 See letter Pechstein to Dr Friedrich Plietzsch, 23 June 1911, from Nidden, in AM, 1963/295a,b. Another reference to the competition can be found in postcard Pechstein to Otto Mueller, 12 November 1910, from Berlin, in Berlin, Neue National-Galerie (NNG), FIII 1839. For press clippings with reviews of the design see Archive Krüger. The competition was advertised in September 1909, the deadline was 1 July 1910, and the exhibition of the winning designs was opened 11 February 1911. See Hundert Entwürfe aus dem Wettbewerb für das Bismarck-National-Denkmal auf der Elisenhöhe bei BingerbrückBingen (Düsseldorf, 1911). The submission of Pechstein, Schmidt and Wünsche is listed as no. 161, and reproduced as figs. 87 and 88. The monument was meant to be ready for Bismarck’s centenary in 1915, but the outbreak of war in 1914 prevented its realization, see Michael Dorrmann, ‘Das Bismarck-Nationaldenkmal am Rhein. Ein Beitrag zur Geschichtskultur des Deutschen Reiches’, in Zeitschrift für Geschichtswissenschaften 12 (1996), 1061–1087. 239 See Hoffmann, Leben und Schaffen, no. 46, 280–285. Only Schmidt-Rottluff produced all woodcuts of his own paintings himself.

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Fig. 2.28: Design for a national Bismarck memorial in Bingen, 1910, by Max Pechstein and Alfred Wünsche. Published in Hundert Entwürfe aus dem Wettbewerb für das BismarckNational-Denkmal auf der Elisenhöhe bei Bingerbrück-Bingen, Dusseldorf, 1911, no. 161, figs. 87 and 88.

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one of us should definitely get the job.’240 Eventually, Kirchner’s design of a young Hercules strangling two serpents was chosen.241 When the exhibition opened on 1 October, almost a third of the works on display were by the four Brücke artists.242 And once again, the exhibition generated a great flurry in the press, in stark contrast to the Brücke group exhibition in Dresden’s gallery Arnold which had only attracted a handful of reviews in a few regional newspapers. ‘Critics act as if these young people have staged a witches sabbat’, observed the writer Paul Westheim. ‘But in doing so no distinction is being made between a handful of bluffing artfops who like Heckel, Kirchner, […] etc have adopted épater le bourgeois as a motto, and the existing rest which could just as well be exhibited in the old Secession.’243 Westheim singled out one of Pechstein’s works – a head of a girl – as an example of the existing quality on display: ‘Whoever can do something like this, absolutely has to be taken seriously.’244 In contrast, half of the ‘Pechstein disciples’ included in the exhibition could confidently be dismissed as worthless, Westheim concluded. He was not the only critic to see Pechstein as the leading light within the New Secession.245 In February 1911, when the New Secession’s third exhibition opened, many commentators described Pechstein as ‘the strongest talent of the group’ and labelled him ‘Führer’ or ‘champion’ of the New Secession.246 And it was not just critics, but also fellow artists who considered Pechstein the outstanding member of the new group.247 Pechstein himself was happy to capitalize on his new prominence. His asking prices for the five paintings exhibited at the New Secession exhibition in early 1911 ranged between 1,000 and 2,000 Marks, and were significantly higher than those of his colleagues.248 240 Undated letter Pechstein to Heckel (first half of September 1910), in AM, 1964/154. 241 See Hoffmann, Leben und Schaffen, 287. 242 See Katalog der Neuen Secession Berlin. Ausstellung von Werken der Zeichnenden Künste (Berlin, 1910). 243 Paul Westheim, ‘Berlin’, undated newspaper clipping in Günter Krüger papers, Berlin. 244 Ibid. 245 For other such reviews, see Karl Scheffler, ‘Ausstellungen – Berlin’, in Kunst und Künstler 9 (1910), 152; Kunst für Alle 26 (1910), 88; Kunstchronik NF 22 (1910/11), 14 October 1910, 19–20. See also the reviews listed in ‘Verzeichnis der Ausstellungen’, 402. 246 E.g. BZ am Mittag, 17 February 1911: ‘Moderner Hexentanz’; ‘Kunstsalon “Zum wilden Mann”’, undated newspaper clipping in Günter Krüger papers, Berlin. 247 See for example Maria Franck in a letter to her partner Franz Marc, 24 March 1911: ‘But with Nolde and Tappert I cannot get rid off some suspicion, most of the other appeared quite immature – still the best of them is Pechstein.’ In Wolfgang Macke (ed.), August Macke, Franz Marc. Briefwechsel (Cologne, 1964), 49. 248 Other members of the New Secession demanded prices between 200 and 750 Marks. Only Emil Nolde was able to charge as much as Pechstein, or even more. See Katalog der Neuen Secession Berlin. III. Ausstellung Gemälde Februar – April 1911 (Berlin, 1911), unpaginated. Pechstein sold no works though, see letter Pechstein to Friedrich Plietzsch,

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Still, Pechstein did not actually sell any paintings until much later that year, and his finances remained poor. ‘Unfortunately I am hardly eating anything and I am therefore almost always tired’, he wrote in a letter to Heckel.249 In his memoirs he recalled how he tried to dull his hunger pangs with coffee and tobacco, to the extent that one day he broke down in his studio in the winter of 1910/11. His studio neighbour, the sculptor Richard Scheibe, found him and helped him recover.250 Pechstein’s poor financial situation proved no obstacle, however, to marrying Lotte Kaprolat in late March 1911, two months after she had turned eighteen.251 The two were even able to go on a short honeymoon to Italy courtesy of the Italian government, which had invited Pechstein – probably as a former award-holder of the Saxon Rome Prize – to attend the fiftieth anniversary celebrations of the foundation of Italy in Rome.252 Upon their return he threw his last pennies into the front garden of their house, declaring that they would now take up the struggle with poverty together. This, at least, was the version he gave many decades later in his memoirs.253 In fact, throughout this time he profited from a steady flow of income from his decorative works, among them designs for stained glass windows produced for Gottfried Heinersdorff.254 After his return from Italy, Pechstein managed to borrow money from his friend, the architect Bruno Schneidereit, in order to spend the summer in Nidden, on the Curonian Peninsula, like in 1909.255 He and Lotte stayed there from mid-June to mid-September. Having Lotte around made a lot of difference. She looked after the daily chores so that Pechstein could devote himself exclusively to his work. More importantly, he now had a model which enabled him to paint nudes.256 He revelled in the experience

249 250 251 252 253 254 255 256

24 May 1911, in AM, 1963/298 in which he writes that he had yet to sell a painting this year. In the same letter he stated that he would be very happy to sell some of his oils for 400 to 500 Marks. Undated letter Pechstein to Heckel (first half of September 1910), in AM, 1964/154. Pechstein, Erinnerungen, 46. They married on 29 March 1911, see Max Pechstein Stammbuch, 7, in private collection. Pechstein, Erinnerungen, 48. See also postcard Pechstein to Heckel, 12 April 1911, from Rome, in AM, 1964/124; and postcard Pechstein to Eduard Plietzsch, 22 April 1911, from Rome, in AM, 1970/69. Pechstein, Erinnerungen, 48. He does, however, get the address of their home wrong – in April 1911 Pechstein still lived in Durlacher Strasse 14, not in the Offenbacher Strasse in Friedenau as stated here. He moved there only at the end of April 1912. The correspondence with Heinersdorff is is kept in the Archiv Puhl & Wagner, Gottfried Heinersdorff, Berlinische Galerie, Landesmuseum für Moderne Kunst, Fotografie und Architektur, Berlin (APWGH). Pechstein, Erinnerungen, 48. See also letter Pechstein to Heckel, 21 September 1911, in AM, 1979/89, in which he writes ‘the summer has plunged me into debt’. Pechstein, Erinnerungen, 50. For the length of his stay in Nidden, see postcard Pechstein to Heckel, 10 June 1911, in AM, 1964/121 (‘I am leaving already tomorrow, [for]

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of art, sex and nature, as evident in a letter written to his friend Gerbig in early July: Hurra dear Alex, into the cold sea, floundered about, bathed and then […] painted, and the dear sun is laughing heartily above, [it] is worth living, […] I could chop my paintings with an axe like wood that’s how strong I feel […], even if we have no money at least we know how to live, the [next] winter is going to give me enough of a crack on the nut so that I am not getting overly enthusiastic, but we are not there yet, so let’s dance […] and jump, everything now is copulating, the roebuck is after the doe, and above our window the cock pigeon is cooing, on the street the rooster is strutting among his harem, so why not we humans, after all it is the sensuality within us which creates [and] we owe it our lives and our work.257

His work reflected this exuberant celebration of sensuality, as evident in his painting of Lotte as a reclining nude at the beach. Her head tilted backwards, as if enjoying the caressing warmth of the sun, eyes closed and legs astride, Lotte is depicted with the rich, voluptuous sexiness of a South Sea beauty. The left hand with which she covers her nakedness attracts the viewer’s gaze to her vulval area, located at the centre of the painting. It was a masterful declaration of love. The glowing shades of yellow, red and purple, the contrasting blue of the water, and the use of thick black outlines showed the influence of Gauguin, whose works Pechstein had encountered once more in a big exhibition at Cassirer’s only a few months previously, in February.258 This influence was even more apparent in one of his portraits of Lotte at the beach. Generally, the works produced this summer were more carefully composed than those created during the previous summer in Moritzburg. His nudes acquired a new plasticity, giving them weight and energy. The use of clear contours signified a move away from the sketchiness of the Brücke style of 1910.259 Pechstein was very satisfied with his output. In autumn 1910, he had still complained to Heckel that he thought his Moritzburg works were ‘unfortunately totally without energy’.260 Now he thought he had managed to capture the unity of man

257 258

259

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Nidden/East Prussia’); and postcard Pechstein to Heckel, 15 September 1911, in AM, 1964/131 (‘we are now happy back in Berlin’). Letter Pechstein to Gerbig, 6 July 1911, quoted in Knop, ‘Briefliche Mitteilungen’, 330. See the exhibition review by Karl Scheffler, ‘Kunstausstellungen’, in Kunst und Künstler 9 (1910/1911), 364. This was the same exhibition which had run in parallel with the Brücke exhibition at Dresden’s gallery Arnold in September 1910, which Pechstein had not been able to attend then. For discussions of Pechstein’s stylistic development in 1911, see Moeller, Pechstein, 52–53; Kathrin Elvers-Švamberk, ‘Zwischen den Meeren. Pechsteins Niddener Akte’, in Saarlandmuseum Saarbrücken (ed.), Max Pechstein. Liegender Akt (Nidden) (Berlin, 2007), 10–19. Undated letter Pechstein to Heckel (first half of September 1910), in AM, 1964/154.

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Fig. 2.29: Reclining Nude (1911/55), oil on canvas, 70 × 80 cm, Stiftung Saarländischer Kulturbesitz, Saarlandmuseum, Saarbrücken.

and nature in a stronger and more mature way. ‘This summer of 1911 intoxicated me from beginning to end’, he enthused many decades later, in his memoirs. ‘I had many uplifting hours of work which sent shivers down my spine.’261 With over sixty paintings, it was also one of the most productive periods in Pechstein’s life. Before leaving for Nidden, Pechstein had submitted an application for a teaching position at the new Decorative Arts School in Bromberg. At the end of July, he learned from the Director that his appointment was imminent. But the prospect now troubled Pechstein. He wrote to a friend: [I]t is so very secure that I am getting scared, because the Director has now written that he told the Ministry that I would not teach in the spirit of the new art […]. But that is deceitful and patronising, I will simply, well what? it is so 261 Pechstein, Erinnerungen, 50.

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Fig. 2.30: On the Beach of Nidden (1911/65), oil on canvas, 50 × 65 cm, Staatliche Museen zu Berlin, Nationalgalerie.

difficult, they offer free studio and sufficient salary perhaps one can get by after all, but on the other hand I would rather not leave Berlin especially now. One thing is for sure, I am not very keen on it.262

A few weeks later he had made up his mind not to go.263 Instead, he focused his energies on the New Secession which was now facing serious competition in the form of the so-called ‘Jury-free Exhibition’, an enterprise supported by Georg Tappert, one of the New Secession’s co-founders and executive members. In June, Pechstein was still considering organizing Brücke’s participation in the project. But when it became that the ‘Jury-Free Exhibition’ was going to be staged in parallel to the New Secession show in November and December 1911, Pechstein angrily changed his mind. ‘Tappert really is a schemer’ he complained to Heckel.264 He probably feared that the new organisation would divert attention from 262 Letter Pechstein to Friedrich Plietzsch, 27 July 1911, in AM, 1963/297. 263 See postcard Pechstein to Friedrich Plietzsch, 7 August 1911, in private collection. 264 Postcard Pechstein to Heckel, 12 July 1911, in AM, 1964/150. See also postcard Pechstein to Heckel, 22 June 1911, in AM, 1962/180a.

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the New Secession which Brücke was dominating at this moment in time. Upon his return to Berlin, Pechstein threw himself into the preparations for the next New Secession exhibition. With the participation of the Neue Künstlervereinigung München (New Artists’ Association Munich), which numbered Kandinsky, Jawlensky and Franz Marc among its members, and some Prague artists, Pechstein was convinced that the coming show would ‘have a strong impact’.265 Again, like for the first and third exhibition, Pechstein’s print of Lotte as a kneeling archer was used for the design of the exhibition poster and catalogue.266 The fourth New Secession exhibition opened in mid-November. According to Karl Scheffler, it was the best exhibition so far.267 Pechstein displayed seven of his most recent works, more than anyone else. And again, critics showered him with praise. ‘The strongest phenomenon and at the same time the centre of the entire circle is once more Max Pechstein, whose Morning in the Dunes appears like a robust, non-degenerate Gauguin […]’, commented the Vossische Zeitung.268 The Kunstchronik described him as the ‘eminently talented leader of the Berlin group’.269 But while Pechstein probably delighted in this positive feedback, other members of the New Secession began to be resentful. Tensions reached a climax in early December. At the annual meeting of the New Secession, Pechstein again stood for the office of Chairman, and suffered a humiliating defeat: apart from his Brücke colleagues, all the other members present opted for Emil Nolde. Pechstein withdrew from the association in a huff, and was followed by the other Brücke artists.270 In a circular sent to a number of art journals and Berlin newspapers, they stated that Brücke – ‘the leading group of the New Secession’ – had felt obliged to leave ‘to be able to carry out the artistic aims of the new movement purely and forcefully.’271 The split in the New Secession generated considerable press attention. Many commentators agreed with the Brücke’s self-description and wrote that the loss of the New

265 See letter Pechstein to Heckel, 21 September 1911, in AM, 1970/89. 266 See L 138, in Krüger, Das druckgraphische Werk, 133; Katalog der Neuen Secession e.V. IV. Ausstellung. Gemälde. 18. Nov. 1911–31. Jan. 1912 (Berlin, 1911). 267 Karl Scheffler, ‘Kunstausstellungen. Berlin.’, in Kunst und Künstler 10 (1912), 1 January 1912, 218. See also Daemgen, ‘Neue Secession’, 146–147. 268 Paul Fechter, ‘Ausstellung der Neuen Secession’, in Vossische Zeitung, 18 November 1911. 269 Kunstchronik NF 23 (1911/12), 8 December 1911, 122. 270 Letter Schmidt-Rottluff to Max Sauerlandt, 13 December 1931, quoted in Gunther Thiem, Armin Zweite (eds.), Karl Schmidt-Rottluff. Retrospektive (Munich, 1989), 81–82. See also Daemgen, ‘The Neue Secession’, 145–148. 271 Berliner Tageblatt, no. 618, 5 December 1911, quoted in Daemgen, ‘The Neue Secession’, 149.

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Secession’s ‘best forces’ and ‘most talented’ members called into question the future existence of the association.272 Why exactly relations soured within the New Secession in late 1911 is impossible to reconstruct. Pechstein was certainly aware that his position in Berlin was not uncontroversial. In a letter from summer 1911 he commented on his friend Gerbig’s assumption that he probably had a lot of friends in Berlin: ‘on the contrary, it is the same old story, the moment there is conceptual progress they bitch about me, […] it is very hard to make friends, as I am sometimes too harsh, without intending it, but I also demand that people accept me as I am.’273 Although decisions on submissions for the New Secession’s exhibitions were made collectively within the executive, many artists assumed that Pechstein had the final say.274 Conflicts about the selection of works, and even about which works to reproduce in the catalogue, had plagued the association right from the beginning.275 By late 1911, Pechstein’s undisguised championing of Brücke within the New Secession had caused a considerable amount of bad blood. According to Schmidt-Rottluff’s recollections, other New Secession members resented the fact that Pechstein often forced through all his demands by threatening that Brücke would leave the group otherwise. Apparently they also felt that he behaved as if he was the sole creator of the new artistic direction.276 ‘Pechstein is the small Napoleon of the Berlin art scene’, Franz Marc described the mood in a letter to Kandinsky in December 1911.277 There is no evidence in the surviving correspondence that Pechstein did indeed stylize himself as the leader and creator of a new artistic move272 Curt Glaser, ‘Berliner Ausstellungen’, in Kunst für Alle 27, no. 15, 1 May 1912, 361; Ewald Bender, ‘Die “Neue Secession’”, in Deutsche Kunst und Dekoration 29, no. 6, January 1912, 352; quoted in Daemgen, ‘The Neue Secession’, 150–151. 273 Letter Pechstein to Gerbig, 6 July 1911, from Nidden, in private collection, quoted in Knop, ‘Briefliche Mitteilungen’, 330. 274 For perceptions of Pechstein’s leading role among jurors, see Wilhelm Morgner’s comment on his submissions to the third New Secession exhibition, which he now considered kitsch: ‘Afterwards I was very annoyed [with myself]. Pechstein and the other jurors will have considered me a proper blockhead.’ In letter Morgner to Tappert, 27 November 1911, in Knupp-Uhlenhaut (ed.), Morgner, 33. 275 See Pechstein’s comment from April 1910 that he had ‘a lot of trouble’ on his hands, as ‘these chaps are always after their own personal advantage’, in postcard Pechstein to Heckel, 25 April 1910, in AM, 1964/115. For the case of the Czech artist Nowak which caused bad blood in autumn 1911, see Daemgen, ‘The Neue Secession’, 145–146. 276 See letter Schmidt-Rottluff to Max Sauerlandt, 13 December 1931, quoted in Thiem, Zweite (ed.), Schmidt-Rottluff, 81–82. Franz Marc, too, reported that Pechstein ‘sometimes wanted to violate the group’, and added that he would have tried the same had he stayed in the NKVM. See letter Marc to Kandinsky, mid-February 1912, in Klaus Lankheit (ed.), Wassily Kandinsky – Franz Marc. Briefwechsel. Mit Briefen von und an Gabriele Münter und Maria Marc (Munich, 1983), 133. 277 Letter Marc to Kandinsky, 30 December 1911, in Lankheit (ed.), Briefwechsel, 94.

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ment. It was probably the labelling by journalists and the fact that Pechstein was responsible for the corporate design of the New Secession which created this impression among his colleagues. However, the accusation that Pechstein resorted to a kind of blackmail to achieve his goals rings truer. There is little question that the Brücke group gave him a lot of clout within the New Secession which he was very willing to exploit. In this, he had the full support of Heckel and Kirchner, who were always keen to hear how things were going with the New Secession.278 In fact, starting with Pechstein’s success at the Berlin Secession in 1909, the group’s focus increasingly shifted towards Berlin. Even before Pechstein’s breakthrough at the Secession, his Brücke colleagues had visited him repeatedly to attend exhibitions in the German capital.279 From autumn 1909 – and particularly once that Pechstein had moved into his spacious accommodation in Durlacher Strasse 14 – their visits became more frequent still.280 In May 1910, through the New Secession, they got to know Otto Mueller, a Silesian who – like Pechstein – had studied at the Academy of Fine Arts in Dresden. Mueller was also based in Berlin, and he joined Brücke later that year.281 Like Pechstein, he advised his new friends to consider moving from Dresden to Berlin. Dresden appeared increasingly unattractive as a base for ambitious young artists by this point: income opportunities were limited and there existed precious little interest in modern art. The contrast with Berlin could not have been starker. Later in life, when interviewed by the art dealer Roman Norbert Ketterer, Heckel explained the reasons for the Brücke members move to Berlin solely with Pechstein’s influence: A very important reason for myself were the news from Pechstein, who described Berlin to us as […] a city that could potentially provide income, whereas in Dresden we had hardly any opportunity to make a living […]. Pechstein’s news from Berlin, or his reports when coming to Dresden, were so stimulating and

278 See, for example, postcard by Kirchner and Heckel to Mascha Mueller, 17 February 1911, quoted in Moeller (ed.), Expressionistische Grüsse, 216. 279 In early January 1909, Kirchner stayed with Pechstein for a Matisse exhibition at Cassirer, see Dube-Heynig, Postkarten und Briefe an Erich Heckel,10, 213; in early March 1909, Schmidt-Rottluff visited with Rosa Schapire for a Marees exhibition, see postcard Pechstein to Heckel, from Berlin to Rome, 10 March 1909, in AM, 1964/140; in early April, Kirchner visited Pechstein again, see postcard Pechstein to Heckel, 9 April 1909, from Berlin, in AM, 1964/111. 280 See, for example, letter Kirchner to Heckel, undated (probably December 1909), in Dube-Heynig, Postkarten und Briefe an Erich Heckel, 62–69, 229. 281 Mueller participated in the Arnold exhibition in Dresden in September 1910 still as a guest, and probably joined Brücke in winter 1910/11. See Andreas Hüneke, ‘Das “selbstverständliche” Mitglied der “Brücke”’, in Johann Georg Prinz von Hohenzollern, MarioAndreas Lüttichau (eds.), Otto Mueller (Munich, 2003), 47–51.

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enthusiastic, everything appeared much more positive, so that we told ourselves: if we stay in Dresden, we will never secure any possible source of income.282

By autumn 1911, Pechstein’s successful existence in Berlin had convinced Kirchner, Heckel and Schmidt-Rottluff to move there themselves. In Kirchner’s case, Pechstein initiated the move to Berlin directly. After declining a teaching position in Bromberg in summer 1911, Pechstein had the idea of establishing his own private art school in Berlin. Numerous artists ran their own private art schools at that time, and Pechstein’s plan may have been inspired by the example of his New Secession colleague Tappert, who had recently founded the ‘School for Free and Applied Art’.283 Kirchner, who had tried unsuccessfully to run his own school in Dresden a few years earlier, was very willing to join as a partner as he hoped that this would end his chronic shortage of money.284 In late October 1911 he arrived in Berlin and moved into the studio right next to Pechstein’s, in Durlacherstrasse 14. He brought with him an advertising prospectus and a poster for their school which they called MUIM Institut, with MUIM standing for ‘Moderner Unterricht in Malerei’ (modern lessons in painting). They offered courses in painting, graphic art and sculpture, as well as in applied arts like textiles, stained glass windows, metal work, and architectural painting. And yet it was not simply meant to be an art school like many others which then existed in Berlin. ‘Modern life is the departure point of work’, the prospectus declared. ‘Conversations will give insights into the new art movements.’ They promised ‘lessons with new methods in a new way’, life drawings, and ‘in summer open air nudes at the sea’.285 Kirchner was hopeful that they would manage to generate ‘a good following and to convince many new friends of the value of our cause’.286 Not everyone, however, approved of the new art institute. Somehow the 282 In an interview in 1958, in Roman Norbert Ketterer, Dialoge. Bildende Kunst – Kunsthandel (Stuttgart, 1988), 50. This statement tallies with a comment from Kirchner a few weeks after his move to Berlin: ‘fight for existence very hard here, but opportunities also greater’, in letter Kirchner to Luise Schiefler, 5 November 1911, quoted in Hüneke, ‘Verzeichnis der Brücke-Korrespondenz’, 337. 283 Numerous artists ran their own private art schools at that time. Pechstein’s plan may have been inspired by the example of his New Secession colleague Tappert, who had recently founded the ‘School for Free and Applied Art’, together with Moritz Melzer, see Knupp-Uhlenhaut (ed.), Morgner, 6–7; Gesa Bartholomeyczik (ed.), Georg Tappert: deutscher Expressionist (Nuremberg, 2005), 10. 284 Ernst Ludwig Kirchner, ‘Die Arbeit E. L. Kirchners’ (from 1925 or 1926), reprinted in E. W. Kornfeld, Ernst Ludwig Kirchner. Dresden Berlin Davos (Bern, 1979), 335. For Kirchner’s Dresden art school, see Hoffmann, Leben und Schaffen, 135. See also Christian Saehrendt, ‘Ernst Ludwig Kirchners Selbststilisierung als Vertreter der Dresdener Armutsbohème’, in Dresdner Kunstblätter (2003), no. 3, 154–161. 285 See WV 56 and WV 57, in Hoffmann, Leben und Schaffen, 294–295. 286 Letter Kirchner to Luise Schiefler, 5 November 1911, in Henze (ed.), Briefwechsel, 48.

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Fig. 2.31: Poster for the MUIM Institute in Durlacher Str. 14 in Berlin-Wilmersdorf, 1911, by Ernst Ludwig Kirchner. Woodcut, 86.9 × 54.6 cm (Dube ELK H 716). Photograph: Roman März, Berlin.

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MUIM prospectus came to the attention of Anton von Werner, director of the Royal Academy of Fine Arts in Berlin. He was outraged about the ‘shameless’ image on the prospectus and wrote an incensed letter to the Minister of Education and Religious Affairs. ‘All our efforts to raise and educate youth towards artistic work and awareness are both useless and in vain in the face of opportunities like this Muim-Institute with its […] “modern lessons, through viewings and experience, also for non-artists”’, Werner complained, ‘because this weed overgrows and chokes all healthy life and always diminishes us in the name of the freedom of art.’287 The prospect of non-artists attending life drawing sessions seemed sufficiently suspect to pass on the matter to the police with the directive to investigate whether anything immoral was going on at the MUIM Institute. A police spy contacted Kirchner under pretence of considering an enrolment. But by late February 1912, the case was dropped because so far only a few life drawing courses had been held, ‘with limited attendance’, and the police did not wish to create an unnecessary debate about artistic freedom.288 In fact, as far as is known the MUIM institute only ever had two students, despite numerous advertisements placed in Herwarth Walden’s art journal Der Sturm. The monthly fee charged by Pechstein and Kirchner – 60 Marks, almost twice as much as charged by some of the established art schools – probably scared away many potential students.289 For Kirchner who lived ‘in not very auspicious pecuniary circumstances’, as the police spy reported to his superiors in January 1912, the MUIM failure constituted a bitter disappointment for which he blamed Pechstein.290 He later claimed that Pechstein had ‘lured’ him to Berlin under the false pretence of being able to attract students from among his circle of acquaintances.291 Living next door to Pechstein made matters worse. Through his decorative works throughout Berlin, Pechstein enjoyed a steady (if still meagre) flow of income. But in the second half of 1911 the situation began to change.292 Kirchner arrived in Berlin just at the time when the appreciation of Pech287 Letter Anton von Werner to Minister of Religious and Educational Affairs, 7 December 1911, reprinted in Roland März, (ed.), Expressionisten: Die Avantgarde in Deutschland 1905–1920. 125 Jahre Sammlungen der Nationalgalerie 1861–1986 (Berlin, 1986), 103. 288 Police report from 26 February 1912, to Minister of Education and Religious Affairs, reprinted in März (ed.), Expressionisten, 103–104. See also Sherwin Simmons, ‘Ernst Kirchner’s Streetwalkers: Art, Luxury and Immorality in Berlin, 1913–16’, in The Art Bulletin 82 (March 2000), no. 1, 117–148, here 122–123. 289 Hanna Strzoda, ‘Das MUIM-Institut’, in Magdalena M. Moeller (ed.), Ernst Ludwig Kirchner in Berlin (Munich, 2008), 59–60; Hoffmann, Leben und Schaffen, 137, ftn. 413. 290 For the comment on Kirchner’s financial situation, see police report 23 January 1912, reprinted in März (ed.), Expressionisten, 103. 291 Kirchner, ‘Die Arbeit E. L. Kirchners’, 335. 292 Osborn, Pechstein, 99; Paul Fechter, An der Wende der Zeit. Menschen und Begegnungen (Gütersloh, 1949), 318.

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stein by art collectors was beginning to take off – not least because of the growing awareness of his technical skills as a decorative artist. One of the stained glass windows which he had designed for Gottfried Heinersdorff, for example, caught the attention of the Darmstadt-based art collector Alexander Koch, publisher of the art journal Deutsche Kunst und Dekoration.293 Over the winter of 1911/12, Koch bought three of Pechstein’s recent Nidden paintings, and commissioned a lengthy article exclusively devoted to Pechstein which appeared in March 1912. This article in Germany’s leading arts and crafts journal generated further demand, and by the end of 1912 several of the paintings reproduced in the journal had been sold.294 The increasing interest in Pechstein’s art did not escape the attention of Paul Cassirer who staged an exhibition with a small collection of Pechstein’s Nidden paintings in his gallery in December 1911.295 For Pechstein, the exhibition in one of the country’s leading commercial art galleries signalled the end of his financial hardship. Even worse than Pechstein’s increasing financial success – at least in Kirchner’s eyes – was the acclaim that he enjoyed by art critics. In Kirchner’s view, there was no shadow of a doubt that he was himself the group’s creative genius. But once he arrived in Berlin, he had to confront the fact that many critics considered Pechstein the better and more promising artist. According to Emil Nolde, Pechstein was ‘every journalists’ darling’, something he put down to his ‘youthfulness and the charm of his personality’.296 In fact, over the years, Pechstein had met and befriended numerous art historians and art critics. In winter 1910/11, for example, he got to know Eduard (‘Ede’) Plietzsch, curatorial assistant of Wilhelm von Bode at the Kaiser-Friedrich-Museum in Berlin.297 Plietzsch introduced 293 For Koch’s request for permission for a full-page reproduction of the window in his journal see letter Gottfried Heinersdorff to Pechstein, 1 February 1910, copy in Günter Krüger papers, Berlin. It then appeared as part of the article Anton Jaumann, ‘Ländliche Häuser von Heinrich Straumer – Berlin’, in Deutsche Kunst und Dekoration 27 (1910/11), 329. 294 Robert Breuer, ‘Max Pechstein – Berlin’, in Deutsche Kunst und Dekoration 29 (1911/12), no. 6, 422–431. Koch’s paintings are reproduced with the comment ‘in Darmstadt private collection’. For ‘Orange Bowl’ (reproduced on page 431 under the title ‘The Bowl’), see letter Pechstein to Käti Peters (Berlin), 2 September 1912, in private collection; ‘The Lagoon’ (reproduced on page 434) found its way into the collection of Ludwig and Rosy Fischer, who probably bought it at the gallery Ludwig Schames in Frankfurt, in October 1912. 295 Die Kunst 25 (1911/12), 220; Cicerone 4 (1912), 22. 296 Emil Nolde, Jahre der Kämpfe (Berlin, 1934), 197. Paul Fechter also commented on Pechstein’s winning personality: ‘Pechstein, with his radiant, exuberant vitality, [and] with his cheerful, blue, often wonderfully surprised artist’s eyes […]’. See Fechter, An der Wende der Zeit, 319. 297 Plietzsch had been involved in the so-called ‘Altenburg affair’ in summer 1909. The Brücke’s travelling exhibition caused such a scandal in the provincial town of Altenburg

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him to a number of other art historians, among them his brother Friedrich, assistant at the Kunsthalle Mannheim, who arranged several art sales for Pechstein and a big solo-exhibition in spring 1912; and Paul Ferdinand Schmidt, assistant to the Director of the Art Museum in Magdeburg and a reviewer for the art journal Cicerone.298 Through Plietzsch Pechstein also befriended Paul Fechter, art critic of the Vossische Zeitung. They had once met briefly in Dresden, when Fechter was still writing for the Dresdner Neueste Nachrichten: they encountered each other stark naked in the hall of a Dresden brewery waiting for their army medical examination, and had struck up a lively conversation.299 Over the years, Fechter, Plietzsch and Pechstein were to become very close friends. Another art historian whom Pechstein befriended was Curt Glaser, assistant at the Berlin Print Cabinet and a regular contributor to various art journals and daily newspapers.300 In 1912, he and his wife Elsa considered for a while installing several stained glass windows by Pechstein in their Berlin flat; later that year, they bought four of his oils.301 Fritz Stahl, the art critic of the liberal

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(Thuringia) in July 1909 that it was closed down. Plietzsch, a native of Altenburg, was called upon as an expert to judge on the quality of the artworks, and to everyone’s surprise came out with a spirited defence of Brücke, see Eduard Plietzsch, “…heiter ist die Kunst“. Erlebnisse mit Künstlern und Kennern (Gütersloh, 1955), 57–60. See also letter Pechstein to Eduard Plietzsch, 17 January 1911, reproduced and commented in Gerhard Wietek, Gemalte Künstlerpost. Karten und Briefe deutscher Künstler aus dem 20. Jahrhundert (Munich, 1977), 56–57. For Friedrich Plietzsch’s efforts on Pechstein’s part, see letters Pechstein to Friedrich Plietzsch, 24 May 1911 (in AM, 1963/298a), 23 June 1911, from Nidden (in AM, 1963/295a,b), 27 July 1911, from Nidden (in AM, 1963/297a), and 12 December 1911, from Berlin (in private collection). See also letter Plietzsch to Heinersdorff, 15 September 1912 (establishing contact with potential buyers for stained glass windows); letter Plietzsch to Heinersdorff, 19 September 1912 (with request for sketches for windows), postcard to Heinersdorff, 4 October 1912, with name of commissioner, and letter Heinersdorff to Pechstein, 29 November 1912, confirming the commission. For Paul Ferdinand Schmidt, see letter Pechstein to Eduard Plietzsch, 14 January 1912, in Brücke Museum, 18/70 a-b. For a very positive review by Schmidt, see Cicerone 4 (1912), 230. In 1919, Schmidt was appointed Director of the Dresden City Art Museum, where he built up one of Germany’s leading collections of Expressionist art. Paul Fechter, Menschen und Zeiten. Begegnungen aus fünf Jahrzehnten (Berlin, 1949), 147; Fechter, An der Wende der Zeit, 315–318. However, somewhere else Fechter stated that it had been Kirchner whom he met in the brewery who subsequently introduced him to Pechstein, see Paul Fechter, ‘Malen ist für ihn ein anderes Wort für Leben’, in Neue Zeitung (Munich), 29 December 1951. Pechstein got to know Glaser at the Secession exhibition of 1909, see Pechstein’s answers to various questions sent to him by the art historian Christian Töwe (dated 20 January 1947), copy in Günter Krüger papers, Berlin. For Glaser more generally, see Andreas Strobl, Curt Glaser: Kunsthistoriker – Kunstkritiker – Sammler. Eine deutsch-jüdische Biographie (Cologne, Weimar, Vienna 2006). See letter Heinersdorff to Pechstein, 17 April 1912, and letter Glaser to Heinersdorff, 7 September 1912, copies in Archiv Krüger; letter Pechstein to Elsa Glaser, 24 October

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Berliner Tageblatt, probably encountered Pechstein in the stained glass window workshop of Gottfried Heinersdorff in the winter of 1909/10.302 Stahl did not particularly like Pechstein’s paintings, but he admired his stained glass window designs and considered him a great talent.303 He introduced Pechstein to the writer and theatre director Felix Holländer who took a great interest in Pechstein’s work, and bought three of his paintings. Holländer in turn introduced Pechstein to the artistic director of the Deutsches Theater, Max Reinhardt, who commissioned him with the stage design for a production of Friedrich Hebbel’s Genoveva in the winter of 1911/12.304 As long as Brücke was still a relatively unknown association of young artists hoping to establish themselves in the art world, their joint objective – and their shared artistic beliefs – provided a basis stable enough to tolerate the strain caused by occasional arguments, individual jealousies, and rivalries within the group. But once they succeeded in establishing the group as a recognizable feature of Germany’s contemporary art scene, whoever was perceived by art critics as Brücke’s leading artist was going to have a competitive edge over the other group members. By December 1911, after Kirchner, Heckel and Schmidt-Rottluff had all moved to Berlin, the question of Pechstein’s exposed position proved a considerable challenge to the other group members. Group solidarity meant that they had to leave the New Secession with Pechstein, although with their departure they were foregoing what had been up to now their only exhibition opportunity in Berlin. This was not true of Pechstein himself, whose prospects looked comparatively bright and who seemed happy to have rid himself of the responsibilities taken on for the New Secession. ‘Thank god that I am done with part of this gang, [I] feel very relieved and have now more time for my work, too’, he wrote to Eduard Plietzsch’s brother, Friedrich, towards the end of 1911.305 He probably thought of his Brücke colleagues as that part of the ‘gang’ which he still had to deal with. Indeed, tensions at this time were already running high. After their departure from the

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1912, in private collection. Pechstein’s diary entry for 24 October 1912 reads ‘4 paintings to Frau E. Glaser, Speyerstr. 21’. Diary in private collection. See the invitations in letter Heinersdorff to Fritz Stahl, 8 November 1909, and letter Heinersdorff to Fritz Stahl, 14 January 1910, copies in Archiv Krüger. See his review in Berliner Tageblatt, 21 February 1913. For some reason, the production was never staged. See Pechstein, Erinnerungen, 47. In his memoirs, Pechstein placed his first encounter with Felix Holländer, and his stage design for Max Reinhardt’s Genoveva in the ‘winter of 1910/11’ – in fact, it was the winter of 1911/12, as evident in his correspondence of the time. See, for example, postcard Pechstein to Dr Emil Schaeffer, 14 January 1912, in private collection; and letter Pechstein to Gerbig, 16 February 1912, in private collection. Pechstein letter to Friedrich Plietzsch, 12 December 1911, in private collection. [GottLob, dass ich einen Teil dieser Blase los bin, fühle mich sehr befreit und verfüge nun auch über mehr Zeit für meine Arbeiten]

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New Secession, Kirchner and the others demanded that in future no individual Brücke member was allowed to join other art associations – like the Berlin Secession – unless the Brücke group was admitted collectively.306 Pechstein, however, felt rather daunted by the outlook of being chained to Brücke for the foreseeable future. ‘I have quit the N.[ew] Secession and now I am meant to work full power for Brücke, [I] would so much like to be on my own, and will have to be so in future, [because] I am using up too much energy for such things’, he complained in a letter to Gerbig in early 1912.307 Kirchner, Heckel and Schmidt-Rottluff have now been in Berlin for some time and I am amazed about the change of their inner selves or perhaps I just did not know them [properly] before. I am struck by their blatant egotism again and again, it totally puts me off Berlin, and so I will probably leave this city to them in due course and try my luck elsewhere.308

Some of the frustration which Pechstein felt with his colleagues probably originated at the occasion of the joint production of the portfolio of prints which passive members of Brücke received for their annual membership fee. In 1912, the portfolio was to be devoted to works by Pechstein.309 In his memoirs, Pechstein emphasized the communal nature of the exercise: When I say jointly I mean that we printed all graphic works, woodcuts, lithographs and etchings ourselves. As was our custom, part of the fees received from passive members of Brücke was used to pay for a final dinner. As always we had self-made apple-rice and hamburgers. With it a gin distilled by Heckel.310

But at the time, Pechstein was rather disillusioned with his Brücke colleagues. Quarrels and discussions about their works had always characterized the Brücke’s joint working sessions. Now, with the failure of MUIM standing between Pechstein and Kirchner, such arguments acquired angry overtones. ‘[W]hen I tell my professed friends of something about which I feel enthusiastic, it will be refuted, picked to pieces and after 14 days [-] wham [-] copied’, Pechstein told Gerbig in February 1912.311 Having Kirchner living next door who always saw himself as the innovator and 306 See Heckel’s recollections, in Ketterer (ed.), Dialoge, 48. In his controversial Brücke chronicle of 1913, Kirchner focussed more narrowly on the Secession: ‘They gave each other the promise that they would only exhibit collectively in the “Sezession” in Berlin.’ See Hoffmann, Leben und Schafffen, 308, WV 64f. 307 Letter Pechstein to Gerbig, 16 February 1912, in private collection. 308 Ibid. 309 For the so-called Jahresgaben, see Janina Dahlmanns, ‘Jahresgaben’, in Brücke-Archiv 22 (2007), 80–114; Hoffmann, Leben und Schaffen, 115–121. 310 Pechstein, Erinnerungen, 46. 311 Letter Pechstein to Gerbig, 16 February 1912, in private collection. The original sentence

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‘teacher’ within Brücke did nothing to improve Pechstein’s mood.312 In early March 1912, he told his friend Gerbig how much he was looking forward to being financially independent and on his own in the not too distant future: ‘I expect to be struggling with some difficulties for another year but then I hope I will be a little freer and [able] to try to have my time just for myself and not to waste it with potboilers.’313 The final Brücke exhibition in which Pechstein participated opened in the gallery Gurlitt in Berlin in early April 1912. The gallery, run by the art dealer Wolfgang Gurlitt, was one of Berlin’s leading exhibition venues for contemporary art. Ever since early 1910, Pechstein had tried to convince Gurlitt to host a Brücke exhibition and after being declined numerous times he eventually won him round.314 It was the first group exhibition Brücke had in Berlin and – with the exception of their exhibition in Dresden’s gallery Arnold in September 1910 – it was the biggest show that the group ever staged. They filled two showrooms with eighty works, among them over forty paintings. Once again critics singled out Pechstein for their praise. In Kunst für Alle, Curt Glaser declared that Pechstein was ‘without question the most mature and most eminent’.315 Fechter proclaimed in the Vossische Zeitung that the group’s tendencies found their strongest expression in Pechstein.316 And it was not just friends or acquaintances like Glaser or Fechter who considered Pechstein primus inter pares.317 ‘In a properly artistic sense Pechstein, who is markedly different from the others, is by far and away the greatest’, wrote the critic of the Sozialistische Monatshefte who thought that Pechstein’s paintings were ‘better composed and more sensually formed’ than those of the other Brücke artists.318 This observa-

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reads: ‘[S]age ich meinen angeblichen Freunden, etwas, das mich begeistert, so wird es angefochten, zerpflückt, und nach 14 Tagen bums gemacht.’ For Kirchner’s self-perception as teacher of his colleagues, see Hoffmann, Leben und Schaffen, 135. Letter Pechstein to Gerbig, 5 March 1912, reproduced in Knop, ‘Briefliche Mitteilungen’, 332. Pechstein was introduced to Gurlitt by Curt Glaser (probably after his Secession success in 1909), see Pechstein’s answers to various questions sent to him by the art historian Christian Töwe (dated 20 January 1947), copy in Günter Krüger papers, Berlin. A first meeting occurred in January 1910, see postcard Pechstein to Heckel, 19 January 1910, in AM, 1964/137. For the numerous rejections by Gurlitt, see undated letter Pechstein to Heckel (February 1911), in AM, 1964/153. By summer 1911, Gurlitt seems to have agreed to staging the exhibition in spring 1912, see postcard Pechstein to Heckel, 20 July 1911, in AM, 1964/117. See also Hoffmann, Leben und Schaffen, 300–301. Curt Glaser, ‘Aus den Berliner Kunstsalons’, in Kunst für Alle 27 (1911/12), no. 16, 386. See Paul Fechter, in Vossische Zeitung, 6 April 1912. See also Hans Friedeberger who described Pechstein as ‘the strongest talent in the group’, in Cicerone 4 (1912), no. 8, 315; or Max Osborn, in Kunstchronik NF 23 (1911/12), no. 28 (24 May 1912), 444. Lisbeth Stern, ‘Brücke’, in Sozialistische Monatshefte (1912), no. 11 (6 June 1912), 702.

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tion is crucial for understanding contemporaries’ preference for Pechstein. Many opponents of modern art argued that these newfangled young artists were lacking the basic technical skills on which all great art was based, a view that even Liebermann shared at this point. Kirchner’s, Heckel’s and Schmidt-Rottluff’s paintings appeared awkward and ugly, and it was easy to mistake this for incompetence. Pechstein, on the other hand, allowed many reviewers who were favourably disposed towards post-impressionist experiments to praise his technical and compositional skills. A typical comment was that of Paul Ferdinand Schmidt, in a review of a Pechstein exhibition in Magdeburg which ran at the same time as the Gurlitt exhibition: ‘One can feel very clearly that the strongly colourful spontaneity of these paintings is backed by a skilled composition, especially in terms of the balancing of colour planes.’319 Franz Marc, who had visited the Brücke artists in the winter of 1911/12 and had become a great admirer of their work, also commented on the compositional quality of Pechstein’s work: ‘In outward appearance, Pechstein is more beautiful [than Kirchner and Heckel], the composition more apparent, in his weaker works too obviously so, but his strong works ring unfathomably like bells’, he enthused in a letter to Kandinsky.320 These contemporary views of Pechstein played a central role in his eventual break from Brücke. The break was not actively sought by him; it was the unintended (though probably anticipated) consequence of his decision in March 1912 to accept an invitation by Paul Cassirer to join the Berlin Secession. Cassirer was in charge of organizing the Secession’s spring exhibition after Lovis Corinth, Liebermann’s successor as the Secession’s President, had suffered a stroke in December 1911. Many critics deplored the fact that under Corinth the Secession had become even more conservative than under Liebermann, and that it had proved unable to accommodate the latest artistic trends.321 Cassirer wanted to remedy this and Pechstein – critically acclaimed as the ‘Führer of Brücke and the New Secession’ – was the obvious candidate to include for signalling the opening of the Secession to younger forces.322 For Pechstein, the offer to become 319 See Cicerone 4 (1912), no. 6, 230. See also Aya Soika, ‘Max Pechstein, der “Führer“ der Brücke: Anmerkungen zur zeitgenössischen Rezeption’, in Brücke-Archiv 23 (2008), 79–94, here 86–87. 320 Letter Franz Marc to Kandinsky, 4 February 1912, in Lankheit (ed.), Briefwechsel, 131. 321 Curt Glaser, ‘Die Geschichte der Berliner Secession’, in Kunst und Künstler 26 (1927/28), 14–20, 66–70. See also Paret, Berliner Secession, 308–312. 322 For the describtion of Pechstein, see Cicerone 4 (1912), no. 6, 230. In the exhibition’s opening speech, the sculptor August Kraus stated explicitly that this year the young generation was to ‘come into its own’ within the Secession. See Felix Lorenz, ‘Die Ausstellung der Berliner Sezession 1912’, in Kunstwelt 1 (1912), no. 2, 583. Pechstein participated in the exhibition with three oil paintings, not twelve as Peter Paret claims.

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a member of the Berlin Secession proved irresistible. The grandees of the Secession, like Liebermann, Slevogt, Corinth or Trübner, were paid five-figure sums for their paintings, and even less prominent members could easily charge ten times more than Pechstein was getting for his works at this moment in time.323 And Pechstein had more reason than ever to care about his long-term financial future since he and Lotte were expecting their first child.324 He was looking forward to it ‘with a joy and impatience as I have rarely experienced so intensely before’, he told his friend Gerbig in May.325 Pechstein did not apparently tell his Brücke colleagues personally of his decision to join the Berlin Secession.326 The other Brücke artists only found out upon the opening of the Secession exhibition in early April. It was a nasty shock for them. Decades later, Heckel was to describe it as a ‘breach of trust’ which weakened Brücke’s position, but also showed some understanding for Pechstein’s move.327 At the time, however, passions were running high. In a letter to the Hamburg collector Schiefler, Ada Nolde described it as a ‘unique disloyalty’ and reported that Schmidt-Rottluff wanted to meet up with the Noldes ‘because he hopes that we will ally ourselves against Pechstein, whom he hates and against whom he agitates violently.’328 Kirchner, too, was fuming. He was particularly irked by the fact that many reviewers saw Pechstein’s inclusion in the Secession as further evidence for his leading position within Brücke. He later claimed that Pechstein was thrown out of Brücke because of his initiative.329 In midMay, Schmidt-Rottluff, Kirchner, Mueller and Heckel sent out letters to a variety of colleagues and patrons to notify them of the formal ejection of Pechstein from Brücke.330 In fact, it proved to be the beginning of the end 323 For a good overview of price levels for a variety of Secession (and other) artists around this time, see Dorrmann, Arnhold, 345–359, Werner Doede, Die Berliner Secession. Berlin als Zentrum der deutschen Kunst von der Jahrhundertwende bis zum Ersten Weltkrieg (Frankfurt/Main, 1977), appendix E. 324 See letter Pechstein to Gerbig, 16 February 1912, in private collection. 325 Undated letter Pechstein to Gerbig, poststamped 15 May 1912, in private collection. 326 See also Heckel’s recollections, in Ketterer (ed.), Dialoge, 49, in which he states that Pechstein could at least have ‘notified’ the others. 327 See Heckel’s recollections, in Ketterer (ed.), Dialoge, 49. 328 Letter Ada Nolde to Gustav and Luise Schiefler, 10 April 1912, in private collection. We are very grateful to Indina Woesthoff for drawing our attention to this correspondence. The original reads: ‘weil er die Hoffnung hat, wir werden uns mal mit ihm verbinden gegen Pechstein, den er hasst und gegen den er heftig agiert’. 329 See Kirchner, ‘Die Arbeit E. L. Kirchners’, 335. For his on-going battle against perceptions of Pechstein as the ‘Führer’ of Brücke, see Soika, ‘Max Pechstein, der “Führer“ der Brücke’, 81–83. 330 See letter Heckel, Kirchner, Mueller and Schmidt-Rottluff to Karl Ernst Osthaus, undated, reproduced in Autographen-Katalog 670 1998 J. A. Stargardt (Berlin, 1998), no. 685, 246; and letter Schmidt-Rottluff to Neue Secession, undated, in SMZ, no inv. no., reproduced in Autographen-Katalog 691 2009 J. A. Stargardt (Berlin, 2009), no. 546,

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for Brücke. In early June, Schiefler noted in his diaries the latest news from Brücke according to information from Nolde: ‘Schmidt-Rottluff is said to be enemy to Kirchner and Heckel; who in turn stand against Pechstein, who deserted treacherously to the old Secession.’331 Less than a year later, Kirchner’s attempt to correct public perceptions through the production of the so-called ‘Brücke Chronicle’ which emphasized his own leading role within the group led to such serious misgivings that the other members officially announced the dissolution of Brücke in May 1913.332 After the opening of the Secession exhibition, Pechstein avoided his former friends for weeks.333 In mid-April, he and Lotte left for Zwickau where Lotte was to stay with his parents for the final stages of her pregnancy. Pechstein also arranged to move out of Durlacherstrasse 14, and upon his return to Berlin in early May took up residence in a small attic flat in Offenbacher Strasse 1, a house recently built by his friend, the architect Schneidereit, in Berlin-Friedenau, right next to the Schöneberg cemetery.334 Pechstein certainly did not miss his former friends. ‘For some time now I have found here a very small circle of people among whom I feel very comfortable’, he wrote to Gerbig in mid-May 1912, probably referring to Eduard Plietzsch and Paul Fechter.335 Even without Brücke he was able to exhibit throughout Germany.336 In fact, right after his break with Brücke he produced what many contemporaries considered his best work yet: a group of murals on canvas for a large living room in a villa designed by Mies van de Rohe, owned by Hugo Perls, a prosperous civil servant and a cousin of Curt Glaser’s.337 Pechstein’s cycle featured thirty-eight almost life-size nudes in an arcadian landscape which bore a striking resemblance

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333 334 335 336 337

235: ‘Please allow us to inform you politely that according to a Brücke vote from 15 May Pechstein has been excluded from Brücke.’ We are grateful to Wolfgang Mecklenburg, Berlin, for bringing the letter to our attention. Gustav Schiefler, entry in his Agenda, 1 June 1912, in private collection. The original reads: ‘Schmidt-Rottluff sei mit Kirchner und Heckel verfeindet; diese ständen wieder gegen Pechstein, der felonisch zur alten Sezession übergegangen sei.’ Hoffmann, Leben und Schaffen, 307–311. See also Heckel’s recollections, in Ketterer (ed.), Dialoge, 49. Pechstein later stated: ‘The Brücke broke because of Kirchner’s too personal judgements.’ See letter Pechstein to Peter Selz, 23 September 1952, quoted in Selz, German Expressionist Painting, 328, ftn. 23. ‘[V ]on den Brückeleuten lasse ich mich gar nicht sprechen’, he wrote in an undated letter to Gerbig, poststamped 15 May 1912, in private collection. See postcard Pechstein to Gerbig, 28 April 1912, from Zwickau, in private collection; Undated letter Pechstein to Gerbig, poststamped 15 May 1912, in private collection. For an overview of his exhibitions, see Soika, Werkverzeichnis, vol. 2. See undated letter Pechstein to Gerbig, poststamped 15 May 1912, and letter Pechstein to Gerbig, 10 June 1912, both in private collections, for mentions of the project. For Hugo Perls’s villa, see Franz Schulze, Mies van der Rohe: a critical biography (Chicago, 1995), 53–57; for a detailed discussion of Pechstein’s murals, see Soika, ‘Public Face of German Expressionism’, 146–153.

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Fig. 2.32: The dining room in House Perls, Berlin, with wall decorations by Max Pechstein, 1912. Unknown photographer.

to the sand dunes of the Curonian Peninsula. Painted in subdued shades of golden brown, green and blue, the murals’ rhythmical composition stood in stark contrast with the rigid symmetry and the finely detailed classicism of the room which Mies had intended to look like a ‘fine Schinkel room’.338 Critics were enthusiastic. Pechstein had managed to create ‘a completely new experience of space’, one of them proclaimed in the art journal Pan.339 ‘One does not feel any history or stylization, but a highly contemporary sentiment which desires expression’, his friend Fechter noted in Vossische Zeitung.340 Max Osborn, too, thought that the murals marked a milestone in modern art. ‘A work has been created which reveals like none other so far spirit and effect of the new movement in painting’, he declared. ‘One could

338 Quoted in Schulze, Mies van de Rohe, 330, ftn. 42. 339 Max Raphael Schönlank, ‘Max Pechstein’, in Pan 3 (1913), no. 21 (21 February 1913), 492–495. 340 See newspaper clipping of Vossische Zeitung, 4 February 1913, in Zentralarchiv der Staatlichen Museen Berlin, Preußischer Kulturbesitz, Pechstein documentation, unpaginated.

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call it: “Casa Bartoldy” of the Berlin Expressionists or New Secessionists, or however one wants to call them.’341 In fact, many critics at this point were starting to use the term ‘Expressionism’, and saw Pechstein as one of the most important protagonists of the new movement. According to an anecdote, the term was conceived in front of a Pechstein painting at a jury session of the Berlin Secession – probably in 1910 – when someone asked Cassirer whether this still qualified as Impressionism, to which Cassirer allegedly replied: ‘No – but Expressionism!’342 The term took a while to catch on. Fechter, in early 1911, wrote of the ‘generation of the Anti-Impressionists’ which had joined forces in the New Secession; other reviewers used the terms ‘New Painting’, ‘New Art’, ‘Newest Art’ or ‘New Direction’.343 Only when in 1911 the Berlin Secession featured in its summer exhibition an entire room filled with French post-impressionists (including Georges Braque, André Derain, Pablo Picasso and Maurice de Vlaminck) under the label ‘Expressionists’ did the term begin to gain wider currency among art critics.344 In spring 1912, Herwarth Walden launched his new Sturm gallery in Berlin with exhibitions of Expressionists and Futurists, which triggered heated debates in various art journals about the meaning and value of these latest movements. Pechstein played a prominent role in these: in April 1912, the poet Walther Heymann wrote a lengthy article in Cassirer’s Pan about Pechstein’s conception of art which he set against that of Picasso.345 A few weeks later, the art critic Max Deri expounded on the characteristics of Cubism and Expressionism and enthused about the force inherent in Pechstein’s paintings. The new art was still in its infancy, he proclaimed, but Pechstein was its ‘strongest messenger’, the ‘John of Berlin’: ‘He is not

341 Max Osborn, ‘Wandbilder von Max Pechstein. Ein Probestück der neuen Malerei’, undated newspaper clipping, in SMB-ZA, Pechstein documentation. In the Casa Bartholdy in Rome the Nazarenes created frescoes in 1816–1817 which are widely credited to have brought about the breakthrough of that art movement. See Lionel von Donop, Die Wandgemälde der Casa Bartholdy in der Berliner National-Galerie (Berlin, 1889). 342 See Theodor Däubler, Im Kampf um die Moderne Kunst (Berlin, 1919), reprinted in Friedhelm Kemp, Friedrich Pfäfflin (eds.), Theodor Däubler. Im Kampf um die moderne Kunst und andere Schriften (Darmstadt, 1988), 130. For a discussion of this anecdote, see Fritz Schmalenbach, Studien über Malerei und Malereigeschichte (Berlin, 1972), 43. 343 See Daemgen, ‘Die Neue Secession’, 27. For ‘Antiimpressionisten’ see Paul Fechter, ‘Berliner Ausstellungen’, Breslauer Zeitung, 23 February 1911. 344 On the usage of the term ‘Expressionism’, see Geoffrey Perkins, Contemporary Theory of Expressionsim (Bern, 1974), 11–18; Ron Manheim, ‘Zur Entstehung’, 86–94. 345 Max Pechstein, ‘Was ist mit dem Picasso?’, in Pan 2 (1912), no.23 (25 April 1912), 665–669. This text originated from a conversation between Heymann and Pechstein, and was meant to be part of a survey initiated by the editor of Pan, Alfred Kerr, on contemporaries’ views of Picasso and Cubism.

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really the Messias yet. He paves the way, he tears down [barriers].’346 Such hymnic praise also provoked disagreement. Conservative art critics accused their colleagues of sensationalism and of encouraging Pechstein in his ‘rape of colour’.347 Other contemporaries preferred practical jokes. Alexander von Volborth, a young artist who was studying with the Prussian court painter Anton von Werner, sent Pechstein a few drawings held in a caricaturist modern style and asked for his help to get these published. Pechstein, who did not spot the prank, passed them on to the art journal Sturm and replied to Volborth that he would be interested in seeing his paintings at some point. Conservative newspapers had a field day: according to their information a group of artists pretending to be enthusiastic Futurists had shown Pechstein their paintings, and the ‘Futuristenführer’ Pechstein had been unable to tell the difference between something sloppily botched together and real art.348 ‘Expressionism’ and ‘Futurism’ were clearly labels which still needed to be filled with meaning at this point in time. But Pechstein had more serious worries at this point. In late June, Lotte gave birth in Zwickau to a boy whom they called Paul Frank. The next day, however, the infant died.349 For several weeks, Lotte seemed to have suffered from severe depressions. ‘Thank goodness my wife is now completely healthy again’, he wrote to Gerbig two months later, ‘but the two of us are still not getting over the loss of our boy, he was too charming, [he] had the nose of my wife and the joy was too great.’350 They shortly considered moving to the Rhineland when the director of School for Applied Arts in Essen, the architect Alfred Fischer, offered Pechstein a teaching position at his school. But Pechstein eventually turned down the offer as he felt no inclination of committing himself to such a job ‘now that I am beginning

346 Max Deri, ‘Die Kubisten und der Expressionismus’, in Pan 2 (30 June 1912), no.31, 872–878. For a discussion of contemporary art debates, see Donatella Germanese, Pan (1910–1915): Schriftsteller im Kontext einer Zeitschrift (Würzburg, 2000), 277–300. 347 Felix Lorenz, ‘Die Ausstellung der Berliner Sezession 1912’, in Kunstwelt 1 (1912), no. 2, 584–585. 348 E.g. Münchner Neueste Nachrichten, no. 365, 20 July 1912: ‘Pechsteins Pech’. Franz Marc offered Pechstein to publish a correction, which he did in Münchner Neueste Nachrichten, no. 384, 30 July 1912: ‘Beitrag zur heutigen ästhetischen Zerklüftung’. See also letter Pechstein to Marc, post-stamped 23 July 1912, in Deutsches Kunstarchiv im Germanischen Nationalmuseum Nürnberg (GNM), for Pechstein’s account of events, and the correction published in Sturm. 349 See the birth announcement 27 June 1912 to Schiefler, and the death announcement, 2 July 1912 to Schiefler, both in Staats- und Universitätsbibliothek Carl von Ossietzky, Hamburg (SUB), Nachlass Gustav Schiefler (NGS): B25:1912,1 f. 146 and 1912.2, f. 147. See also copy of Standesamt Zwickau entry, in private collection. 350 Letter Pechstein to Gerbig, 28 August 1912, in private collection.

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to establish myself a little’, as he explained to Gerbig.351 In early September, they travelled once more to Nidden, but they were unlucky with the weather. After a month of mostly rain, they returned to Berlin in mid-October.352 ‘Perpetually bad weather is not very conducive to my disposition and creative drive’, Pechstein complained to Gerbig, ‘my longing for sun has much strengthened and is not being satisfied here in Berlin either.’353 His mood was not improved by the fact that local authorities tried to have him ejected from his flat since no planning permission had been given for using it as a studio.354 Much of his time in the winter of 1912/13 was taken up with art politics and the on-going conflict between conservative forces and modernizers within the Berlin Secession.355 For some time he made plans for the foundation of a new exhibition association outside the Secession that would stage ‘only progressive exhibitions’, representing ‘a joining of forces of our generation’, as he wrote to Friedrich Plietzsch.356 This idea had probably been inspired by the big Sonderbund exhibition in Cologne in May 1912 which had impressed Pechstein greatly.357 But these plans became redundant with the election of Cassirer as the new President of the Secession in December 1912. In an effort to rejuvenate and modernize the Secession further, Cassirer adopted Pechstein’s idea and asked him to join a committee organizing a new autumn exhibition (modelled on the Paris Salon d’Automne) which was intended as a showcase for the younger generation. Pechstein agreed, and over the following months took an active role in the re-organisation of the Secession.358 Yet Pechstein was 351 Letter Pechstein to Gerbig, 28 August 1908 [though has to read 1912], in private collection. 352 Postcard Pechstein to Eduard Plietzsch, 11 October 1912, from Nidden, in AM, 1963/292. 353 Letter Pechstein to Gerbig, 17 November 1912, in private collection. 354 Ibid. 355 Ibid. See also letter Pechstein to Gerbig, post-stamped 26 December 1912, in private collection. 356 ‘[A]t the moment I cannot leave because there is good hope of founding an association only for progressive exhibitions, outside the Secession […]. I am really looking forward to one thing, when next year this new exhibition would open, because it is high time that we bring about a joining of forces of our generation, and Berlin is lagging behind in my view compared to the active Rhineland.’, in letter Pechstein to Friedrich Plietzsch, 20 November 1912, in AM, 1964/444a. 357 For his enthusiasm upon seeing the Sonderbund show, see postcard to Glaser, 25 May 1912, in private collection; letter Pechstein to Gerbig, 10 June 1912, in private collection. 358 See undated letter Pechstein to Franz Marc (probably March 1913), in GNM, Franz Marc papers, unpaginated, in which Pechstein claims that he had come up with the idea of a Autumn Exhibition in November 1912, an idea which one of the artists contacted passed on to Cassirer. For the political tensions within the Secession in 1912–1913, see Paret, Berliner Secession, 312–317, 329–331. For the new autumn exhibition and Pechstein’s membership in the planning committee, see Doede, Berliner Secession, 48–49. Despite the break-up of the Secession in June 1913, the Autumn Exhibition eventually went ahead,

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eager to get away from Berlin. At the end of 1912, an opportunity opened up when he was approached – probably by Alexander Koch, the publisher of Deutsche Kunst und Dekoration – whether he would consider joining the artists’ colony on the Mathildenhöhe in Darmstadt.359 They had just found out that Lotte was pregnant again, and the prospect of a free studio and an allowance was a tempting proposition.360 However, the patron of the artists’ colony, Grand Duke Ernst Ludwig of Hesse, eventually decided against Pechstein.361 Pechstein’s disappointment was tempered by the fact that he was now finding it easy to sell his paintings. But the growing circle of collectors had its downsides, too. ‘I have now withdrawn to do some work, and that is being taken very badly’, he told Gerbig in January 1913, ‘the buyers think that with the painting they also buy a share certificate on the person of the painter, well! I have knocked that idea out of their heads[.]’362 Pechstein’s popularity reached a new peak with the opening of a big solo-exhibition in the gallery Gurlitt in February 1913. The show included over forty of his oils, three stained glass windows, and various designs and sketches for stained glass windows and mosaics.363 It attracted an unprecedented amount of press attention. Lengthy reviews appeared not just in the various art journals but also in all the major Berlin dailies.364 The amount of publicity in turn generated further press comments. ‘Pechstein […] has been ‘launched’ long ago as they say in art dealer lingo, in his circles he is considered a very, very great man’, scoffed the art critic of the conservative Kreuz-Zeitung.365 Nolde’s wife, Ada, also mocked the ‘great Pechstein affair’, as she called the Gurlitt exhibition. ‘Soon he will appear as the crowned darling of the Berliners’, she observed on the press hype in a letter

359

360 361 362 363 364 365

in November and December 1913. See W(alther) Georgi, ‘Herbstausstellung Berlin’, in Deutsche Kunst und Dekoration 33 (1913/14), no. 5, 357–365. See letter Pechstein to Gerbig, post-stamped 26 December 1912, in private collection. The Künstlerkolonie Mathildenhöhe was founded by the Grand Duke of Hesse Ernst Ludwig in 1899 with the intention of establishing a new artistic tradition out of the spirit of Art Nouveau. For Alexander Koch’s role in it, see Sigrid Randa, Alexander Koch – Publizist und Verleger in Darmstadt. Reform der Kunst und des Lebens um 1900 (Worms, 1990), 211–224. Letter Pechstein to Gerbig, post-stamped 26 December 1912, in private collection. Letter Pechstein to Gerbig, 27 January 1913, in private collection. Ibid. The original reads: ‘Habe mich jetzt zurückgezogen zur Arbeit, und wird es mir sehr krumm genommen, die Käufer denken, sie kaufen mit dem Bild auch gleich einen Anteilschein auf die Person des Malers, na! Diesen Star habe Ihnen gestochen […]’. See exhibition catalogue Kunstsalon Fritz Gurlitt (ed.), Kollektiv-Ausstellung Max Pechstein Berlin [Berlin, 1913]. For an overview, see the press clippings collection in Günter Krüger papers, and in SMBZA, Pechstein documentation. Fr. v. Rhaynach, in Neue Preussische (Kreuz-)Zeitung, 13 February 1913.

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to Schiefler’s wife.366 Franz Marc considered it evidence for the commercialization of Pechstein’s art. ‘I am hellishly scared of a popularity like his’, he told his friend August Macke.367 Pechstein, on the other hand, thoroughly enjoyed the success of his exhibition, as did Wolfgang Gurlitt, the gallery owner. It encouraged Gurlitt to offer Pechstein a gallery contract: for the exclusive rights to Pechstein’s paintings and prints, he would take his entire output into commission and provide him with small monthly advances.368 Pechstein was happy to accept. Towards the end of February, he moved house, into Offenbacher Strasse 8 which had also been built by his friend Schneidereit. The flat was on the top floor, and Pechstein even had his own studio in the attic. ‘You should now see my little flat, I am sure you would delight in it as I do’, he wrote to Gerbig, ‘everything is so neatly together, half a floor up is my studio, and I feel so princely that I sometimes fear that it cannot go on like this, something could happen to destroy my happiness […]’.369 Towards the end of March, Karl Ernst Osthaus, the founder of the Museum Folkwang in Hagen and one of Germany’s most important patrons of the avant-garde, contacted Pechstein with the offer to design a room for the World Exhibition in Ghent.370 Pechstein was delighted to accept, but when he travelled there in late April he found that the exhibition organizers had still not finished setting up the room. Trusting their assurances that it would only take a few more days, Pechstein spent his time travelling to Brussels, Bruges, and Paris. It was his first visit to the French capital since 1908, and he was very disappointed. He wrote in a letter to Gerbig: A few days of my waiting time I went to Paris, [and] visited Rodin, Matisse, etc, but [I did] not get a new overwhelming impression, on the contrary, almost eve366 Letter Ada Nolde to Johanna Schiefler, 21 February 1913, in private collection. 367 Letter Franz Marc to August Macke, 12 March 1913, reprinted in Macke (ed.), Briefwechsel, 152. See also his comment in another letter to Macke, 22 May 1913: ‘Pechstein really shocked me with his collection at [Munich art gallery] Goltz: Matisse trivialized for the Salon, or Matisse without spirit’, in Macke (ed.), Briefwechsel, 163. 368 Unfortunately, the exact details of the deal are unknown. As early as May 1913 Gurlitt drew attention in his advertisements to the fact that he had exclusive rights to Pechstein’s works, see the Gurlitt advertisement in Der Kunstmarkt (1913), no. 33 (16 May 1913), 286. We are grateful to Werner J. Schweiger for bringing this to our attention. In 1940, Pechstein recalled that Gurlitt supported his family during the First World War with 100 Marks per month, see letter Pechstein to his son Frank, Berlin, 2 March 1940, in private collection. Such deals between gallery owners and artists were not unusual at the time, but little archival material has survived. See, for example, the letter Marc to Lisbeth Macke, 13 August 1912, reprinted in Macke (ed.), Briefwechsel, 137. 369 Letter Pechstein to Gerbig, 14 May 1913, in private collection. 370 See letter Pechstein to Karl Ernst Osthaus, 3 April 1913, copy in Günter Krüger papers, Berlin. In 1912, Osthaus had commissioned Heckel and Kirchner to design a chapel interior at the Sonderbund exhibition in Cologne.

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rything there is on the decline, and I hope that my claim that after such a long time the Germanic people will take up the artistic legacy will be validated before too long, because it is true that we are still raw, but we strive towards perfection, whereas the Roman people are brutally oversimplifying. Our blood is fresher! 371

This passage, drenched in the cultural patriotism typical of the time, probably owed a lot to Pechstein’s involvement in the Berlin Secession with its self-proclaimed mission of show-casing the best of modern German art. Once Pechstein returned to Berlin – frustrated that the Ghent commission had not materialized – he visited the Secession’s summer exhibition, which had opened in the meantime. Max Slevogt, the chairman of the exhibition jury, had ruthlessly deselected older members of the Secession and had opened the show to the younger generation, not least Pechstein’s former Brücke colleagues. According to many contemporary reviewers, it was the most stimulating exhibition that the Secession had staged since its beginning.372 It reminded Pechstein how happy he was to have broken with Brücke. ‘It is great that I have no more dealings with Brücke’, he wrote to Gerbig in mid-May, ‘because these people are totally finished in terms of humaneness, and their works at the current Secession exhibition prove to me once more their addiction to appearing modern at all costs, but let the time be the judge.’373 In fact, those old Secession members excluded from the show had similar feelings and protested vehemently against their deselection. Tensions between conservatives and modernizers reached a climax at a general meeting in early June, which resulted in the break-up of the Secession and the departure of Cassirer, Liebermann, Slevogt, and other leading Secession members, among them Pechstein.374 ‘[T]he first time that I enjoyed being a member was the moment when I signed my resignation’, Pechstein told Gerbig at the end of June.375 But the Secession was no longer at the forefront of Pechstein’s mind. On 21 June Lotte gave birth to a boy whom they called Frank.376 ‘I am 371 Letter Pechstein to Gerbig, 14 May 1913, in private collection. 372 See, for example, Lisbeth Stern, ‘Berlin: Sezession 1913’, in Sozialistische Monatshefte (1913), no. 11 (12 June 1913), 701. See also Paret, Berliner Secession, 317. 373 Letter Pechstein to Gerbig, 14 May 1913, in private collection. Franz Marc, incidentally, was equally scathing when he described Heckel’s and Kirchner’s paintings in the exhibition as ‘geistreich bestrichene Sackleinwand ’ (ingeniously slathered sack cloth), see letter Marc to Macke, 19 May 1913, reprinted in Macke (ed.), Briefwechsel, 161. 374 For the split of the Secession , see Paret, Berliner Secession, 330; Thomas Corinth (ed.), Lovis Corinth. Eine Dokumentation (Tübingen, 1979), 171–174. 375 Letter Pechstein to Gerbig, 30 June 1913, in private collection. 376 See the birth announcement 21 June 1913 to Schiefler, in SUB, NGS: B26: 1913, 159. According to Pechstein’s friend Paul Fechter, the name Frank was a hommage to the poet Frank Wedekind, see Fechter, Menschen und Zeiten, 147. In fact, the child was named Max Frank.

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overjoyed with this strapping little boy, whom my wife presented me with [-] if with some delay at least in rude health’, he proudly reported to Gerbig.377 He had anxiously awaited this moment, partly because he had been spending sleepless nights worrying about the health of Lotte, but also because the birth had been the reason for postponing a trip to Italy originally planned for spring 1913.378 As soon as he could be sure that Lotte and Frank were doing fine, he packed his bags and left for Italy. There he joined his friend Gerbig, who – after winning the annual prize of the German Artists’ Association in 1912 – was residing for a year in the Villa Romana in Florence.379 For the next two months he worked with Gerbig in his studio there. In a letter to the painter Max Klinger, one of the founders of the Villa Romana, he expressed his gratitude for the opportunity this had offered him to work in oil whilst in Italy: ‘These last two months have been of considerable use to me, because until now I had to limit myself during previous visits to just seeing and small sketches.’380 In early September, the two friends travelled along the coast, until they discovered the small medieval fishing village of Monterosso al Mare, on the Levantine Riviera. With its remote location and picturesque setting, Monterosso was just what Pechstein had been looking for. For several weeks, he and Gerbig stayed there and worked next to each other. ‘The pen did not rest in order to take down all this multifaceted life’, Pechstein later recalled in his memoirs. ‘Added to this was the new problem of interlaced groups of houses climbing up the hill, which forced me to come up with a surface structure. Most of all I remember the ecstatic sensing of the sun.’381 The paintings he produced in Florence, and those of Monterosso that he painted after his return to Berlin, reflected his ambition to find answers to the questions provoked by Cubism, whilst retaining the vibrant colours which had become his trademark by now.382 Upon his return from Italy in early October Pechstein was engulfed once more by what he called the ‘Berliner Kesseltreiben’ (Berlin battue).383 377 Letter Pechstein to Gerbig, 30 June 1913, in private collection. 378 For mention of sleepless nights, see letter Pechstein to Gerbig, 14 May 1913, in private collection. The first mention of a planned trip to Italy – at that point still to be undertaken with Lotte – is in his letter to Gerbig, 17 November 1912, in private collection. 379 For news of the Prize, see letter Pechstein to Gerbig, 16 February 1912, in private collection. See also Knop, “Schaut her – ich bin’s!”, 160–162. For the Villa Romana, see Thomas Föhl, Gerda Wendermann (eds.), Ein Arkadien der Moderne? 100 Jahre Künstlerhaus Villa Romana in Florenz (Berlin, 2005). 380 Letter Pechstein to Klinger, 30 August 1913, from Florence, in Stadtarchiv Naumburg, no. 239. 381 Pechstein, Erinnerungen, 54. 382 For a discussion of Pechstein’s stylistic development in 1912/13, see Moeller (ed.), Pechstein, 53–56. 383 Letter Pechstein to Gerbig, 12 October 1913, in private collection.

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Fig. 2.33: Convent of San Gimignano (1914/6), oil on canvas, 69 ×78 cm, private collection.

Despite the break-up of the Secession, the plan to stage an exhibition with an overview of the latest artistic trends had not been given up, and Pechstein remained a member of the exhibition committee which organized the so-called ‘Berlin Autumn Exhibition’.384 However, it is unlikely that he was involved in the hanging committee: when the show opened in November 1913 Pechstein’s works were presented in a room together with paintings by Kirchner, Heckel and Schmidt-Rottluff. The stylistic contrast between Pechstein’s Italian paintings and the works of his former friends was highly visible. ‘They give evidence of a prowess that certainly many so far will not have thought him capable of’, Glaser commented on Pechstein’s works. ‘But in terms of immediate impulse they have also lost something. […] With these new works Pechstein has distanced himself considerably from his former Brücke colleagues, whose paintings are united with his in 384 See the announcement in Die Werkstatt für Kunst 13 (1913/14), no.1 (1 October 1913), 6; and Hans Friedeberger, ‘Die Berliner Herbstausstellung 1913’, in Cicerone 5 (1913), 799.

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one room.’385 But despite all their stylistic differences, one thing struck Glaser very strongly when strolling through the exhbition: ‘It appears that the former association Die Brücke included the strongest talents among the younger generation.’386 Half a year after the official dissolution of Brücke, this innovative artists’ association was now becoming the stuff of art historians.

385 Curt Glaser, ‘Die Berliner Herbstausstellung’, in Kunst für Alle, 29 (1913/14), no. 8 (15 January 1914), 179–190, here 182. 386 Ibid. Arguably, this was giving short shrift to Picasso and Beckmann, who were also included in the exhibition.

CHAPTER III

Paradise, War and Revolution 1914–1919 ‘I have been expelled from paradise and am now sitting in the hell of idle waiting, [like] a scattered grain of sand in the universe.’ (Pechstein to Paul Fechter, from Manila, 28 March 1915)

By spring 1914, Pechstein had every reason to be pleased with himself. Within less than six years of his arrival in Berlin he had established himself as one of Germany’s most prominent young artists. His works were regularly exhibited by leading art galleries and his oeuvre was widely acknowledged as being at the forefront of the modern art movement in Germany. The first book on German Expressionism, Paul Fechter’s Der Expressionismus, published in early 1914, paid hommage to this astonishing achievement. According to Fechter, Pechstein was a greater artist even than the inward-looking Kandinsky; Pechstein was described as the ‘purest type and strongest representative of extensive Expressionism’, and – once again – labeled ‘leader’ of the former group, Brücke.1 Other critics concurred with this view. In a book on contemporary fine art, also published in 1914, the art historian Wilhelm Hausenstein refered to Pechstein as ‘the most talented’ among the Expressionists.2 Around the same time, the writer and poet Walther Heymann produced a monograph dedicated to Pechstein’s life and work, especially of the period 1908 to 1913, describing him as the ‘Giotto of our time’.3 ‘I wish to admit openly’, Heymann concluded his work, ‘that my eyes have never seen anything greater than this commanding and tender sureness, which forced through a sea-change in art history.’4 Yet Pechstein was increasingly dissatisfied with his situation in Berlin. He often complained that he found it difficult to work in the big city and 1 2 3 4

Paul Fechter, Der Expressionismus (Munich, 1914), 26,28. Wilhelm Hausenstein, Die Bildende Kunst der Gegenwart (Stuttgart, 1914), 304. Walther Heymann, Max Pechstein (Munich, 1916), 71. Ibid, 77.

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deplored the annoyances that came with its art political bickering.5 ‘Berlin devours too much,’ he wrote to his friend Alexander Gerbig in December 1913, ‘and I do not have the ambition to play a role. To work a lot and hard, yes! But for that I need to be in close touch with nature, which I cannot be here on the tarmac streets, and [I] use up too much energy […].’6 This emphasis on nature as the most important source of his inspiration was a recurrent theme in all of his letters. According to Pechstein, a great all-encompassing religion like that which had inspired the works of Giotto no longer existed: ‘So, like heathens, we have to turn again to all-giving nature, yet even amongst us the longing shines through, to provide the forces of nature with a creator […].’7 When thinking about all this, he confessed, his old wish to find a safe and quiet place conducive to work, far away from Europe, overcame him with great power. Just where exactly he would find this exotic place remained unclear. In early 1913, he still expressed his desire to cross over to Africa from Italy for a month, taking only one bag with him, and then to work out the impressions gathered there in Florence.8 But once Gurlitt provided him with a gallery contract, his plans became more ambitious. In summer 1913, he told Gerbig that the next winter would be his last one in Berlin, ‘then I hope that […] Berlin will simply provide me with the means for a quiet working life somewhere in the South Sea […].’9 By the end of that year, his plans had taken shape. Together with his wife Lotte, he planned to travel to the South Seas island of Palau, a German colony east of the Philippines. ‘In spring I will probably be able to fulfill my longing and leave Europe,’ he informed Gerbig in December 1913.10 ‘Gurlitt has promised to advance the 10,000 M[ark] necessary for the trip, and now I do not want to postpone it any longer […].’11 Many contemporaries, though impressed with Pechstein’s travel plans, were not particularly surprised by his choice of the South Seas. For some years art critics had emphasized the influence of Gauguin on his work. Already in 1910, one reviewer had labelled him ‘Gauguin-imitator’.12 Indeed, paintings like his portrait of Lotte in 1911, At the beach in Nidden, had probably been inspired by the Tahitian subject matter of the works seen at the big Gauguin exhibition in the gallery Cassirer in Berlin in February 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12

Letter Pechstein to Gerbig, 17 November 1912, in private collection; letter Pechstein to Gerbig, 27 January 1913, in private collection. Letter Pechstein to Gerbig, 24 December 1913, in private collection. Letter Pechstein to Gerbig, 27 December 1912, in private collection. Letter Pechstein to Gerbig, 27 January 1913, in private collection. Letter Pechstein to Gerbig, dated 1 July 1913, in private collection. Letter Pechstein to Gerbig, 24 December 1913, in private collection. Ibid. NN, ‘Leipzig’, in Der Cicerone (1910), no. 22, 761.

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1911.13 As early as 1907, in one of his letters from Paris, Pechstein mentioned Gauguin as one of his favourite artists.14 He had read Gauguin’s account of his life on Tahiti, Noa-Noa, which had been translated and published in excerpts, richly illustrated, in the art journal Kunst und Künstler in 1907/8, and which had become available as a book later in 1908.15 Art critics now assumed that with his trip to the Pacific Pechstein was simply continuing to follow in Gauguin’s footsteps; Karl Scheffler called it ‘a Gauguin trip’.16 But Pechstein’s choice of location owed less to Gauguin than contemporaries assumed. Indeed, Pechstein’s close friend, the art historian Eduard Plietzsch, made strenuous efforts to dissociate Pechstein’s trip from Gauguin’s in an article published in 1915. According to Plietzsch, neither Gauguin’s Noa-Noa nor the popular South Seas novels by the Danish bestseller author Laurids Bruun had inspired Pechstein. Long before Pechstein encountered these literary works he had known ‘the longing for coulourful shining countries, in which nature and humans have preserved untouched their original beauty.’17 This childhood dream had then taken on a specific focus upon encountering photographs of the Palau islands: The functional way, in which the natives there constructed their houses, the beauty of the clean people […] made him choose these islands. He imagined that the harmony of quick, gazelle-like bodies within unordered primeval nature would result in artistic experiences, that the way in which these people, who had never been constrained by clothing, bent and stretched in boats, when bathing or dancing, would reveal the poses of our studio models as empty mannerism.18

It is no coincidence that Plietzsch explained Pechstein’s awakening interest in Palau with the influence of photography. However significant van Gogh, Cézanne and Gauguin were for Pechstein’s own oeuvre, it was the mass media which decisively shaped the visual world in which he lived. Ever since the mid-nineteenth century illustrated magazines had published 13

14 15 16 17 18

See the exhibition review by Karl Scheffler, ‘Kunstausstellungen’, in Kunst und Künstler 9 (1910/1911), 364. This was the same exhibition which had run in parallel with the Brücke exhibition at Dresden’s gallery Arnold in September 1910, which Pechstein had not been able to attend then. See also Paul Fechter, ‘Paul Gauguin. Zur Ausstellung in der Galerie Arnold’, in Dresdner Neueste Nachrichten, undated, in Günter Krüger papers, Berlin. ‘Dresdner Ausstellungen’, in Der Cicerone, 1910, H.19, 653–654. See also Peter Kropmanns, Gauguin und die Schule von Pont-Aven im Deutschland nach der Jahrhundertwende (Sigmaringen, 1997), 44–45; Roland März, ‘Tahiti – Moritzburg – und zurück’, in Georg-W. Költzsch (ed.), Paul Gauguin. Das verlorene Paradies (Cologne, 1998), 279. Letter Pechstein to Gerbig, 19 December 1907, in private collection. Plietzsch, ‘Pechstein und der Expressionismus’; Kropmanns, Gauguin, 39–40. Karl Scheffler, ‘Max Pechstein’, in Kunst und Künstler 16 (1917, 30. See also Eduard Plietzsch, ‘Max Pechstein und der Expressionismus’, in Licht und Schatten, no. 4, 1915. Plietzsch, ‘Pechstein und der Expressionismus’. Ibid.

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images of exotic locations. The decade after the turn of the century saw the heyday of German colonialism, and pressure groups like the German Colonial Society engaged in an aggressive programme of lectures and slide presentations, accompanied by mass production of propaganda brochures.19 With the acquisition of Palau and Samoa in 1899 by the German Reich, these newly-won colonies – hailed as ‘the pearl of the South Seas’ and ‘the most beautiful spot on earth’ – were turned into a media version of paradise.20 Popular demand for images from the South Seas resulted in a mass production of photographs and postcards, reaching a peak around 1910.21 An ethnographic live show of Samoans in the Dresden zoo in summer 1910 drew huge crowds, and was visited by the Brücke artists after they had returned from their stay in Moritzburg.22 In 1912, Willy Scheel’s Deutschlands Kolonien in achtzig farbenphotographischen Abbildungen became an instant bestseller and it is very likely that the colour reproduction of a Palauan clubhouse caught Pechstein’s attention.23 Similarly influential as illustrations seen in the mass media were reproductions of Pacific artworks in books which Pechstein had encountered in Dresden. Dresden’s ethnographic museum, founded in 1875, had originally been envisaged as a ‘South Seas Museum’, and after the turn of the century there was a wealth of publications dealing with artefacts such as the Palau beam which Karl Semper had brought to Dresden from his expedition to the Pacific.24 The most influential of these publications was History of Art of All Times and People, published in 1900, which contained a long sec19

20 21

22

23

24

See Richard V. Pierard, ‘The German Colonial Society’, in Arthur J. Knoll, Lewis H. Gann (eds.), Germans in the Tropics. Essays in German Colonial History (New York, 1987), 31. See also the discussion in Jill Lloyd, German Expressionism. Primitivism and Modernity (Yale, 1991), 192–194. E.g. Berliner Illustrirte Zeitung, 19 November 1899, 2. Alison Devine Nordström, ‘Populäre Fotografie aus Samoa in der westlichen Welt – Herstellung, Verbreitung und Gebrauch’, in Jutta B. Engelhard, Peter Mesenhöller (eds.), Bilder aus dem Paradies. Koloniale Fotografie aus Samoa 1875–1925 (Cologne, 1995), 13, 17. Birgit Dalbajewa, Ulrich Bischoff (eds.), Die Brücke in Dresden 1905–1911 (Cologne, 2001), 34. The Samoa show had been organized by the Marquardt brothers, and was on show under the title ‘Samoa-Truppe mit dem Fürsten Tamasese und seiner Familie’ between 23 August and 13 September 1910; see unpublished chronology by Winfried Gensch, ‘Völkerschauen und Schaustellungen im Zoologischen Garten Dresden seit 1878’, 12. See also Gabriele Dürbeck, ‘Samoa als inszeniertes Paradies: Völkerausstellungen um 1900 und die Tradition der populären Südseeliteratur’, in Cordula Grewe (ed.), Die Schau des Fremden: Ausstellungskonzepte zwischen Kunst, Kommerz und Wissenschaft (Stuttgart, 2006), 69–94. Willy Scheel, Deutschlands Kolonien in achtzig farbenphotographischen Abbildungen (Berlin, 1912), 141. By 1914, three editions had been published with a print run of 60,000 copies. See also Gabriele Dürbeck, Stereotype Paradiese: Ozeanismus in der deutschen Südseeliteratur 1815–1914 (Tübingen, 2007). L. D. Ettlinger, ‘German Expressionism and Primitive Art’, in The Burlington Magazine

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Fig. 3.1: Club House on Palau, c. 1910, unknown photographer. Published in Willy Scheel, Deutschlands Kolonien in achtzig farbenphotographischen Abbildungen, Berlin 1912, 141.

tion on the art of ‘nature people’.25 The only colour illustration provided for this section featured a full-page reproduction of the ‘painted beams of the houses of the Palau islands’.26 It was probably upon seeing these illustrations that Pechstein and his Brücke colleagues visited the ethnographic museum where they encountered the original objects, though not in their original architectural setting. It was thus a mixture of visual influences, of both media images and museum objects, which seem to have stimulated Pechstein’s choice of Palau. In retrospect, in an account of his trip to the Pacific written in New York in July 1915, Pechstein explained that the cause for his travels had been the type of construction and decoration of these specific Palau club houses.27 Over thirty years later, when writing his 110 (1968), 191–201, here 192, and Karla Bilang, Bild und Gegenbild. Das Ursprüngliche in der Kunst des 20. Jahrhunderts (Stuttgart, 1990), 62–63, 80–81. 25 Karl Woermann, Geschichte der Kunst aller Zeiten und Völker (Leipzig, 1900), vol. 1. 26 Ibid., colour plate 3. 27 Account of 1 July 1915, New York East, f. 7. Pechstein sent this account in a letter dated 23 July 1915 to Paul Fechter, in Getty Research Library (GRL) Los Angeles, Special Collections, 2001.M.19. It formed the basis for three articles published in Vossische Zeitung,

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memoirs, he remembered a visit to the Dresden Zwinger in spring 1906, and how upon seeing the carvings of the roof and cross beam he had been filled with a longing ‘as if I already knew this distant tropical world’.28 It was clear from the outset that the trip to Palau was going to be very expensive; the boat tickets for the six week journey alone cost 3,000 Marks.29 Without the advance of 10,000 Marks from his art dealer Gurlitt Pechstein would not have been in a position to embark on this costly adventure. Although it is impossible to ascertain it seems that Gurlitt’s advance was a hard-nosed business decision. Pechstein’s solo-exhibition in spring 1913 in his gallery had been a commercial and critical success. Gurlitt probably dispatched the young artist to Palau in the hopes of cashing in on the lucrative market for South Seas paintings opened up by Gauguin, whose works he had exhibited in 1911.30 This was not an unusual practice; just a few years earlier the Paris art dealer Vollard had sent the Fauve painter Derain to England, trying to capitalize on the surging demand for London scenes triggered by Monet.31 For Pechstein it was an attractive deal. He needed a lot of money not least because he planned to stay on Palau for two years, taking up residence there with his wife. Although he claimed that he could not afford to take much equipment with him, he eventually travelled with twenty-eight boxes and suitcases, as well as two guns which his friend Gerbig had given him as a present.32 Frank, his new-born son, was left with Pechstein’s parents in Zwickau. This had not been an easy

‘Reise nach Palau’, no. 492, 26 September 1915, ‘Kriegsausbruch in der Südsee’, no. 518, 10 October 1915, and ‘Als Gefangener nach Japan’, no. 544, 24 October 1914. 28 Max Pechstein (ed. Leopold Reidemeister), Erinnerungen (Wiesbaden, 1960), 22. Pechstein might have visited the ethnographic museum even earlier than 1906; in 1918 the art historian Hausenstein claimed that Pechstein had visited an ethnographic museum already as a child: Wilhelm Hausenstein, ‘Max Pechstein’, in Deutsche Kunst und Dekoration 21 (1918), 205–236, here 225. 29 Letter Pechstein to Gerbig, 18 March 1914, in private collection; first page reproduced in Wolfgang Knop, ‘Illustrierte Künstlerpost. Dokumente der Künstlerfreundschaft zwischen Max Pechstein und Alexander Gerbig’, in Bibliothek und Wissenschaft 23 (1989), 246; partly quoted and first page reproduced in Wolfgang Knop, Adé 20. Jahrhundert: illustrierte Handschriften beleuchten Licht- und Schattenseiten; ausgewählte Beispiele aus einer privaten Schriftensammlung (Suhl, 2000), 40. 30 For the Gauguin exhibition at Gurlitt, see ‘Berlin Kunstsalons’, in Der Cicerone (1911), H.5, 179. Peter Kropmanns, ‘Gauguin in Deutschland. Rezeption mit Mut und Weitsicht’, in Georg-W. Költzsch (ed.), Paul Gauguin. Das verlorene Paradies (Cologne, 2002), 253–271. 31 James D. Herbert, Fauve Painting. The Making of Cultural Politics (New Haven, 1992), 15. 32 Letter Pechstein to Gerbig, 18 March 1914, in private collection (see Knop, ‘Illustrierte Künstlerpost’, 246, and Knop, Adé 20. Jahrhundert, 40; letter Pechstein to Gerbig, 23 April 1914, in private collection. See also Wolfgang Knop, “Schaut her – ich bin’s!” Der Maler und Grafiker Alexander Gerbig (1878–1948) (Suhl, 1998), 162–163. In his memoirs, Pechstein put his luggage at over 40 boxes, see Pechstein, Erinnerungen, 59.

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decision but Pechstein reasoned that a separation now was better than later ‘when my small one can think’.33 Also, the countryside at his parents’ village was preferable to an early childhood in Berlin, ‘there he is always out in fresh air and gets to know animals, here only tarmac streets.’34 Pechstein similarly rationalized his decision to convince Lotte to have herself sterilized before their departure. Giving birth always carried health risks for woman and child as the two only knew too well from their own experience, and the prospect of childbearing on a South Sea island with no doctor at hand was sufficiently off-putting for Lotte to agree to the treatment.35 The final weeks prior to departure were hectic, filled with buying provisions, packing and work. Pechstein produced paintings for Gurlitt until the last minute.36 Apparently, Gurlitt wanted to get a significant amount of work out of by Pechstein before the painter left for the South Seas. Pechstein managed to finish a big painting for Gurlitt’s library, but his art dealer kept asking for more: ‘now he tortures me to complete the other [paintings], but my spirit is already far from here, so that will probably not happen’, Pechstein told his friend Gerbig.37 He was now keen to see ‘if the tropics will fulfil my hopes’, he declared in his last letter from Berlin.38 In early May 1914, Pechstein and Lotte finally left Berlin and made their way to Basel, then through Switzerland and the Alpes to Genoa, where they boarded their boat to Manila, the German steamship Derfflinger.39 The Derfflinger, owned by North German Lloyd, was a modern luxury cruiser accommodating more than 1,100 passengers, and featuring all amenities: en-suite bathrooms, gym, smoking salon, board orchestra, dancing floor, and sports games, as well as a make-shift swimming pool.40 Travelling first class was a novel experience for the Pechsteins, and introduced them to an upper middle-class way of life which they had not experienced before. While Pechstein soon mixed with a variety of male passengers and officers on the ship, Lotte found social life on board quite challenging.41 ‘[I] have a great yearning to be away from all stiffness and 33 Letter Pechstein to Gerbig, 24 December 1913, in private collection. 34 Letter Pechstein to Gerbig, 23 April 1914, in private collection. 35 The only reference to this comes from a recollection of Lotte’s son Frank in an interview which was used in a radio feature on Pechstein’s trip to Palau. See Jürgen Balizki, ‘Auf der Suche nach Totalität. Pechstein auf Palau’, first broadcast by Deutschlandfunk, 6 March 2007; manuscript online at http://www.dradio.de/download/96145/, last accessed 1 July 2011. 36 Letter Pechstein to Gerbig, 23 April 1914, in private collection. 37 Ibid. 38 Letter Pechstein to Gerbig, 6 May 1914, in private collection. 39 See Pechstein’s travel diary, 9–11 May [1914], ff. 1–6, copy in Günter Krüger papers, Berlin. 40 Ibid., ff. 6, 8, 11, 16, 40. 41 For Pechstein, see his travel diary for 17, 18, and 20 May, ff. 10, 11, 15.

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Fig. 3.2: The steamboat Derfflinger, postcard, ca. 1910

refinement,’ she noted in her travel diary only two days after boarding the cruiser.42 ‘All this getting changed is ridiculous’, she complained the following day.43 ‘For dinner everyone appears in full dress, […] there is the most ceremonial atmosphere. Everyone is playing and amusing themselves, but it appears a bit forced.’44 This stiffness stood in stark contrast to the social life of the sailors, whom Lotte witnessed one evening having a good time on the front-deck: ‘I envy them, because they can behave naturally.’45 But Pechstein and Lotte also enjoyed their boat trip enormously and revelled in the sights. After leaving Genoa, the ship made a short stop in Naples before continuing its way to Port Said.46 Seeing the countryside pass by during the passage through the Suez channel was an impressive experience. ‘A few camels are calmly making their way,’ Lotte noted in her diary.47 ‘In the evening, the view was particularly wonderful. A starry sky, the [ship’s] spotlight gliding over the water, touching on the embankment here and there. Off and on lights flash up; suddenly the glow of a fire on 42 43 44 45 46 47

Lotte diary entry, 16 May [1914], f. 3, in private collection. Lotte diary entry, 17/18 May [1914], f. 4. Ibid. Lotte diary entry, 20 May [1914], f. 5. Lotte diary entry, 19 May [1914], f. 4; Pechstein travel diary entry, 19 May [1914], f. 12. Lotte diary entry, 19 May [1914], f. 5.

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Fig. 3.3: Barge in Suez Canal, 1914, ink drawing, 28,6 × 22,6 cm, private collection.

141

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the left-hand side. [One can make out] figures standing around, it looks like in a fairy tale.’48 The next highlight was Colombo where they arrived on 30 May 1914. Part of their sightseeing programme was a car-ride to Mount Lavinia, which Lotte described vividly in her diary: The trip is wonderful. Red is the earth, an abundance of tropical plants – splendid palms and the acacia trees like a big red grape full of blossoms. What a wonderful existence for the natives, in their huts beneath palm trees, and free, unconstrained, naked small children playing happily in the […] dirt. […] Suddenly – as if all gates of heaven were opening – it starts raining on us – a real tropical downpour.49

‘Equally suddenly it stops’, Pechstein recorded the day in his own diary, ‘the heaven shines blue, a white cloud hangs behind the palm trees, everything glitters like a diamond polished a thousand times.’50 Both these diary entries reveal how much of a romanticized aesthetic experience the journey was for each of them. Having escaped from the tarmac streets of Berlin, they were eager to soak up as much exoticism as possible. After visiting a temple in Colombo, both commented on the novel sight of Buddhist priests.51 In a letter to Gerbig, the priests featured as one of their visual highlights: ‘The priests look excellent, completely clad in yellow [robes], with shaved foreheads, which makes the head appear very long.’52 After a day of sight-seeing in Colombo, Lotte noted, her head was filled with all the things they had seen.53 Pechstein, too, was preoccupied with the visual impressions gathered. Lying in a deckchair that evening, he dreamt ‘of brown bodies and red earth [and] green palms’.54 He illustrated his diary entries with many sketches, and recorded his regret after leaving Singapore that he had obeyed orders not to make any drawings whilst visiting this British crown colony.55 Pechstein had also taken a camera with him, and recorded some of the exotic sights they encountered on photographs.56 Lotte, too, obviously enjoyed the variety of visual spectacles. On board, there were many colourful sunsets to be witnessed, and when visiting the various harbour towns ‘[t]here is always 48 49 50 51 52 53 54 55 56

Ibid. For Pechstein’s impressions of the passage, see his diary entry of 19 May [1914], f. 14. Lotte diary entry, 30 May [1914], f. 7. Pechstein travel diary entry, 30 May 1914, f. 22. Pechstein travel diary entry, 30 May 1914, f. 21; Lotte diary entry, 30 May [1914], f. 7. Letter Pechstein and Lotte to Gerbig, 4 June 1914, in private collection. Lotte diary entry, 30 May [1914], f. 9. Pechstein travel diary entry, 30 May 1914, f. 23. Pechstein travel diary entry, 7 June 1914, f. 33. Ibid, 15 May, 2 June 1914, ff. 8, 25–26; Lotte diary entry, 15 & 16 May, 3 June [1914], ff. 3, 9. Two photos taken in Colombo have survived, as Pechstein sent them to Alexander Gerbig, letter of 4 June 1914, in private collection.

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a lot to see.’57 Her account of visiting Hong Kong provided a graphic portrayal of the city which in her eyes looked like a ‘shining christmas tree’ at night.58 Sometimes, however, the Pechsteins’ romantic infatuation with the exotic collided with social realities on the ground. ‘If the many sick people were not hitting one’s eye,’ Pechstein commented on Hong Kong, ‘the hustle and bustle would be a pleasure without limitations.’59 In fact, poverty accompanied them from the beginning of their journey. Already in Naples, Lotte complained about beggars.60 In Port Said, Eyptians surrounded their boat, diving for coins which passengers threw in the water. An old man used his only German – ‘ja, ja’ – to induce Pechstein to throw a coin, too, which he stored in his mouth after having dived for it.61 The sight made Lotte feel uneasy; it was ‘as if one was throwing fodder to animals’ she noted in her diary.62 Pechstein was less troubled when throwing money at beggars.63 In other cases, too, Lotte and Pechstein reacted differently to specific features of colonial life which they encountered. They used rickshaws to get around during their sightseeing tours of Colombo, Penang and Singapore. ‘I did not like sitting in them’, Lotte confessed in a letter, ‘and being pulled by a human.’64 Pechstein was not assailed by any such compunction. ‘Joyfully we drive in a rickshaw into Singapore,’ he noted in early June, ‘two slender Chinese coolies are pulling us.’65 At the same time, Pechstein repeatedly made an effort to explore city districts by foot in an attempt to delve into the world of the ‘natives’, as he referred to them.66 However, this was not as easy as it seemed. ‘It is almost impossible to go by foot’, Lotte reported in a letter.67 In Penang, for example, the couple went for an evening walk through the Chinese quarter, and immediately attracted the attention of numerous rikshaw drivers who tried to sell them their services. ‘The coolies surrounded us with their vehicles,’ Lotte recorded in her diary, ‘a policeman [eventually] beat one of them with his truncheon

57

Lotte diary entries, 11 June, [1914], f. 11. See also entries for 30 May and 17 June [1914], ff. 9, 11. 58 Lotte diary entry, 11 June [1914], f. 11. 59 Pechstein travel diary, 10 June 1914, f. 36. 60 Lotte diary entry, 15 May [1914], f. 3. 61 Lotte diary entry, 19 May [1914], f. 5. 62 Ibid. 63 Pechstein travel diary entries, 30 and 14 May 1914, ff. 23, 6, copy in Günter Krüger papers, Berlin. 64 Letter to Gerbig, 4 June 1914, in private collection. 65 Pechstein travel diary entry, 5 June 1914, f. 30. 66 Pechstein travel diary entry, 30 May 1914, f. 23. 67 Letter to Gerbig, 4 June 1914, in private collection.

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on his naked back, [and] immediately they all dispersed.’68 For the rest of their walk they were followed by some determined rickshaw drivers still hoping for some business to come their way, but the Pechsteins ‘accomplished to go on foot’, as Lotte put it somewhat proudly in her diary.69 In the eyes of Pechstein, European influence had already done a lot to spoil the towns which the couple visited. ‘Again, there is nothing acceptable on offer in the shops’, he complained in Singapore.70 ‘As a demonstration of its culture, Europe is flooding the conquered continent with its worst products.’71 Also, Pechstein thought that the local goods produced for export to Europe never reached the same level of tastefulness as the objects of everyday life hand-made for local consumption.72 ‘A simple seat made from bamboo cane, a parasol, a paper lantern, or the cheapest fan – all these gave evidence of an old, inherited handicraft culture’, Pechstein wrote of his ventures into the Chinese quarter in Hong Kong.73 At the same time, he did not spurn all goods produced for European use; in Singapore, for example, he ordered a suit to be made within a day, and bought a pair of shoes in a European department store.74 But generally, Pechstein was seeking a degree of authenticity which he thought only a remote South Seas island like Palau could deliver. His expectation was not entirely unfounded. In comparison to German colonies in Africa, the new German dominions in the Pacific were governed with a relatively light touch. In 1912, the total number of German colonial staff in the South Seas amounted to no more than twelve, including doctors, teachers and the crew of a governmental boat.75 In his memoirs, Pechstein described the governor of the region, Albert Hahl, as the ‘guardian of the South Seas paradise’, an ‘intelligent civil servant who anxiously saw to it that nothing European found its way into the area and corrupted the islanders’.76 They met in Hong Kong, where the Pechsteins had to change ship, and where Hahl had just arrived from New Guinea on his way to Germany. Upon hearing that a painter was travelling to Palau, Hahl sought out Pechstein and pleaded with him not to destroy the Palauans and their nature-based customs by way of some ‘European 68 69 70 71 72 73 74 75 76

Lotte diary entry, 3 June [1914], f. 10. Ibid. See also Pechstein travel diary entry, 3 June 1914, f. 28. Pechstein travel diary entry, 5 June 1914, f. 31. Ibid. See also diary entry 3 June 1914, f. 28. Pechstein, Erinnerungen, 55. Ibid. Pechstein travel diary entry, 5 June 1914, ff. 30–31. Gerd Hardach, ‘Die deutsche Herrschaft in Mikronesien’, in Hermann J. Hiery (ed.), Die deutsche Südsee 1884–1914: ein Handbuch (Paderborn, 2001), 516. Pechstein, Erinnerungen, 54–55. Pechstein forgot Hahl’s name, but it is clear that he meant Hahl. For Hahl, see Albert Hahl, Gouverneursjahre in Neu-Guinea (Hamburg, 1997), and Hardach, ‘Herrschaft’, 515.

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nonsense’.77 Pechstein managed to convince him that there was nothing to fear, as he was himself longing for and respecting the ‘undesecrated unity of nature and man’ on Palau.78 In Hong Kong, Pechstein and Lotte boarded the smaller German steam-ship Coblenz and left for Palau on 14 June 1914.79 They made a stop-over in Manila where Pechstein used the final opportunity to stock up their provisions.80 Only upon leaving Manila did he start feeling that he had finally left behind European civilization and was now approaching the unknown.81 On this final stretch of the journey their ship ran into a typhoon. ‘Colossal waves of 20 metres of height’, Lotte recorded the terrifying experience in her diary.82 Water came splashing down the steps, it even poured in through the tightly screwed portholes, and everything inside the cabins and in the corridors was floating.83 Pechstein was one of the very few passengers who did not become seasick.84 This was an achievement of which he was still proud over thirty years later, as evident in his memoirs: [W]e wedged ourselves tightly behind the iron tables which were screwed to the floor in the smoking salon, and smoked our Manila cigars steadfastly, whereas the other poor passengers did not appear at mealtimes […], with their moaning the only sign of life we registered.85

In retrospect, the typhoon appeared to Pechstein like a dividing line between his former life and the new one he was just about to begin.86 On 21 June, they finally arrived in Angaur, the southernmost island of the Palau group. In terms of getting away from European civilization, it was probably not quite what Pechstein had expected. Large deposits of guano had been discovered there in 1906, and were now exploited by the German South Seas Phosphate Company, which produced 90,000 tons of the mineral in 1913.87 In his memoirs, Pechstein criticized this European settlement and the economic exploitation that came with it: 77 Pechstein, Erinnerungen, 55. 78 Ibid. It is strange that this encounter is mentioned nowhere in his or Lotte’s travel diaries of the time; but as Hahl is known to have left New Guinea for Germany in spring 1914, a meeting in Hong Kong is not implausible. 79 Pechstein travel diary, 14 June 1914, f. 39. 80 Pechstein, Erinnerungen, 56. 81 Max Pechstein, ‘Reise nach Palau’, in Vossische Zeitung, no. 4 92, 26 September 1915. See also Pechstein, Erinnerungen, 57. 82 Lotte diary entry, 19 June [1914], f. 12. 83 Ibid. See also Pechstein, ‘Reise nach Palau’, and Pechstein, Erinnerungen, 57. 84 Lotte diary entry, 19 June [1914], f. 12. 85 Pechstein, Erinnerungen, 57. 86 Ibid, 58. 87 Horst Weyhmann, Unsere Südsee. Ein unentbehrlicher Bestandteil der deutschen Volkswirtschaft (Berlin, 1917), 24–25. See also Peter Hempenstall, ‘Mikronesier und Deutsche’, in Hiery (ed.), Deutsche Südsee, 587.

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Fig. 3.4: Map of the Western part of the Pacific Ocean, and of the Palau-Islands, c. 1906. Published in Karl Semper, Auf den Palau-Inseln, Berlin (no date, c. 1906), 6–7.

On Angaur, several European employees were perched in their nicely furnished homes, with a mess and [all kinds of] European brimborium […], a store for the camp administrators, offices, and houses for the hired coloured workers, Chinese laundry men, men from Yap, Nauru, in short all the possible South Seas islands. They were contracted for two years to excavate the open phosphate mines and to wash the mineral which was then taken as dung to the outside world on phosphate boats. […] Only one Palau village still existed on the island, a peaceful oasis in this world of greed for money and European commerce.88

At the time, however, Pechstein was less critical. He and Lotte were hosted by the local manager, Lippert, and the evening which they spent with the 88 Pechstein, Erinnerungen, 59–60.

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other Europeans in the mess was ‘very jolly’, according to Lotte’s diary.89 They were allocated ‘one of the nice houses for civil servants’, as Pechstein noted, and spent the next three weeks exploring the island while waiting for a boat to take them northwards.90 When they finally departed, they left on good terms. Pechstein gave Lippert an oil painting, Monsoon mood on Palau, as a present – the only painting produced on Palau which has survived. In a newspaper article which Pechstein wrote about his trip to Palau in 1915, he was full of praise about the Angaur settlement: ‘It is now a small colony of diligent people, set up with German thoroughness in a practical and modern manner: a beautiful example of German pioneering industriousness.’91 In mid-July, the Pechsteins boarded a Japanese coal ship which took them to their final destination, the island Korreor, south of the main Palau island of Babeltaob. Here, in the small village of Madalai, the German governmental office was located. Its staff consisted of only two officials, the station-leader, Winkler, and the governmental doctor, Dr Born, who were both married to native women.92 In his memoirs, Pechstein recounts how surprised Winkler was to meet them and to hear they were intending to stay. He welcomed them warmly and invited them to his house. The passage in Pechstein’s memoirs describing his first encounter with German colonial administration reveals a lot about his idealistic account of Palau. […] I got to know Winkler’s wife, Nargley, who welcomed the guests wearing – quite un-Europeanly – only a grass skirt. A refreshingly natural welcome, without any repelling bureaucracy. […] I received from Herr Winkler valuable advise on my behaviour towards the people of Palau, in order not to violate their honour and traditions. It has to be said in praise of the German administration that everything had been preserved in its original state. There was nothing European, apart from the two officials, and somewhat more removed the [Catholic] mission on Babeltaob […]. And all the buildings which were created differed in no way from those of the Palauans themselves […].93

What is striking here is Pechstein’s insistence on the intactness of his tropical paradise, which he portrays as undisturbed from European influenc-

89 Lotte diary, 21 [June 1914], f. 12. 90 Pechstein travel manuscript, New York-East, 1 July 1915, f. 7, copy in Günter Krüger papers, Berlin. Lotte diary entires, 22 June–2 July, 12 July, ff. 12–3. 91 Pechstein, ‘Reise nach Palau’. 92 The ‘medical assistant’, to which Pechstein refers in his Erinnerungen, 61, was a fullyfledged governmental doctor, Dr Born, see Jahresbericht 1915. Aus den Missionen der rhein.-westf. Kapuziner-Ordensprovinz auf den Karolinen, Marianen und Palau-Inseln in der deutschen Südsee (Limburg, 1915), 18. 93 Pechstein, Erinnerungen, 61–62.

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Fig. 3.5: Monsoon Atmosphere in Palau (1914/10), oil on canvas, 78 × 67 cm, unknown private collection.

es.94 In fact, this did not reflect accurately the realities on the ground. As Jill Lloyd has pointed out, station-leader Winkler, who is so highly praised in Pechstein’s memoirs for his respect for the integrity of native society, led a punitive raid in 1906 against local witchdoctors who had protested 94 Lloyd, German Expressionism, 201–202.

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against some of the changes introduced by the German administration.95 He burnt down their houses, had them arrested and deported, and ordered the execution of one of them.96 In many ways, the German administration intervened in the most fundamental way in local life. Communal dancing, for example, was banned by the government.97 Ironically, the Germans were also responsible for the fact that no more men’s club houses were produced which with their carved and painted beams had been the reason for Pechstein’s tript to Palau. The native custom of young, unmarried women entertaining men in these club houses was labeled prostitution by the Germans, and held responsible for a worrying degree of population decline.98 However, by discouraging this practice the Germans changed dramatically the gender balance on the island, prohibiting women from earning money and thereby undermined the basis of matrilineal society on Palau.99 Of course, Pechstein who stayed in Palau for only just over four months was possibly unaware of Winkler’s political practices, or the degree of social change brought about by the German colonial rule. But the reference to the colonial buildings at the end of the passage quoted above suggests that Pechstein was indeed idealizing Palau consciously in his memoirs. Photos of this time show the German buildings on Korreor to look completely unlike the traditional island houses: neither Winkler’s governmental station with its white walls, window blinds and corrugated iron sheet roof, nor the big wooden Catholic church, nor indeed the stone built prison bore any resemblance to traditional Palauan architecture.100 It is most likely that when Pechstein was writing his memoirs in 1946, he constructed his account of Palau consciously as a critical counter-image to European civilization, and therefore idealized his own existence there.101 This was partly owed to the art critic Max Osborn, who in his Pechstein biography of 1922 had heavily romanticized Pechstein’s Palau days. Osborn portrayed Pechstein as a child of nature who had no problems adapting to the simple life 95

96 97 98 99 100 101

Ibid, 203. For the various contemporary explanations for the decline in population, see Salvator, ‘Rückgang der Bevölkerung auf den Palau-Inseln’, in Jahresbericht 1912. Aus den Missionen der rhein.-westf. Kapuziner-Ordensprovinz auf den Karolinen, Marianen und Palau-Inseln in der deutschen Südsee (Oberginingen, 1912), 32–33. Peter Hempenstall, ‘Mikronesier und Deutsche’, 589. See Lotte diary entry of 3 October [1914], f. 28: ‘Unfortunately, the Palau people dance only rarely, because the government has forbidden it to them.’ Lloyd, German Expressionism, 203. See also the report by Winkler, reprinted in Hermann J. Hiery, ‘Der Erste Weltkrieg und das Ende des Deutschen Einflusses in der Südsee’, in Hiery (ed.), Deutsche Südsee, 838. See Claudia Lauterbach, Von Frauen, Machtbalance und Modernisierung: das etwas andere Geschlechterverhältnis auf der Pazifikinsel Palau (Opladen, 2001). See the photos in Hermann J. Hiery, Bilder aus der deutschen Südsee. Fotografien 1884– 1914 (Paderborn, 2005), 221, 224. Lloyd, German Expressionism, 202.

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of the islanders: ‘His cultural experience of Dresden and Berlin turns out to be what it had been in reality: an outward dress which could be shaken off without any trouble.’102 Pechstein obviously liked this sentence so much that he used it in his autobiography. Indeed, entire sections of Pechstein’s memoirs are copied from Osborn’s monograph.103 Over the decades, many art historians have used such sentences from Pechstein’s memoirs when describing his idyllic existence on Palau without realizing that this was not the artist’s own voice.104 Other passages of the Palau section of Pechstein’s autobiography are very loosely based on his travel diary of the time. Although this Palau diary has not survived, it is possible to reconstruct a relatively accurate image of Pechstein’s stay from a lengthy travel report which he wrote for a newspaper in 1915, and from Lotte’s diary entries.105 Pechstein and Lotte moved into an empty club house just outside the village of Korreor, an enormous building of thirty metres length, seven metres wide and twelve metres high.106 Here they lived right among the carved and painted cross beams which back in Dresden had initially inspired Pechstein to undertake this trip. Although decades later Pechstein stressed the ease with which he adapted to the lifestyle of the Palauans, in reality he imported a great many European cultural practices. One of the first things he did was to construct an oven to bake bread, followed by a smokehouse for conserving meat.107 Pechstein even tried his hand at producing sausages. ‘This was one of the most funny instances’, he wrote later.108 ‘The Palauans had never seen sausages being made; well, they liked the samples [I] served, and again they had something to tell about “Max”.’109 Sausages were not the only sign of a western way of life. The one photo which has survived of the Pechsteins on Palau shows Lotte in a dark 102 Max Osborn, Max Pechstein (Berlin, 1922), 120. 103 See, for example, Osborn, Pechstein, 118–122, 125–130, 135; the equivalent sections in Pechstein, Erinnerungen, are 76–79, 79–82, 91. 104 E.g. Antje Birthälmer, ‘Auf der Such nach dem Ursprünglichen’, in Magdalena M. Moeller (ed.), Max Pechstein im Brücke-Museum Berlin (Munich, 2001), 33; Barbara Lülf, ‘Die Suche nach dem Ursprünglichen. Max Pechstein und Palau’, in Magdalena M. Moeller (ed.), Max Pechstein. Sein malerisches Werk (Munich, 1997), 91; Beate Grubert-Thurow, ‘Das ferne Paradies. Pechstein und Palau’, in Städtisches Kunstmuseum Spendhaus Reutlingen (ed.), Max Pechstein. Das Ferne Paradies (Reutlingen, 1995), 76. 105 Pechstein travel manuscript, New York-East, 1 July 1915, f. 7. Pechstein sent this account in a letter dated 23 July 1915 to Paul Fechter, in GRL, Special Collections, 2001.M.19. It formed the basis for three edited articles published in Vossische Zeitung, ‘Reise nach Palau’, no. 492, 26 September 1915, ‘Kriegsausbruch in der Südsee’, no. 518, 10 October 1915, and ‘Als Gefangener nach Japan’, no. 544, 24 October 1915. 106 Pechstein, ‘Reise nach Palau’. 107 Ibid. See also Lotte diary entry, 11 August [1914], f. 17. 108 Ibid. 109 Ibid.

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Fig. 3.6: Entry in Lotte Pechstein’s travel diary, 26 July 1914, private collection.

151

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Fig. 3.7: Interior of a Palau Bai, c. 1910. Unknown photographer. Published in Paul Ebert, Südsee-Erinnerungen. Leipzig 1924.

dress with lace borders and Pechstein wearing a white tropical suit. It is difficult to recognize here the ‘child of nature’, which Osborn idealized in his Pechstein biography, allegedly able ‘to approach the South Sea islanders in a brotherly way [driven by] the deepest sentiment of human community’.110 This was something of an exaggeration. In fact, immediately after arriving on Palau the Pechsteins hired two local youths as household servants, Joseph and Dominicus, which – in line with colonial practice – they called their ‘boys’.111 Lotte became increasingly frustrated with them, as evident in her diary. ‘Today our boys are quite lazy’, reads one entry, ‘had trouble again with [the] boys’ another.112 In early August, she sacked Dominicus and complained: ‘When will one ever have good boys – I think never.’113 Two weeks later, after a day of ‘loafing’, Joseph was given the boot, too.114 Only Paulus, hired as Dominicus’ replacement, turned out to be a reli110 Osborn, Pechstein, 120. See also Pechstein, Erinnerungen, 78. 111 They actually used the English word ‘boy’: Lotte diary entries, 23 [June] and 26 July [1914], ff. 12, 15; and Pechstein, Erinnerungen, 62–63, 73, 75. 112 Lotte diary entries 26 July and 1 August [1914], ff. 15, 16. 113 Lotte diary entry, 2 August [1914], f. 16. 114 Lotte diary entry, 16 August [1914], f. 19.

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Fig. 3.8: Lotte and Max Pechstein on Palau, 1914. Unknown photographer.

able help.115 Pechstein himself saw no reason to complain; his own boy, Auchell, proved extremely skilful and became his constant companion. In order to be mobile, Pechstein bought a sailing boat for 400 Marks from one of the two Japanese merchants based in Madalai, and ordered a big travel canoe on the island of Eimelik.116 In his autobiography, the trips he undertook together with Auchell in his canoe feature prominently, especially their hunting expeditions. Meanwhile, Lotte had to stay at home. She felt that Pechstein was not sufficiently caring.117 ‘Max has it good’, she recorded in her diary, ‘he can go whenever and wherever he wants – I am always alone and he is often in a bad mood.’118 Especially in early August, when suffering from an ear infection, she complained almost daily about her loneliness.119 ‘I am being left at home, why? I am sad and cry – there is bitterness in me’, she noted on 8 August.120 Unlike Pechstein, who very 115 Lotte diary entry, 14 August [1914], f. 18. 116 Lotte diary entries, 25 [August], 4 September [1914], ff. 21, 23. For the presence of Japanese merchants on Palau, see Hardach, ‘Herrschaft’, 518, 522. 117 E.g. Lotte diary entries, 29 July and 12 August [1914], ff. 15, 17. 118 Lotte diary entry, 4 August [1914], f. 16. 119 Lotte diary entries, 3 August, 4 August, 6 August, 7 August [1914], f. 16. 120 Ibid, 8 August [1914], f. 16.

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Fig. 3.9: Auchell (1917/94), oil on canvas, measures unknown, lost.

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Fig. 3.10: Sailing boat, 1914, watercolour, 19.5 × 13.3 cm, Brücke-Museum, Berlin.

155

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quickly formed a friendship with Auchell’s father, the deputy chieftain of Korreor, Rubasack, Lotte had difficulties making new friends. ‘If only Max was a bit nicer,’ she wrote in her diary, ‘I have absolutely nobody.’121 After a visit by a German settler and his Palauan wife, Lotte highlighted the lack of common ground: ‘[I] went on a walk with Meri for a bit – but what can I talk to her about?’122 At the end of August, Lotte felt she had had enough of Korreor, and was looking forward to a roundtrip of Palau together with Max.123 Perhaps there was even more to Lotte’s complaints about her loneliness than her diary reveals. In the late 1920s, years after their divorce, Pechstein wrote two newspaper articles about his encounter with a young Palauan girl called Ronmay. Photos of the time show her as a slender, tall and beautiful young woman, with very fine features.124 Pechstein had met her during a walk to a neighbouring village, and it was immediately clear to him that he wanted her to be his model. After Pechstein had talked to her father she appeared a couple of days later at his house and he painted her.125 The section in the article describing this painting session is conspicuously suggestive; Pechstein talks of a ‘fulfilling’ experience, recounts how he worked ‘until exhaustion’, is ‘whipped forward’, enthuses about ‘harmony’ and ‘virginity’, and at the end is ‘pleasantly tired’.126 The article’s final sentence is symbolically charged: ‘The red hibiscus flower from her hair which she gave me as a present when leaving made me full of hope.’127 In another article, Pechstein was even more explicit, recounting the jealousy of his boy Auchell in view of his conqest of Ronmay, whom he was apparently seeing regularly. Pechstein explained the fact that she preferred him to the younger and beautiful Auchell with his own artistic skills: ‘With pencil and colour I created a net with which I caught the fish we both desired.’128 This article about the competition of two men for the same women, and Pechstein’s admission that Auchell’s jealousy did in fact ‘double my feeling

121 Ibid, 12 August [1914], f. 17. 122 Ibid, 11 August [1914], f. 17. Perhaps Meri is mispelt, and ‘Walter and Meri’ are in reality Winkler and his Palauan wife, Nari. However, elsewhere the diary consistently talks of ‘Herr Winkler’. 123 Lotte diary entry, 27 [August 1914], f. 21. 124 See photo of chieftain Aibedul and his family, reproduced in Paul Ebert, Südsee-Erinnerungen (Leipzig, 1924), 161, where Ronmay is the second from the left. Note the similarity to Pechstein’s portrait Ronmay of 1917. 125 Lotte records a walk to the village of ‘Narmi’ [Ngarmid] on 26 July 1914, and talks of two young girls coming to their house to get painted on 31 July, ff. 14, 16. 126 Max Pechstein, ‘Ronmay mit der Hibiscusblüte’, in Berliner Lokal-Anzeiger, no. 263, 5 June 1927. 127 Ibid. 128 Max Pechstein, ‘Braunes Leid auf Palau’, in Berliner Tageblatt, 6 June 1926.

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Fig. 3.11: Rubasack (1917/91), oil on canvas, 75 × 59.5 cm, private collection.

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Fig. 3.12: Ronmay (1917/92), oil on canvas, 76 × 59.5 cm, private collection, Germany. Photograph: Alexander Pechstein, Tökendorf.

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of victory’ suggests that there may have been more to his relationship to Ronmay than simply that of painter and model. Despite their remote location, news of the outbreak of war back in Europe took only three days to reach the Pechsteins on Palau, by way of the radio station on Angaur.129 At first they only heard that Germany and Russia were at war, some days later further news trickled through.130 ‘[I] have just received reports that the situation in Germany is very bad’, Lotte recorded in her diary on 14 August. ‘England, France, Russia and Romania against Germany, and Italy against Austria.’131 Much to the chagrin of the Pechsteins no more information was forthcoming because British warships destroyed the radio tower on Jap which had formed Palau’s connection to the international cable net.132 Their eagerness to find out more was satisfied only with the visit of German warships on Korreor. The news, however, was bad. Japan had joined the Allies and had declared war against Germany. Anxiety became the predominant mood. ‘We are entirely ignorant how the war is going’, Lotte noted in early September.133 ‘Whenever a steamship is in sight there is apprehension – every day we expect the arrival of the Japanese to take possession of Palau.’134 With every week which passed their hunger for news from Germany increased. ‘I have to think of home often,’ Lotte recorded in late September, ‘what might the situation be like? For six weeks we have not received proper news – Liebknecht is said to have been shot in battle?’135 Rumours that the prominent Social Democrat and pacifist Karl Liebknecht had been executed by the German government for defeatism had circulated in the German press in mid-August, and without a constant supply of news the imagination of the Pechstein couple was able to run wild.136 It was only now, triggered by the imminent occupation by Japanese troops, that Pechstein decided to embark with Lotte on a prolonged round trip of Palau, with an eye of seeking out a more remote location to which they could move. They sailed along the eastern coast of Babeltaob and

129 Lotte diary entry, 3 August [1914], f. 16. 130 Lotte diary entries, 3, 5 and 14 August [1914], ff. 16–18. See also Pechstein, ‘Kriegsausbruch in der Südsee’. 131 Lotte diary entry, 14 August [1914], f. 18. 132 Ibid. See also Hiery, ‘Der Erste Weltkrieg’, 828; Reinhard Klein-Arendt, ‘Die Nachrichtenübermittlung in den deutschen Südseekolonien’, in Hiery (ed.), Deutsche Südsee, 177–194. 133 Lotte diary entry, 4 September [1914], f. 23. 134 Ibid. 135 Lotte diary entry, 29 September [1914], f. 27. 136 Florian Altenhöner, Kommunikation und Kontrolle. Gerüchte und städtische Öffentlichkeiten in Berlin und London 1914/1918 (Munich, 2008), 196.

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made their way to the northernmost island of Ngarkeklau.137 In Pechstein’s autobiography, his account of visits to the various Palauan villages, of overnight stays in beautiful clubhouses and feasts with local chieftains, of expeditions through tropical landscapes and trips to uninhibited islands contains an unmistakable sense of adventure and discovery.138 In fact, the description of this twelve-day trip makes up almost half of the entire Palau section, thus making his stay on Palau appear even more exciting than it was anyway. Also, while in his memoirs Pechstein conveyed the impression of a lone adventurer – not even mentioning Lotte’s presence on this trip once – Lotte’s diary records several encounters with other Germans on the way. ‘Max returns and brings a basket full of beer,’ she noted on the fourth day, ‘he had met Herr Brüggemann – the beer tasted excellent.’139 In Malegeok they spent considerable time at the Catholic mission, in Ngabuket they met the governmental doctor and a colleague of his, and towards the end of their trip they were joined by Lippert, the Angaur manager who returned with them to Korreor.140 At this point they could not know that this excursion had been the high point as well as the beginning of the end of their stay in the South Seas. The outbreak of war in Europe affected the Pechsteins in an immediate fashion. Contrary to Pechstein’s recollections in his memoirs, where he paints the image of a self-sufficient life in a land of plenty, the couple was actually heavily dependent on food supplies brought to them by ship.141 This supply line had now broken down. ‘No steamships are running anymore’, Lotte noted in early August already, ‘and our provisions are in such short supply.’142 In early September, the Japanese merchant in Madalai closed shop, and Lotte noted that ‘one cannot get any food anymore’.143 Towards the end of the month, the situation became critical. Without Pechstein’s and Auchell’s hunting successes they would have had barely anything to eat.144 Lotte’s diary entries reflected her incrasing anxiety. ‘Our food gets ever scarcer’, she recorded on 26 September, and some 137 Pechstein, ‘Kriegsausbruch in der Südsee’. See also Lotte diary entries 7–18 September [1914], ff. 23–25. 138 Pechstein, Erinnerungen, 76–90. Pages 76 to 82 were copied almost word by word from Osborn, Pechstein, 118–130. 139 Lotte diary entry, 10 September [1914], f. 24. 140 Lotte diary entries, 8, 12, 16 September [1914], ff. 23–25. 141 Lotte diary entry, 25 August [1914], f. 21. The same was true of the Catholic mission on Palau, which in October 1914 also recorded a critical lack of provisions, see Jahresbericht 1915. Aus den Missionen der rhein.-westf. Kapuziner-Ordensprovinz auf den Karolinen, Marianen und Palau-Inseln in der deutschen Südsee (Limburg, 1915), 18. 142 Lotte diary entry, 5 August [1914], f. 16. See also Pechstein, Erinnerungen, 64. 143 Lotte diary entry, 4 September [1914], f. 22. 144 Letter Pechstein to Gerbig, 8 June 1915, in private collection.

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days later she expressed the fervent wish that the steamship Wiegand would arrive soon and bring food from Manila.145 Luckily, they still enjoyed the support from the local population at this point. ‘Every day people come and bring fruit, chicken, fish,’ Pechstein recalled a year later, ‘mostly they ask for tobacco in return, some also want money. In circulation are the fifty-pfennig piece and the one-mark coin.’146 However, Pechstein’s money began to run out, and without shipping connections he was unable to draw on his credit. He was rescued by Winkler who lent him some money following the confirmation by the Phosphate Company that Pechstein held an account with them in Hong Kong.147 It was not all gloom, though. In early October, Pechstein’s friend Rubasack organized a village dance to honour his German friend.148 ‘Much rice is being cooked’, Lotte observed.149 Around eight in the evening everyone has arrived and there is a lot of eating. Then the men sit down opposite the women and someone begins to sing – then everyone yells – [they] jump up and perform rhythmic movements – whilst clapping loudly on their bottom – sometimes they all sing – then again only one – in between clapping of hands and on the bottom.150

The dance continued until the following morning. Pechstein captured the event in one of the many ink drawings he produced whilst on Palau. During his stay, most of his artistic production consisted of such drawings, on some of which he also applied watercolour. Apart from the one painting he gave to Lippert, Pechstein seems not to have worked in oil.151 Inspired by the carved beams of the club houses around him, he much preferred trying his hand at working with wood using local tools. He spent many days sculpting a statue which one visiting local woman thought looked

145 Lotte diary entries, 26, 28 September and 1 October [1914], f. 27. 146 Pechstein, ‘Reise nach Palau.’ 147 Letter Pechstein to Fechter, 24 June 1915, in GRL, Special Collections, 2001.M.19. See also Lotte diary entry, 25 August [1914], f. 21. Note that in his memoirs, Pechstein claimed he had no need for money on Palau, Erinnerungen, 77. 148 Pechstein, ‘Kriegsausbruch in der Südsee’; Lotte diary entry, 3 October [1914], f. 28. In Pechstein’s memoirs, this dance happens on the same day as the communal reroofing of Pechstein’s club house, see Erinnerungen, 72–74. According to Lotte, however, the reroofing happened on 4 September, the dance on 4 October, see Lotte diary entries, ff. 23, 28. 149 Lotte diary entry, 4 October [1914], f. 28. 150 Ibid. See also Pechstein, Erinnerunge, 73–74, which gives a more elaborate account. 151 At least there is no mention of this anywhere in Lotte’s diary. In Pechstein’s memoirs, there is only one sentence – ‘I am not only carving – I paint, completing a few paintings’, Erinnerungen, 90, but the German terms used (‘malen’, ‘Bilder’) could equally refer to watercolours.

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like a Palauan idol.152 In his memoirs, Pechstein recalled how the son of Korreor’s chieftain Aibedul sometimes continued working on the statue when he was taking a break.153 Pechstein was obviously keen to emulate local custom; he decorated his canoe with a freeze and mother-of-pearl inlays, and produced a number of spears for fishing.154 Only towards the end of his stay, when producing a woodcut, he reverted to a technique he had perfected in Germany. This was such a rare incident that Lotte found it worthy to note in her diary.155 Apart from his drawings Pechstein was unable to take any of these artworks with him when leaving Palau. When the Japanese finally occupied Palau on 8 October they did not encounter any resistance. In view of the lack of German military, Pechstein observed, the Japanese soldiers took to shooting chickens.156 Indeed, in his eyes, the entire event was not so much a military exercise than an armed robbing. The Japanese proved primarily interested in confiscating German government funds kept on Palau. They put station leader Winkler under arrest but found only a little money in the governmental office in Madalai. They then turned their attention to the Catholic mission, again without success.157 In his frustration, the Japanese commander beat up one of the padres, much to the indignation of the Pechsteins. ‘Our blood is boiling’, Lotte recorded in her diary.158 Pechstein, too, came under scrutiny. ‘The soldiers have taken away our [kitchen] boy’, Lotte noted on 16 October, ‘and they want to force him to tell [them] where the government money is […]. The soldiers walk around with mounted bayonets and we are allowed only in front of our house. We are under constant observation – they believe they can find money or government papers with us.’159 Although the money was actually immured behind the altar in the mission, the Japanese suscpicion was not entirely unfounded. On the night following the occupation, Pechstein had managed to visit Winkler and received from him all the secret paperwork which he then sunk in the sea.160 Some days later, 152 Lotte diary entries, 1, 15, 17, 18, 19 August [1914], ff. 16, 19. See also Pechstein, Erinnerungen, 66–67, 90. 153 Pechstein, Erinnerungen, 67. 154 Ibid, 68; Lotte diary entries, 22, 26, 27, 30 September [1914], ff. 26–27. 155 Lotte diary entry, 7 October [1914], f. 29. 156 For this and the following, see Pechstein, ‘Als Gefangener nach Japan’. For the Japanese occupation of Palau, see also the report in Jahresbericht 1915, 17–19. 157 In fact, the money had been immured behind the altar, see Hiery, ‘Der Erste Weltkrieg’, 832. See also letter Pechstein to Fechter, 24 June 1915, in GRL, Special Collections, 2001.M.19. 158 Lotte diary entry, 23 October [1914], f. 31. 159 Lotte diary entry, 16 October [1914], f. 29. 160 Pechstein, ‘Als Gefangener nach Japan.’ See also letter Pechstein to Curt Glaser, Manila, 8 February 1915 and letter Pechstein to Fechter, 24 June 1915, New York, in GRL, Special Collections, 2001.M.19.

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Fig. 3.13: Palau-Dance, 1914, ink drawing, ca. 29 × 34 cm, private collection, Germany.

Pechstein’s kitchen boy was lured by the promise of a reward and told the Japanese he had witnessed Pechstein leave, and that he had heard something being plunged into water. ‘They brandished their bayonets in front of my nose, occupied my house with twelve soldiers and intended to starve me out and let me boil,’ Pechstein wrote in a letter some months later.161 ‘Well, I could deal with that better than they, as I had long become acclimatized, then they were positioned in front of my house […] but could not prove anything.’162 The Japanese then turned on Auchell, and even put Pechstein’s friend Rubasack into prison to find out more, but without results. When Pechstein and Rubasack managed to have the kitchen boy disappear to a northern island the investigation was eventually dropped. 161 Letter Pechstein to Fechter, New York, 24 June 1915, in GRL, Special Collections, 2001.M.19. 162 Ibid.

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For the Pechsteins, life on Palau changed dramatically under Japanese occupation. Lotte had to deal with the harassment by Japanese troops. ‘Soldiers came and abused me in the meanest possible way – I pursue one and the cowardly character flees into the bush’, she recorded in mid-October.163 ‘Here in the house they have toppled the mat and tried to shoot me with gestures – I am deeply incensed.’164 Food became an even more pressing concern than before. Pechstein had managed to hide one of his guns but was now unable to go hunting. What followed were four weeks of hunger; ‘it was terrible, nothing to eat’, Pechstein wrote to his friend Gerbig some months later.165 ‘Occasionaly the natives brought a chicken, every time one piece of my equipment had to be surrendered. Then even that stopped, they preferred stealing my things, as they then did not have to give anything, hence no more food either.’166 As their club house did not have any lockable doors, he spent sleepless nights trying to prevent thieves from intruding into their home.167 Lotte, too, was disillusioned by the change in conduct by the local population. ‘The natives behave in quite an impertinent way’, she noted.168 ‘[T]hey have quickly grown accustomed to the new rule.’169 Pechstein was convinced that there was a direct link to the decline in status of Germany as a colonial power which he found particularly humiliating. ‘The Palauan respects only the stronger, and that is currently the Japanese here’, he reflected.170 [N]ow one has to sit back and suffer proudly the mocking dances of the Palauans in front of my bai [club house], and the rumours spread by the Japanese that Germany has been divided between Japan, England and France, that our Emperor and his family have been banished to an island where they will have to starve, and – this caps it all – that Japan was only biding its time until the revolution in Germany.171

Even worse than all this was the uncertainty about their future, as the Japanese authorities were unsure how to deal with the Germans which they had brought under their control. ‘Sometimes they say we have to leave, some163 Lotte diary entry, 19 October [1914], f. 30. 164 Ibid. 165 Letter Pechstein to Gerbig, 8 June 1915, in private collection; letter Pechstein to Gerbig, 21 December 1914, in private collection. 166 Letter Pechstein to Wolfgang Gurlitt, 14 December 1914, copy in Günter Krüger papers, Berlin. 167 Pechstein, ‘Als Gefangener nach Japan.’ 168 Lotte diary entry, 25 October [1914], f. 32. 169 Ibid. See also Hiery, ‘Der Erste Weltkrieg’, 838. 170 Pechstein travel manuscript, New York-East, 1 July 1915, f. 42. 171 Ibid. Note that Lotte also records disapprovingly of Palauan dances, diary entry, 25 October [1914], f. 32.

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times we can stay’, Lotte recorded in her diary.172 News that Germany’s war effort was going well resulted in short-lived hopes that they might be able to stay.173 Prior to the arrival of the Japanese, Pechstein had bought a small island not far from Madalai from Korreor’s chieftain Aibedul, to which they now hoped they could move. Hence they were severely disappointed when they were eventually told that they would get deported to Japan. ‘My heart is sore’, Lotte confided in her diary, ‘I had already looked forward to living with Max on a small island, and he could have worked.’174 On 1 November they had to board the Japanese steamship Kamakura Maru which left the following day for Nagasaki. Unlike the Germans deported from the island of Jap, the Pechsteins were allowed to take all their luggage with them.175 In his memoirs, Pechstein spoke of one suitcase and several boxes filled with his work material, and only regretted that he had to leave behind his tropical suits.176 Still, it was a very painful departure. ‘Damn it, I was choking with emotion when we were taken away by the grinning Japanese,’ Pechstein wrote some months later, ‘and my good boy [Auchell] cried so hard that the tears were rolling down his brown cheeks.’177 When the ship departed, Pechstein stood at the deck railing and watched Palau disappear on the horizon. ‘I was clenching my teeth whilst in front of me the dream of my life faded away,’ he wrote in retrospect.178 The Japanese, he felt, were kicking him out of the paradise of his life, just when he had looked into it.179 Four and a half months after their arrival on Palau their stay in the South Seas was over. The passage to Nagasaki on the overcrowded Kamakura Maru took nearly a week. After their arrival they were kept on board and interrogated for two days. Then, after swearing an oath of neutrality they were

172 173 174 175 176

177 178 179

Lotte diary entry, 23 October [1914], f. 31. Lotte diary entry, 25 October [1914], f. 31. Lotte diary entry, 25 October [1914], f. 32. See also Pechstein, Erinnerungen, 90. Lotte diary entry, 9 November 1914, f. 39. See also Pechstein, ‘Als Gefangener nach Japan.’ Pechstein, Erinnerungen, 91. He did not leave behind any works on canvas or paper, as is sometimes stated in the secondary literature. According to Wilhelm Hausenstein, ‘the only thing which he deplores today [1918] in retrospect, apart from the interruption of his exotic existence, is the loss of his wooden sculptures which he had sculpted on his islands and which he had to leave behind somewhere in the far East.’ See Wilhelm Hausenstein, ‘Max Pechstein’, in Deutsche Kunst und Dekoration 21, August 1918, 227. Pechstein letter to Gerbig, 8 June 1915, in private collection. See also Pechstein, ‘Als Gefangener nach Japan’; Pechstein letter to Fechter, 28 March 1915, in GRL, Special Collections, 2001.M.19; Pechstein, Erinnerungen, 91. Pechstein, ‘Als Gefangener nach Japan’. Letter Pechstein to Gerbig, Manila, 21 December 1914, in private collection.

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allowed ashore, and told to leave Japan as soon as possible.180 However, the major problem for Pechstein at this point was his lack of money, as the British had confiscated the funds on his account in Hong Kong. Luckily, the American consul in Nagasaki took an interest in his case and helped him out with accommodation and some money.181 Also, on their transit to Nagasaki, Pechstein had met a friend he had made on the Derfflinger back in May, who lent him some money for their onward journey.182 During the week which they spent seeking a ship passage, the Pechsteins were allowed to move relatively freely. They visited temples, cinemas, and public baths. They were accompanied by a Japanese policeman who dutifully recorded everything they did.183 Eventually, they secured two places on the American steamship Mongolia. When they left for Manila in mid-November, they did so almost empty-handed. To Pechstein’s great frustration, all his boxes which they had been able to take with them from Palau remained with customs in Nagasaki, because he was unable to pay the freight costs to Manila.184 This was not his only gripe. Rather than travelling first class, as they had done on their way to Palau, they could now only afford a passage between the decks. ‘We had to share a room for sleeping and eating with Indians, negroes, [and] Chinese’, he reported in a newspaper article which he wrote some time later, and continued: ‘Those who know the [Far] East are aware what this means: it destroys the standing of the white race.’185 This was a surprising statement to come from Pechstein, but it is indicative of the extent to which the outbreak of war had politicized him. The final weeks on Palau had temporarily shattered his romantic illusion of living in brotherly harmony with the Palauans, and his fall from grace had obviously infused him with a hefty dose of patriotism and with a strong sense of colonial and racial hierarchy. When they arrived in Manila on 21 November, they found that they were not the only Germans there. A total of sixteen German ships lay in 180 Letter Pechstein to Wolfgang Gurlitt, Manila, 14 December 1914, copy in Günter Krüger papers, Berlin. 181 Pechstein travel manuscript, New York-East, 1 July 1915, ff. 46–47, copy in Günter Krüger papers, Berlin. See also Pechstein, Erinnerungen, 92; letter Pechstein to Wolfgang Gurlitt, Manila, 14 December 1914, copy in Günter Krüger papers, Berlin. 182 For Marinezahlmeister Reicke of the governmental boat Planet, see Pechstein travel diary entry, 20 May [1914], f. 15; for his financial assistance see Pechstein travel manuscript, New York-East, 1 July 1915, ff. 44, 47, copy in Günter Krüger papers, Berlin. 183 Pechstein, Erinnerungen, 92. See also Pechstein, ‘Als Gefangener nach Japan.’ 184 Letter Pechstein to Wolfgang Gurlitt, Manila, 14 December 1914, and letter Pechstein to Curt Glaser, Manila, 8 February 1915, copies in Günter Krüger papers, Berlin; letter Pechstein to Gerbig, Manila, 21 December 1914, in private collection. According to Osborn, Pechstein, 136, some of the luggage was transferred to Manila in March 1915 when Pechstein was in a position to pay for the transport. 185 Pechstein, ‘Als Gefangener nach Japan.’

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the harbour seeking shelter from the British Navy. Among them was the cargo ship Bochum, whose captain Pechstein knew from his stay in Palau. As they were penniless, the Pechsteins gladly accepted his offer to take up residence on his boat.186 Without painting material Pechstein soon began to suffer from boredom. The Bochum anchored far from the shore, and it took over an hour to get onto land. When in town, Pechstein had to make haste because he had to be back in time for the daily meal on board.187 The first letter he wrote from Manila went to his art dealer, Gurlitt, in which he provided a summary of recent events, and asked to be sent some money.188 ‘If I had some money, I could live ashore’, he explained.189 He also needed money to return to Germany. He was extremely eager to join the war. ‘[W]ith every fibre of my being I am drawn home, the fear of returning too late is the worst’, he confessed. ‘I am still young, healthy, strong, how well I too could have done my duty in the trenches.’190 His plan was to make his way to the United States, and to acquire a foreign passport there which would allow him passage on an Italian ship to Europe.191 Leaving Manila was a risky enterprise as the British investigated most ships, sending those Germans whom they intercepted to Hong Kong as prisoners of war. But without money, Pechstein could not even try his luck. ‘[W]e are sitting here like a mouse in a trap’, he complained towards the end of December 1914.192 As his enforced idleness extended from weeks into months, bitterness about his fate increased further. ‘Palau, this wonderful Palau [is] in Japanese monkey-hands’, he raged in a letter to Fechter, ‘I have been expelled from paradise and am now sitting in the hell of idle waiting, [like] a scattered grain of sand in the universe.’193 By the end of February 1915 he had still not received any replies or money.194 By this stage, he had come to despise Manila. ‘It is the ugliest city in the East, a nondescript mishmash of Philippines, Spainards and Americanism,’ he wrote angrily.195 In March 1915 Pechstein finally received money from Gurlitt with which he bought two tickets to San Francisco, for the American vessel SS China. Ironically, 186 Ibid. See also Pechstein travel manuscript, New York-East, 1 July 1915, f. 48. 187 Pechstein travel manuscript, New York-East, 1 July 1915, f. 48. 188 Letter Pechstein to Gurlitt, Manila, 14 December 1914, copy in Günter Krüger papers, Berlin. 189 Ibid. 190 Ibid. See also letter Pechstein to Gerbig, Manila, 21 December 1914, in private collection. 191 Letter Pechstein to Gerbig, Manila, 21 December 1914, in private collection. 192 Letter Pechstein to Gurlitt, Manila, 14 December 1914, copy in Günter Krüger papers, Berlin. 193 Letter Pechstein to Fechter, Manila, 28 March 1915, in GRL, Special Collections, 2001.M.19. 194 Lotte diary entry, 27 February 1915, f. 66. 195 Letter Pechstein to Fechter, Manila, 28 March 1915, in GRL, Special Collections, 2001.M.19.

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he did so with the British travel agency Cook.196 To their great relief their ship passed the British patrols outside Manila harbour without problems on 1 April 1915. Again, they could only afford a passage between the decks. In his memoirs, Pechstein described this experience in neutral terms: ‘Hence I got to know this world, too, and several events made me come into contact with the customs of Indians, Chinese and Malaians.’197 He also recalled how he regularly played chess with one of the Indian passengers without ever managing to beat him.198 In another anecdote, he was approached by the Third Officer who addressed him in German. Afraid of being extradited to the British, Pechstein tried to evade: ‘I took fright, was suspicious and reserved, but he dispersed my worries and told me that he had known about my nationality already in Manila and that I need not be afraid.’199 In fact, the situation had probably not been quite as dramatic as that. As Lotte recorded in her diary, already on their first day on board they got to know the quartermaster and the Third Officer, both of whom were German.200 In fact, there were eight other German passengers among the many different nationalities on board. To Lotte’s great horror, there were Serbs, too, a ‘terribly dirty company’ as she noted.201 Her patriotism was similarly aroused by the presence of some Englishmen and Scotsmen who were returning home to defend their fatherland. One of them had a wife which was ‘flat as a board’, as Lotte scoffed, ‘he should take her with him into battle[;] when she appears many will loose courage.’202 The journey took them back to Nagasaki, and then on to Kobe and Yokohama. In each case, the Japanese authorities did not let them off the ship.203 They continued to Hawaii, where they made a stop-over in Honolulu. This was the only South Pacific island apart from Palau which Pechstein got to know, and he found it deeply disillusioning. Since the annexation by the United States fifteen years earlier tens of thousands of Asian and European immigrants had arrived in Hawaii, mostly as labour for its booming sugar industry. By 1915, native Hawaiians made up less than a fifth of the total population.204 Pechstein was shocked by this intrusion of European civilization into the lives of the South Seas islanders. During his tour of the island he witnessed 196 197 198 199 200 201 202 203 204

Pechstein, Erinnerungen, 94. See also Lotte diary entry, 18, 29 March, 1 April 1915, f. 66. Pechstein, Erinnerungen, 94–95. Ibid, 95. Ibid. Lotte diary entry, 2 April [1915], f. 66. Lotte diary entries, 9 and 12 April [1915], f. 67. Lotte diary entry, 13 April [1915], f. 68. Lotte diary entries, 5, 6 and 9 April [1915], ff. 66–67. See Robert C. Schmitt, Historical Statistics of Hawaii (Honolulu, 1977), 25.

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a performance of hula dancing but was rather pained by it. He thought it was a spectacle aimed only at ‘export and tourists’.205 The entire experience reinforced Pechstein’s sentiment that on Palau he had indeed been privileged to live in an unspoiled paradise. In late April 1915, the Pechsteins disembarked in San Francisco. Apparently, they immediately continued on their way to New York, without even taking the time to visit the world’s fair that was taking place in the city.206 Strangely, neither Pechstein’s memoirs nor his correspondence of the time contain any reference to what must have been an impressive transcontinental train journey. Upon their arrival in New York the couple took up residence in a small room in the East Village. Pechstein soon had to find out that leaving New York proved at least as difficult as leaving Manila. ‘It is impossible, the shipping lines do not sell [me] a ticket,’ he reported in a letter to Gerbig, ‘even when one tries to pretend being Dutch or Swiss it is impossible, [as] they drag you to the respective consulate to find out the truth.’207 His initial plan of securing a passage by pretending to be an Italian had been scuttled by Italy’s entry into the war on the side of the Allies in late May 1915. Pechstein was deeply incensed by ‘the shameful treason of this nation of shoeshine boys.’208 Like in Manila, British warships patrolled outside the harbour and with the help of spies intercepted all Germans who tried to leave by ship. Pechstein felt deeply frustrated. ‘I could ram my head against the wall, now I have managed to come this far, and the little way which is still ahead of me is thorougly blocked.’209 His failure to secure a passage to Europe only fuelled his patriotism further. ‘I yearn for Germany, and the fact that I am unable to join the war, [and] to contribute towards the defence of our fatherland depresses me a lot’, he confessed in one of his letters.210 He took great delight in the mail which started reaching him from home by early June. ‘An entire year without news from the fatherland, where after all the trees are greenest and the sky is bluest’, he described the previous lack of information to Fechter. Until December I was unable to find out about the progress of our military campaign, [still,] my pride in being German was considerable and my optimism was unbreakable, [but] I had to defend it strongly against the old South Seas colonists

205 Pechstein, Erinnerungen, 95. 206 Osborn, Pechstein, 136, mentions the world’s fair, but Pechstein would probably have commented on it, not least on the Palace of Fine Arts with its impressive collection of Impressionists, had they visited the fair. 207 Letter Pechstein to Gerbig, New York, 25 May 1915, in private collection. 208 Ibid. 209 Letter Pechstein to Gerbig, New York, 8 June 1915, in private collection. 210 Ibid.

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who had not the slightest idea about the incredible progress of our fatherland, including the civil servants.211

Spring 1915 was not a good time to be stuck in New York as a German. A few days after the arrival of the Pechsteins in New York news of the sinking of the cruise liner Lusitania by a German submarine hit the headlines. Of some 1200 victims, over 120 were Americans. More than anything else this event turned the American public’s opinion against Germany. In Pechstein’s eyes, newspapers were indulging themselves in the destruction of the Lusitania because of the anti-German potential of the news story. ‘The press here is disgusting, really, there cannot be something more unprincipled than this’, he reported in a letter to Gerbig. ‘The dirtiest lies are their favourites, properly aimed at the demand for sensations during this genocide.’212 It took Pechstein only a couple of weeks to take a thorough dislike to his host country. ‘[D]on’t tell me about the much praised freedom in America! The police truncheon rules nowhere more than here; the only freedom I noticed is that they swear and abuse each other to the best of their abilities’, he vented his spleen in one letter.213 This New York is dirty, you have no idea, [and] I find the conditions which prevail within the administrations equally dirty. Even the church here is a business which advertises its preachers with sermons. No, America is not the country of the future, and I poor wretch am stuck here in this callous country […].214

It was particularly bad place for an artist, Pechstein thought. ‘Art has no basis for existence in this business-minded country, with the exception of bad [art], and perhaps theatre and music’, he declared.215 ‘That [art] which exists has been collected by the rich to convey their names to the public.’216 This was not a very generous assessment of New York’s Metropolitan Museum which after all had been the first public institution to accept works of art by Matisse, whom Pechstein greatly admired. But Pechstein was not in a generous mood. ‘My expedition [to Palau] has been destroyed, 12,000 Marks are lost, I cannot work because I do not have any material, and I cannot buy any either, because I need even the last penny to scrape a living for myself and my wife, until I have found something to do,’ he 211 Letter Pechstein to Fechter, New York, 24 June 1915, in GRL, Special Collections, 2001.M.19. 212 Letter Pechstein to Gerbig, New York, 8 June 1915, in private collection. See also letter Pechstein to Gerbig, 25 May 1915, in private collection; letter Pechstein to in GRL, Special Collections, 2001.M.19. 213 Letter Pechstein to Gerbig, New York, 25 May 1915, in private collection. 214 Ibid. 215 Ibid. 216 Ibid.

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Fig. 3.14: Woolworth building, 1915, ink drawing on a postcard to Paul Fechter from New York to Berlin, 8 May 1915. Copy in Günter Krüger papers, Berlin (original in Getty Research Library, Special Collections, 2001.M.19.).

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complained to Gerbig.217 In any case, ‘America and particularly New York are not the country and the place to inspire a painter, especially after one had to leave a veritable painter’s paradise’, he pronounced in early June.218 Some of his postcards which he illustrated with images of New York’s skyline belied this statement, but it is indeed remarkable that Pechstein never returned to American subject matter later in his career. By late July, three months after his arrival in New York, Pechstein was at the end of his tether. ‘It is difficult to keep going here among the spiteful New Yorkers’, he wrote to Paul Fechter.219 ‘[I]f I were forced to remain in America I would rather hang myself, so contemptuous am I of this big-mouthed riffraff which embraces only the dollar. Luckily I can say that I need not become American. Germany is too superior in everything, and therefore they have to revile it enviously. Dogs prefer to do their dirty business at victory monuments. Therefore hail to our fatherland, for which I long with every fibre of my heart.’220 Unfortunately, there is insufficient material to reconstruct what exactly Pechstein did in New York, or with whom he interacted. But by August 1915, Pechstein had apparently earned enough money through a variety of odd-jobs to buy a false Swiss passport identifying him as ‘Jean Schmid’, and was able to bribe a shipping agent to get him a job as a coal stoker on a Dutch ship.221 Lotte was to follow later, travelling on a regular passenger ship, via Denmark.222 The passage as a coal stoker was a far cry from the luxurious journey to Palau a year earlier. ‘The job as a stoker is probably one of the lowliest and most miserable which exists,’ Pechstein reported after his return.223 ‘The payment for the fourteen-day long trip and the incredibly strenuous work, which takes place in unhealthy working conditions, within a scorching atmosphere impregnated with coal dust, lit only by electrical light and the glow of fire, is four dollars – really a pitiful remuneration in American eyes.’224 Board and treatment were despicable, and Pechstein observed that only coloured people and highly dubious char217 Ibid. 218 Letter Pechstein to Gerbig, New York, 8 June 1915, in private collection. 219 Letter Pechstein to Fechter, New York, 23 July 1915, in GRL, Special Collections, 2001.M.19. 220 Ibid. 221 Max Pechstein, ‘Die Rückkehr Max Pechsteins’, in Vossische Zeitung, no.455, 6 September 1915. See also Pechstein, Erinnerungen, 96. The date given here – September – is wrong; Pechstein arrived in Rotterdam in late August, see Pechstein postcard to Hans Heilmann, poststamped Rotterdam 31 August 1915, copy in Günter Krüger papers, Berlin. 222 See postcard Pechstein to Fechter, Berlin, 7 September 1915, in Deutsches Literatur Archiv Marbach. 223 Max Pechstein, ‘Meine Flucht nach der Heimat’, in Licht und Schatten, no. 4, 1915. See also Pechstein, Erinnerungen, 97. 224 Pechstein, Erinnerungen, 97.

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acters volunteered for this slave’s existence. He felt reasonably well prepared to pretend being a stoker after his many months aboard a steamship in Manila during which he had inspected the ship from top to bottom. But the first day on the job still came as a shock. ‘When I entered the boiler room with its 36 fires for the first time (the ship had two of these), my heart – unaccustomed to the terrible heat which confronted me – started to pound so heavily that I got dizzy.’225 Pechstein had to work two shifts each day, from five to nine in the morning and in the evening. As a newcomer, he also had to fetch drinking water which was consumed in great quantities. Drenched in sweat, wearing only his trousers and heavy clogs, he had to climb several floors up a narrow metal ladder, a bucket in one of his hands, a couple of times each hour. ‘Downstairs the ladder was burning hot and further up it became so slippery that it could only be touched using felt cloths’, Pechstein recalled later.226 After three days he knew that he was able to hold out, despite aching limbs, blisters and burns. He often fled into an imaginary world to cope with the work. In order to create a counterweight to the awfulness of the situation […] I always invoked a number of images which contrasted sharply with my surroundings: a piece of forest, a piece of sunlit meadow, and similar things, pictures which – strangely, but tellingly! – were always held in a radiant green hue, which I saw fi xed and in tangible form in front of my eyes […] so that they made me forget the pains of my tortured body.227

The other stokers on board made his life even more difficult. Right from the beginning they suspected in Pechstein a German, and tried to provoke him to drop his guise. ‘I let bounce off the incriminating questions, coarse swearing and hostilities by keeping my objective in view, but sometimes I had a hard time not to hit back’, he admitted later.228 The danger of being arrested by the British was acute as the first two stops on the other side of the Atlantic were Falmouth and Dover.229 In Falmouth, British customs investigated the ship’s crew in a relatively superficial manner, but Dover saw probing interrogations. Pechstein had just finished his morning shift and was lying in his bunk, exhausted and apathetic. ‘Without getting up I answered all questions in perfect couldn’t-care-less attitude’, Pechstein described the grilling.230 More than anything else, this probably helped disperse suspicions. Still, some of his colleagues intended to denounce him 225 226 227 228 229 230

Pechstein, ‘Meine Flucht nach der Heimat’. See also Pechstein, Erinnerungen, Pechstein, ‘Meine Flucht nach der Heimat’. See also Pechstein, Erinnerungen, Pechstein, ‘Meine Flucht nach der Heimat’. See also Pechstein, Erinnerungen, Pechstein, ‘Meine Flucht nach der Heimat’. See Vossische Zeitung, 8 September 1915: ‘Die Rückkehr Max Pechsteins.’ Pechstein, ‘Meine Flucht nach der Heimat’. See also Pechstein, Erinnerungen,

98. 98. 99. 99–100.

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as a German, but luckily they missed the right moment to do so. When eventually allowed back on deck, Pechstein saw the British take away five Germans who had travelled as regular passengers.231 Towards the end of August 1915, Pechstein finally arrived in Rotterdam, on neutral grounds and therefore in safety.232 He reported to the German consulate where he aroused some suspicions because of his lack of official documents. When he reached the German border, he was arrested and interned in barracks near Wesel.233 After everything he had been through in order to return home to serve his fatherland, Pechstein was infuriated to be treated as if he had tried to evade military service. The next day, when the local district commander demanded to know why he had reported for service only now, long after his year group had been drafted, Pechstein pointed out sarcastically that he had not encountered an official draft notice anywhere in the foreign press over the last twelve months. Once his story had been confirmed, he was granted a week’s leave to return to Berlin. There he found his flat in Offenbacher Street inhabited by strangers: in view of the existing housing shortage, the local government had ordered the compulsory occupation of vacated properties. His studio had been unlocked and completely emptied, and no one was able to tell him where his furniture, working material and works were located. It took Pechstein several days to trace his belongings and to move them all into his studio for storage.234 He then managed to convince the military authorities that he needed some more time to visit his son Frank and his parents in Saxony whom he had not seen for nearly one and a half years. In Zwickau, his parents received him with news that two of his four brothers had been killed in battle.235 This tempered his enthusiasm for military service and official celebrations of heroism quite considerably. ‘I hate the Iron Crosses ever since I saw the one lying abandoned in the wallet of my dear brother, I want to see his funny eyes’, he wrote to a friend.236 231 Ibid. 232 Pechstein, Erinnerungen, 100, gives 10 September as arrival date. This is wrong, see Pechstein postcard to Hans Heilmann, poststamped Rotterdam 31 August 1915, and Pechstein postcard to Paul Fechter, poststamped Rotterdam 3 September 1915, in GRL, Special Collections, 2001.M.19. 233 Max Pechstein, ‘Willkommen in Deutschland’, in Berliner Tageblatt, no. 26, 16 January 1927. See Pechstein, Erinnerungen, 100–102. 234 Pechstein, Erinnerungen, 101; Pechstein letter to Fechter, from Zwickau, 23 January 1916, in GRL, Special Collections, 2001.M.19. 235 See letter Pechstein to Fechter, from Zwickau, 20 October 1915, in GRL, Special Collections, 2001.M.19. See also postcard Pechstein to Gustav Schiefler, Zwickau, 20 November 1915, in Staats- und Universitätsbibliothek Carl von Ossietzky, Hamburg (SUB), Nachlass Gustav Schiefler (NGS): B:31:1915,2; f. 244. 236 Letter Pechstein to Fechter, from Zwickau, 26 December 1915, in GRL, Special Collections, 2001.M.19.

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Pechstein eventually entered the military in late September 1915.237 In his memoirs, he conveyed the impression that he had been reluctant to join the army, and that he had been a rather rebellious recruit during his training. A few sentences should serve to give the flavour of his account: My inner resistance against Prussian, slavish obedience stiffened increasingly. Angrily, I learned the service regulations for the infantry by heart, in order to watch like a hawk if orders were given which did not conform to the regulations. In that case, I simply did not move, however hard they shouted and pulled at me. At the end of these confrontations, when words like mutiny and insubordination were used, I refered to the service regulations. That was my only weapon.238

This was a rather unlikely attitude for someone who had travelled around half the world eager to fight for his country. It is true that Pechstein’s firsthand encounter with German militarism was a somewhat disillusioning experience, as evident from his letters during his training in Zwickau. ‘It is […] quite difficult to adapt to the manners which are common in the barracks’, he reported after a few weeks in a letter to Paul Fechter, ‘but apprenticeship is probably never easy in any trade[;] the only difference is that one [normally] passes it at a younger age, now one is expected to discard all one’s experience and self-confidence and to become a number like others.’239 Like many recruits he complained about some of his instructors, commenting that ‘too much power is given into the hands of people who are not worthy’.240 But Pechstein seems to have accepted this as part of military life, and made the best of it. ‘Well, […] they have drilled us here quite nicely,’ he wrote in another letter, ‘pigs, shit heap, and whatever else has enriched the phantasy of a formerly active sergeant has rained on us as titles. But the worse [it comes], the more our gallows humour is flowering, […] our gang has been shooting well, ten rings on average, the main exercise even [went] brilliantly.’241 After four months of training, he summarized his experience in a letter to his friend Gerbig. […] I have made a good impression a couple of times, shooting, patrolling, etc. […] Well, in any case I am trying to become a soldier as well as possible, shirking does not appeal to me, others may do so, it is not my concern. After all I have returned to do my duty […].242

237 Postcard Pechstein to Schiefler, Zwickau, 4 October 1915, in SUB, NGS:B:31:1915,2; f. 247. 238 Pechstein, Erinnerungen, 103. 239 Letter Pechstein to Fechter, from Zwickau, 20 October 1915, in GRL, Special Collections, 2001.M.19. 240 Ibid. 241 Letter Pechstein to Gerbig, from Zwickau, 28 November 1915, in private collection. 242 Letter Pechstein to Gerbig, from Zwickau, 5 February 1916, in private collection.

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His excitement about being a soldier was expressed in numerous photographs of himself in uniform which he sent to his various friends and acquaintances.243 In fact, Pechstein never again sent out that many photos of himself as he did during his seven months in the Zwickau barracks. Pechstein’s attitude to the war was ambivalent at this point. Already after a few weeks, he wished he could get out into battle to escape from what he perceived as boring training ground routine. ‘Well, better out [into the field] than this continuous drill, which turns men into machines and kills off all other thoughts’, he wrote in early December 1915.244 Over the following months, he repeatedly stated that he wanted to leave the barracks for the front; in February 1916, he even wrote to Gustav Schiefler that he hoped he would be sent to the Western front.245 But this longing for the front was not linked to a particular enthusiasm for fighting. ‘I am completely lacking in military ambition’, he confessed in a letter to Fechter, ‘and I would have to lie if I wrote that I find uplifting the idea of killing a human. Well, I will do my duty[.]’246 Towards the end of the year 1915 he expressed his wish that spring 1916 would see the coming of peace.247 But this was no simple expression of pacifism on his part. Pechstein remained an ardent patriot. ‘I am most delighted by the fact that the English are now getting completely covered with bombs,’ he commented in early March 1916, ‘it is the only way to get closer to the peace which we all want, of course only with a victory for our country.’248 Later that same month, he witnessed the departure for the Western front of most of his younger fellow recruits and described the event in terms echoing the initial mass euphoria 243 E.g. postcard Lotte Pechstein to Gerbig, from Zwickau, 5 November 1915, in SMZ, no inv. no.; postcard Pechstein to Schiefler, from Zwickau, 6 November 1915, in SUB, NGS: B:31:1915,2; f. 248; postcard Pechstein to Pa Heilmann, from Zwickau, 15 November 1915, copy in Günter Krüger papers, Berlin; postcard Pechstein to Gerbig, from Zwickau, poststamped 15 November 1915, in SMZ, no inv. no.; postcard Pechstein to Schiefler, from Zwickau, 27 February 1916, in SUB, NGS: B:32:1916,1; f. 135; postcard Pechstein to Fechter, from Zeithain, 24 February 1916, in GRL, Special Collections, 2001.M.19; postcard Pechstein to Hansi Heilmann, from Zeithain, 24 February 1916, copy in Günter Krüger papers, Berlin. 244 Letter Pechstein to Fechter, from Zwickau, 5 December 1915, in GRL, Special Collections, 2001.M.19. 245 Postcard Pechstein to Schiefler, 27 February 1916, in SUB, NGS: B:32:1916,1, f. 135. See also letters Pechstein to Gerbig, from Zwickau, 5 February and 4 March 1916, in private collection; letter Pechstein to Fechter, from Zwickau, 23 March 1916, in GRL, Special Collections, 2001.M.19. 246 Letter Pechstein to Fechter, from Zwickau, 26 December 1915, in GRL, Special Collections, 2001.M.19. 247 Ibid. 248 Letter Pechstein to Gerbig, from Zwickau, 4 March 1916, in private collection. For a similar anti-British statement, see letter Pechstein to Gerbig, from Zwickau, 17 January 1916, in private collection.

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Fig. 3.15: Pechstein in military uniform, 1915. Photograph: Städtische Museen Zwickau, Kunstsammlungen, Autographensammlung.

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Fig. 3.16: Pechstein with his regiment, 1916. Photograph: Städtische Museen Zwickau, Kunstsammlungen, Autographensammlung.

following the outbreak of war in 1914, the so-called August experience: ‘the chaps really departed with enthusiasm, and I have to say it was a wonderful picture, the little flags were flapping in the barrels, and the good old spring sun was shining on all of this.’249 After seven months in the barracks in Zwickau, Pechstein was finally posted to the Western front in early May 1916. He served in the Fourth Company of the Royal Saxon Reserve-Infantry Regiment No. 133 which at this point was positioned in Flanders, just outside the northern French city of Lille, fighting British troops.250 Similar to his colleague, the Expressionist Franz Marc, Pechstein initially perceived the war as a grand natural spectacle of destruction, mixing in his descriptions elements of romanticism with futurist enthusiasm for technology.251 He reported to his friend Plietzsch:

249 Letter Pechstein to Fechter, from Zwickau, 23 March 1916, in GRL, Special Collections, 2001.M.19. 250 Postcard Pechstein to Gerbig, from Warneton, 8 May 1916, in SMZ, 2002/56a/Au; letter Pechstein to Gerbig, 23 May 1916, in private collection. 251 Klaus Lankheit/Uwe Steffen (eds.), Franz Marc. Briefe aus dem Feld (Munich, 1982); Christian Vogel, “Mein lieber Ede…” Künstlerpost von Max Pechstein and Eduard Plietzsch (Hamburg, 1996), 24.

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The first time I came to the front, [I] had the impression of being in a real factory, flares went up, pounding rattling by m[achine] g[uns], in between harsh cracking of gun shots, muffled crashing of grenades, and then the jerking booming of exploding mines which literally make the earth shake. Early in the morning the fire abates, larks ascend out of the green into the air without worrying, and it does not take long before the aircrafts arrive, being shot at by shrapnel they are always surrounded by a circle of bursting little clouds which look like cottonwool balls, there are many such impressions, like digging trenches at night when one throws oneself on one’s belly like a lightning to take cover against bullets which are whizzing past one’s ears, or during the fetching of food when the approach trenches are taken under fire and one is running with the mess tins over the duckboards in darkness.252

In another letter Pechstein wrote that he felt ‘like a mechanic working in the big factory war.’253 Contrary to the assertion of some historians who claim that soldiers were unable to cope with the monstrous machine warfare going on about them, Pechstein – like most soldiers – quickly developed mental coping strategies and survival skills which helped him endure the fighting.254 Upon his arrival he was told that only eight men were still alive from his company’s original formation. Pechstein, however, remained an optimist. ‘I am still convinced that my bullet is not being cast in this campaign’, he declared after a few weeks at the front.255 He soon acquired the ability to distinguish the size and direction of shells from their sounds. ‘One learns really quite quickly to adapt to the trenches […],’ Pechstein wrote to a friend, ‘and indeed I have learnt taking cover, shrapnel is not so bad, but as you already wrote those mines [are] damned.’256 He liked the comradeship in the trenches, ‘it really creates proper bonds when one is evenly threatened by death and one is sitting there like a mouse in the trap […].’257 Pechstein even remained perceptive for the beauty of the Flanders countryside around him. ‘The area here is beautiful, too, a painter’s idyll, perhaps somewhat too lyrical for me, [it] could be a little harsher, [but] the 252 Letter Pechstein to Plietzsch, 18 June 1916, in Stiftung Historische Museen Hamburg, Altonaer Museum für Kunst und Kulturgeschichte, Hamburg (AM), 1964/434. 253 Letter Pechstein to Schiefler, 22 June 1916, in SUB, NGS:B:32:1916,1, ff. 71–72. 254 See Peter Knoch, ‘Erleben und Nacherleben: Das Kriegserlebnis im Augenzeugenbericht und im Geschichtsunterricht’, in G. Hirschfeld, G. Krumeich and I. Renz (eds.), Keiner fühlt sich hier mehr als Mensch… Erlebnis und Wirkung des Ersten Weltkriegs (Essen, 1993), 211–212. See also Alexander Watson, ‘Self-deception and Survival: Mental Coping Strategies on the Western Front, 1914–1918’, in Journal of Contemporary History 41 (2006), 247–268. 255 Letter Pechstein to Gerbig, 23 May 1916, in private collection. Pechstein was not an exception: soldiers’ letters and diaries of the time betray a widespread illusion that one personally could not be killed or wounded, see Benjamin Ziemann, Front und Heimat. Ländliche Kriegserfahrung im südlichen Bayern 1914–1923 (Essen, 1997), 174. 256 Letter Pechstein to Gerbig, 23 May 1916, in private collection. 257 Letter Pechstein to Plietzsch, 18 June 1916, in AM, 1964/434.

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colours are good, one notices the proximity of the sea’, he reported to fellow artist Gerbig.258 Nearly fifty letters and postcards have survived which Pechstein wrote to friends and family during his twelve months of military service, and they provide a glimpse into his life at the front. Although the letters were often similar in content, there were notable differences depending on the recipient. When writing to male friends Pechstein obviously feared being thought afraid and emphasized his manly qualities. This was especially the case after he was taken out of the immediate front line in early June 1916 and ordered to paint the regiment’s commander, General Max Schmidt. In a letter to his friend Plietzsch, Pechstein conveyed the impression that he only reluctantly left the trenches. He emphasized his pride in having kept his composure even in the thick of fighting, […] in the garrison I was dissatisfied, and now that I am standing where I wanted to belong I am happy, I even volunteered for an assault, now with this [new] posting I have been kept from getting on at the British as I have wished for so long, but postponing it does not mean it is not going to happen at all.259

In contrast, there was a distinct note of relief in a letter to his sister Gertrud written around the same time. ‘As you will have heard from Lotte already, I am painting our regiment’s commander so my desire has been fulfilled quite quickly, though I do not know yet whether I will have to go back to my company afterwards.’260 In a letter to Gerbig Pechstein admitted that the commission had proved a lucky break ‘because right these days the damned English have sent over mines into our position called “grenade garden”. […] One night our company suffered nine dead and eighteen major casualties. The dugouts are mere cigar boxes, whereas the reserve positions in the back [are out of] perfect concrete.’261 But he hastened to dispel any suspicion that he had actively sought to evade front-line service: […] I have been taken out of the trenches, it is all in the hands of one’s superiors, [but] one thing I can tell you, I don’t care where I am, my comrades are also really splendid fellows, and there is absolutely no chitchat, they know that it was not my doing, and also that I kept my calm at the front.262

Yet Pechstein had probably not been quite as passive as he made out here. He quickly made himself known as an artist by producing many sketches 258 Letter Pechstein to Gerbig, 6 June 1916, in private collection; quoted in excerpts and first page reproduced in Knop, Adé 20. Jahrhundert, 45. 259 Letter Pechstein to Plietzsch, 18 June 1916, in AM, 1964/434. 260 Letter Pechstein to Gertrud, 9 June 1916, in SMZ, 60K 162a. 261 Letter Pechstein to Gerbig, 18 June 1916, transcript in Günter Krüger papers, Berlin. 262 Ibid.

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like the ones with which he illustrated his letters. ‘[R]ather than slugging around props I prefer to draw the gang, well, and the joy once one has portrayed such a chap and given it to him as a present, in the twinkling of an eye one is popular […]’, he explained to Gerbig.263 The fact that by his artistic activities in the trenches he also attracted the attention of his superiors was probably more than just a desirable side effect. The commission to paint the regiment’s commander demanded a certain degree of flexibility on Pechstein’s part. ‘[I]t is more the execution of a craft because primarily the requests [of the commandant] are decisive, and an alteration is like an order,’ he reported.264 ‘It was not easy but I have conjured him up on the canvas looking younger and with all the medals as demanded.’265 Unfortunately, no reproduction of this portrait has ever come to light. Though probably of limited artistic value, it was one of the most important works which Pechstein ever produced because it probably saved his life. After the successful completion of the painting, his superiors obviously considered his skills too valuable for the trenches, and Pechstein was posted to the 24th Reserve Infantry Division headquarters. There he was ordered to produce trench maps of enemy positions from air photographs.266 Pechstein felt that some people could consider this an easy job, and he strove to preempt any such view. ‘[S]ince my [new] existence in the staff I am relatively safe from bullets, at least as far as infantry fire is concerned, however the artillery loves to take division staffs under fire, as well as fliers who drop their eggs [on us].’267 He also repeatedly pointed out that as a cartographer he had a very strenuous and demanding job which was vital for the artillery’s role in the current trench warfare.268 But Pechstein was very aware of his privileged position, especially after his division’s first participation in the battle of the Somme. ‘Our losses were pretty high, and the English always attacked again with new troops, they did not achieve anything, but [it] cost lives, [I] have seen terrible wounds, all [caused] by artillery fire’, he reported to Gerbig. In comparison to life in the trenches his current position could be called a ‘life insurance’, he admitted in another letter.269 263 264 265 266

Ibid. Ibid. Ibid. See also letter Pechstein to Plietzsch, 24 July 1916, in AM, 1964/468. Letter Pechstein to Gerbig, 6 July 1916, in private collection; letter Pechstein to Plietzsch, 24 July 1916, in AM, 1964/468. 267 Letter Pechstein to Fechter, [September 1916], in GRL, Special Collections, 2001.M.19. 268 See letters Pechstein to Gerbig, 6 July and 10 September 1916, in private collection (the latter quoted in excerpts and first page reproduced in Knop, Adé 20. Jahrhundert, 46; letter Pechstein to Pa Heilmann, 12 October 1916, copy in Günter Krüger papers, Berlin. 269 Letter Pechstein to Pa, Ma and Hansi Heilmann, 3 October 1916, copy in Günter Krüger papers, Berlin.

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In late August, Pechstein’s division spent nearly ten days fighting off the British offensive at the Somme. Ironically, he nearly got killed immediately after they had left the slaughter at the Somme when an airplane dropped several bombs only a few metres from the house in which he was staying. Pechstein tried to put a brave face on it. ‘[S]ometimes we whisk closely past [our] friend the Reaper,’ he reported the incident to Plietzsch, ‘[a]ctually hardly worth mentioning […].’270 His division was then moved back to Flanders, before being sent to the Somme again in early October 1916.271 They stayed there for a month, experiencing some of the worst fighting of the war. Like many soldiers, Pechstein chose not to write in his letters of the horrors he was witnessing. ‘It would be possible to write about quite a lot,’ he informed his sister Gertrud, ‘but it is better to forget all this stuff rather than getting angry about it again when writing it down.’272 Only to Gerbig did he admit that he hoped he would not have to face the Somme for a third time: ‘Because one needs to be in damn good spirits to remain alive.’273 In his letters, Pechstein preferred to portray the anecdotal side of military life, like the hygienic conditions created by several thousand troops and horses billeted in a small village.274 Similarly, the illustrations with which he adorned his letters usually showed images which largely ignored the brutal realities of trench warfare. The letterheads which he produced by means of hectography tended to depict idyllic village scenes devoid of any signs of destruction.275 Occasionally, he drew more vivid images, of wounded soldiers or the digging of graves, but these he would only send to male friends who were mostly in active military service.276 In this respect, his watercolour portrayal of soldiers

270 Letter Pechstein to Plietzsch, 2 September 1916, in BMB, 10/70; copy in Günter Krüger papers, Berlin. 271 See letter fragment Pechstein to Plietzsch, from Annoeullin, 18 September 1916, in BMB, 20/70; letter Pechstein to Pa, Ma and Hansi Heilmann, 3 October 1916, copy in Günter Krüger papers, Berlin. 272 Letter Pechstein to Gertrud, 1 November 1916, in SMZ, 60K 163b. 273 Letter Pechstein to Gerbig, 26 October 1916, in Deutsches Historisches Museum (DHM), Do2 97/435. 274 Letter Pechstein to Fechter, 20 August 1916, GRL, Special Collections, 2001.M.19; letter Pechstein to Plietzsch, no date [late October/early November 1916], in AM, 1964/419 and 1964/420. 275 As a war cartographer he had access to this early form of duplicating technology. By means of prepared matrix he could thus produce reproductions which were of violet-blue shade. See reproductions in Günter Krüger, Das druckgraphische Werk Max Pechsteins (Tökendorf, 1988), 333–4. 276 See letter fragments to Eduard Plietzsch, reproduced in Magdalena M. Moeller (ed.), Max Pechstein im Brücke-Museum Berlin (Munich, 2001), nos. 130–131; letter Pechstein to Feldwebel Kaden, Morchies, 29 October 1916, in SMZ, 60K 164; and letter Pechstein to Gerbig, 25 September 1916, reproduced in Knop, ‘Illustrierte Künstlerpost’, 254.

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fortifying trenches with barbed wire in a letter to his sister Gertrud was a great exception.277 Unfortunately, the correspondence between Pechstein and his wife Lotte got destroyed in the course of the Second World War. Therefore almost nothing is known about how the Pechstein family dealt with separation, fear of death, and hardship on the home front. In October 1916, Lotte moved back from Zwickau to Berlin, where she managed to reclaim their apartment in Offenbacher Street.278 Life in the metropolis was very difficult, and Pechstein was aware of the scarcity and deprivation from which his family was suffering.279 He was granted a short holiday over Christmas 1916 which he spent in Berlin. ‘The food question in the big cities really is somewhat difficult,’ he reported afterwards to Gerbig, ‘and it is a great challenge for our women’s patience, but it is amazing how their inventiveness manages to conjure up tasty meals with the little they have at their disposal.’280 Like many soldiers on holiday, Pechstein at first found it difficult to get used to life among civilians, but he soon thoroughly enjoyed the company of Lotte and Frank. During his short stay, he even tried his hand at painting but found it a frustrating experience. He wrote in a letter to Gerbig: […] I also picked up the brush once more, and stood there like a lost child in the forest. First one has to start thinking again, and struggle gradually to reclaim anew [those skills] which in earlier years one had gained by experiment and practice. […] Our current activity absorbs everything. One can only do one thing properly [at a time].281

The painting – one of only three to have survived of 1916 – shows his son Frank sitting on the floor, surrounded by wooden toys. He used the same motif in a coloured woodcut of the Pechstein family under the Christmas tree which he used as a greeting card and which demonstrates that despite his complaints he had not completely lost his artistic skills.282 Like soldiers on all sides of the conflict, Pechstein wished for peace. ‘I have seen enough, and I have also felt how it is to be crouching in the dugout and the grenades come hissing along and explode in closest proximity’, he wrote in August 1916. ‘[I] can say my demand for war has been thoroughly met, and the yearning for peace and [artistic] activity […] grows 277 Letter Pechstein to Gertrud, 1 November 1916, in SMZ, 60K 163b. 278 See postcard Lotte Pechstein to Heinersdorff, Charlottenburg, 6 October 1916, copy in Günter Krüger papers, Berlin. 279 See letter Pechstein to Gerbig, 6 July 1916, in private collection. 280 Letter Pechstein to Gerbig, 31 January 1917, in private collection. 281 Ibid. 282 Moeller (ed.), Pechstein im Brücke-Museum, no. 132.

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Fig. 3.17: Wounded soldiers on the battlefield, 1916, hectograph in a letter to Eduard Plietzsch, 18 September 1916, Brücke-Museum, Berlin.

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Fig. 3.18: Soldiers erecting wooden crosses on a cemetery, 1916, hectograph in a letter to Feldwebel P. Kaden, 29 October 1916, Städtische Museen Zwickau, Kunstsammlungen, Autographensammlung.

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Fig. 3.19: Flemish village church, 1916, hectograph in a letter to Pechstein’s sister Gertrud, 31 October 1916, Städtische Museen Zwickau, Kunstsammlungen, Autographensammlung.

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Fig. 3.20: Soldiers digging trenches and carrying rolls of barbed wire, 1916, hectograph in a letter to Pechstein’s sister Gertrud, 1 November 1916, Städtische Museen Zwickau, Kunstsammlungen, Autographensammlung.

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Fig. 3.21: Boy with toys (Frank) (1916/2), oil on canvas, 80 × 70 cm, Hamburger Kunsthalle (loan from private collection).

almost by the hour.’283 But at the same time he continued to be filled with a fervent patriotism and hoped that the war would result in a German victory. ‘Hopefully we will have peace soon, even if it seems as if we will first 283 Letter Pechstein to Fechter, 20 August 1916, in GRL, Special Collections, 2001.M.19. For a similar statement, see letter Pechstein to Gerbig, 25 September 1916, in private collection.

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Fig. 3.22: Family (Christmas greeting), 24 December 1916, colour-woodcut, 23.4 × 17 cm, private collection (Krüger H 164).

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have to defeat almost all the people in the world,’ was one of his typical statements.284 After his experiences in the Pacific and on his passage back to Europe Pechstein was particularly scornful of the English. ‘I was mightily delighted by the fact that the English have been punched on the nose,’ he commented on the battle of Jutland in early June 1916, ‘boy, another such naval battle resulting in a similar success for us and we will have peace.’285 In summer 1916, he still placed great hopes on the German offensive at Verdun but in autumn his optimism started to wane. ‘I still hope very much that England will be defeated, but my expectation is always coupled to the anxiety that there will be a general end by exhaustion.’286 This was a concern shared by Germany’s political leadership and in December 1916 Emperor Wilhelm II made a peace offer to the Allies. But as the Germans failed to reveal their war aims, the offer was quickly rejected as a propaganda trick by their opponents. Pechstein was clearly disappointed. ‘I really believe that we are forced to make clear to the English the value of a German peace offer in order for him to withdraw his gob,’ he commented after a day of particularly heavy fighting in Flanders in early January 1917.287 There was no indication anywhere in Pechstein’s letters that he believed in a political solution to the conflict. Instead, he held on to the belief that the German military would eventually prevail. ‘[I]f our dear enemies are too cocksure and [if they are] of the erroneous belief that they can defeat us then we will have to try to give them such a trashing that the bastards finally start to realize the impossibility of their intentions and soften up’, he declared at the end of January 1917. ‘I do not believe in a military defeat of ourselves.’288 It is not difficult to trace in Pechstein’s war-time correspondence a steady process of desensitization brought about by the brutality of war. ‘The English is a damn nasty devil’, he reported in a letter from early July 1916, ‘they have stabbed four of our prisoners, which they had handcuffed, in front of the barbed wire entanglements after they had been thrown out [of their position] and they realized the impossibility of dragging them over [to their trenches] with them, that will cause bad blood.’289 The battle of the Somme in particular was reflected in an increasing cynicism in his 284 Letter Pechstein to Pa Heilmann, 12 September 1916, copy in Günter Krüger papers, Berlin. A similar statement can be found in letter Pechstein to Plietzsch, [September 1916], in BMB, 10/70. 285 Letter Pechstein to Gerbig, 6 June 1916, in private collection. 286 Letter Pechstein to Pa, Ma and Hansi Heilmann, 3 October 1916, copy in Günter Krüger papers, Berlin. For Verdun, see letter Pechstein to Gerbig, 18 June 1916, transcription in Günter Krüger papers, Berlin. 287 Letter Pechstein to Gerbig, 3 January 1917, in SMZ, no inv. no.. 288 Letter Pechstein to Gerbig, 31 January 1917, in private collection. 289 Letter Pechstein to Gerbig, 6 July 1916, in private collection.

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letters. ‘Good artillery barrage takes care of everything’, he announced in early November 1916, and he delighted in the fact that seven soldiers of the neighbouring unit had captured more than seventy Englishmen who had been ‘softened up by handgrenades’.290 Even more striking was a postcard which Pechstein sent to his former military instructor in Zwickau showing a photograph of a dead and semi-burnt soldier. ‘I am sending you here the picture of an English pilot who was shot down, and hope to be sending you more soon […]’, he wrote on the reverse.291 Pechstein was not alone in sending such photo postcards; they became an increasingly common feature in soldiers’ correspondences in the later stages of the war when publishers discovered the commercial value of such voyeuristic images. Perhaps the most surprising thing about Pechstein’s war experience was the fact that by early 1917, he seriously considered reporting back to his unit in the trenches. It is difficult to believe that someone who had experienced the bloodshed of the battle of the Somme would voluntarily give up his relatively secure position behind the frontline but Pechstein obviously did not mind. By this stage, he had become very weary of his duites as a cartographer. Not only did he dislike the ‘strenuous monotony’ of his work, he also complained that it precluded him from promotions or decorations. If his newly appointed superiors could not offer anything of this kind in the near future, he would bring about a change in his situation, he wrote in a letter from January 1917.292 There is no evidence that Pechstein really did apply to return to the frontline, but he did manage to get a new posting. In February 1917, he joined the German Army Air Service, the precursor of the later Air Force. ‘I am working on [the construction of] hangars until the end of March approximately’, he reported to Gerbig. He also produced designs for leaflets for the War Press Office. More importantly, together with the architect Bruno Schneidereit, he participated in a competition advertised by Berlin’s city government with a design for a so-called ‘heroes’ grove’, a war monument. Their submission did not win but was considered so valuable that it received an honourable mention and was reproduced in Germany’s leading design magazine, Deutsche Kunst und Dekoration.293 ‘Nowhere is it more appropriate to give artistic form in an Expressionist style as in the case of such a heroes’ grove, a task which literally cries out for a new expres-

290 Letter Pechstein to Pa and Ma Heilmann, 6 November 1916, copy in Günter Krüger papers, Berlin. 291 Postcard Pechstein to Sergeant Kaden, 19 November 1916, in SMZ, no inv. no.. 292 Letter Pechstein to Gerbig, 31 January 1917, in private collection. 293 Pallmann, ‘Zum Thema “Heldenhaine”’, in Deutsche Kunst und Dekoration 40 (September 1917), 362–366.

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Fig. 3.23: Design for a soldiers’ memorial in Berlin Wuhlheide (Heldenhain), by Max Pechstein and Bruno Schneidereit, 1917, drawing, measures unknnown. Published in Deutsche Kunst und Dekoration 40 (September 1917), 362–366.

sion!’, its art critic raved.294 The term ‘Expressionist’, however, was a mere label used because of Pechstein’s reputation; the design’s bombastic proportions and its neo-classical architecture did not really warrant any such 294 Ibid.

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Fig. 3.24: Portrait of an Industrialist: Adolf Sommerfeld (1917/129), oil on canvas, lost.

description. The drawing of the monument’s parade grounds showed the coming-together of several processions at the so-called ‘flag castle’ in the centre which at night served as a gigantic torch. The many imperial flags on view provided the final nationalist touch to what the magazine’s critic

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praised as ‘pithy new-German architecture’.295 There was little indication here that within less than two years Pechstein was to become one of the founding members of the revolutionary November Group, and despised by Germany’s nationalists as a left-wing figurehead. If someone had told him so at this point, Pechstein himself would probably have been most surprised. In a letter from February 1917, he still expressed his hope that the declaration of unrestricted submarine warfare would finally ‘bring down the English’.296 His military superiors considered his war-time contribution to date impressive enough to win him the award of the King August Medal, the Saxon decoration for commoners.297 In May 1917 Pechstein was able to return to Berlin for good when the Air Force requested him for training as an air photography analyst.298 Just how exactly he succeeded in making this happen remains unclear. He possibly benefited from some influential friends in Berlin who managed to pull strings. There is certainly evidence that he benefited from some form of patronage throughout these years. One of Pechstein’s military instructor recalled after the Second World War that already when Pechstein arrived in Zwickau for training in 1915, a letter by the General Command was received stating that ‘on request of the German Wissenschaft soldier Pechstein should be preserved as painter for the German Volk’ and should therefore not be sent to the front.299 Many decades later, the partner of Pechstein’s second son recorded that the industrialist Adolf Sommerfeld had been involved in Pechstein’s return.300 Sommerfeld ran a huge construction business in Berlin, and was as such an influential figure. His house featured one of Pechstein’s mosaics, and in 1917, Pechstein produced a painting of him, Bildnis eines Industriellen.301 It is possible that this work was Pechstein’s way of thanking Sommerfeld for using his connections to have the artist recalled to Berlin. In any case, Pechstein continued to ben295 Ibid. 296 Letter Pechstein to Gerbig, 31 January 1917, in private collection. 297 See ‘Personalfragebogen Magistrat von Gross-Berlin’, 6 April 1949, in LAB, B Rep 080, no. 78, f. 1. 298 See autobiographical account of 13 April 1949, in LAB, B Rep 080, no. 78, f. 5. 299 Allegedly this was later followed by the order to post him to the headquarters of the 24th Infantry Division. See Feldwebel Kaden to the then Director of the Zwickau Museum, Marianne Vater, 3 May 1956, in SMZ, no inv. no.. 300 Leonie von Rüxleben, ‘Lebensdaten 1881–1955’, in Magdalena M. Moeller (ed.), Max Pechstein. Sein malerisches Werk (Munich, 1996), 18, ftn. 9, states that the ‘architect’ Sommerfeld requested him as a cartographer in 1916. It is unclear where this information comes from, and we assume it was part of a slightly fuzzy family memory. The date is certainly wrong, and the activity clearly refers to Pechstein’s work in the 24th Division headquarters. 301 See 1917/129, in Aya Soika, Max Pechstein. Das Werkverzeichnis der Ölgemälde (Munich, 2011), vol. 1, 578.

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efit from powerful patronage. In December 1917, a week before Christmas, Pechstein was very nearly sent to the front again, ‘but again I was kept here benevolently’, he reported in a letter to his friend Gerbig.302 But even though he was able to move back into Offenbacher Street in Berlin-Wilmersdorf, Pechstein was not completely released from military service. In a letter from June 1917 he wrote that he was dividing up his time between work for the military and work for himself, and continued: ‘Here I am still working for the air industry, but I do not know for how much longer, then I will fly myself […].’303 Although it is difficult to conceive of Pechstein as a pilot he apparently considered this a real possibility in summer 1917. Indeed, two prints which he produced around this time are portraits of a pilot.304 Unfortunately, there is no information on the kind of work Pechstein might have been doing for the air industry: perhaps he was refering to his training as an air photography analyst, or he was possibly designing some of the propaganda material for the Air Force. Whatever it was, he certainly disliked having to sacrifice his time for it. In August 1917, he wrote to a friend that he was kept from his ‘beloved activity’ by the inconveniences troubling all men at the present time. ‘Art is a jealous lady’, he declared, ‘and demands unconditional commitment, even intense [commitment], which can be very trying. Now I have to be patient and bide my time until I am free to serve her again with everything [I have].’305 Despite his complaints, Pechstein managed to find enough time to start painting again, something he had longed for throughout the previous two years. He declared to Gerbig in early June 1917: [T]here is only one thing I still want to do, to work and only to work, to contribute to the clarification of the conditions of our time and art. Each completed work is already scorned by me because it is completed, because I am only looking forward to the next one to be created, hoping like a child that this will now be the right one.306

At first he found it difficult to get back into his work. The time in the trenches had drawn ‘a big stroke’ through his life and had numbed his senses, Pechstein wrote in retrospect.307 Even the basic crafts of his art had to be reclaimed. ‘Everything is new: How did I undercoat my canvasses in 302 303 304 305

Letter Pechstein to Gerbig, 31 December 1917, in SMZ, 2005/8/Au. Letter Pechstein to Gerbig, 9 June 1917, in private collection. L 206 & L 207, in Krüger, Das druckgraphische Werk Max Pechsteins, 190. Letter Pechstein to Irma Stern, 18 August 1917, quoted in Irene Below, ‘Irma Stern und Max Pechstein’, in Renate Berger (ed.), Liebe macht Kunst. Künstlerpaare des 20. Jahrhunderts (Cologne, 2000), 50. 306 Letter Pechstein to Gerbig, 9 June 1917, in private collection. 307 Letter Pechstein to Georg Biermann, from Nidden, 6 August 1919, reprinted in Georg Biermann, Max Pechstein (=Junge Kunst, Band 1) (Leipzig, 1919 [Leipzig, 1920]), 16.

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the past, what colours did I use?’308 But it did not take Pechstein too long to regain his skills; within a few weeks he worked in full flow. Indeed, the second half of 1917 was to become the most productive period of his life. He produced around 130 oil paintings and nearly as many woodcuts and prints, as well as numerous drawings and watercolours. This outburst of activity was at least partly caused by the fact that Pechstein had to start paying back the advance which he had received from his art dealer Wolfgang Gurlitt for the Palau trip. Although Gurlitt did not automatically come to own Pechstein’s artistic output of this time, he held exclusive gallery rights and was therefore interested in a steady supply of new works.309 Pechstein, of course, was more than happy to follow suit. For over two years he had yearned to render his Palau experience in oil, now paintings based on his sketches from Palau were among the first pictures which he produced.310 Landscapes dominated by the lush green of tropical vegetation, the dark blue of the Pacific, and the glowing yellow and red of sand and earth made for spectacularly colourful compositions. He brought his Palau friends back to life, in portraits of Ronmay, Auchell, his father Rubasack and numerous others. In contrast to his earlier works, the compositions often appeared consciously staged, like ideal-type representations of primal life in a dream world. This is nowhere more obvious than in his big Palau triptych. The scene of Madalai harbour was cleansed of any evidence of Western influence and showed only happy natives greeting each other, posing on their canoes, with birds flying decorously through the skies of each of the three panels. There is very little in this painting which reminds the viewer of the original carvings on the Palau beam which Pechstein had first encountered in Dresden’s ethnographic museum and which had motivated his trip to the island group; only the canoes in the background contain a faint echo of Palauan art. There is clearly a whiff of nostalgia about this painting, which is also true of the nearly forty other works with Palauan subject matter which Pechstein produced within just a few months. The Palau triptych and Pechstein’s other Palau paintings seemed to suggest that while the artist retained his trademark, the use of vibrant and often clashing colours, he was now firmly moving away from the spontaneity and coarse brushstrokes of his Moritzburg days in 1910 towards a more naturalistic and smoother style. However, it is difficult to generalize about Pechstein’s stylistic development because of the variety of works he produced in different media in this period. For example, he decorated 308 Ibid. 309 See the advertisement at the back of Das Kunstblatt, June 1918, vol.6: ‘Fritz Gurlitt/ Hofkunsthandlung: Alleinige Vertretung der Gemälde/Zeichnungen/Graphik von Max Pechstein’. 310 Ibid.

Fig. 3.25: Palau triptych (1917/57), oil on canvas, 119 × 91 cm (left), 119×176 cm (middle), 119 × 91 cm (right), Wilhelm-Hack-Museum Ludwigshafen.

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Fig. 3.26: Mural in Pechstein’s attic studio in Offenbacher Strasse, created 1917. (Photograph taken 2004).

his roof studio in Offenbacher Street with a wall painting with Palauan subject matter which looked completely unlike the oil paintings which he produced at the same time. The following year, he decorated his new flat in Kurfürstenstrasse 126 with a frieze which more than any other work Pechstein ever created bore strong resemblance to the jagged shapes of the carvings on the Palau beam.311 Then again, Pechstein’s woodcut series Heads, also of 1917, was not ‘Palauan’ in character although it included five portraits of his Palau acquaintances, but despite a novel attention to detail could certainly not be described as naturalistic, either.312 A completely different style again is apparent in two major mosaics which Pechstein’s art dealer Gurlitt commissioned for his gallery space. Somewhat surprisingly, Pechstein chose religious subject matter as topic, namely the adoration of the magi and the expulsion from paradise. The latter was very probably a reference to Pechstein’s eviction from Palau.

311 Aya Soika, ‘Max Pechstein: Ein Südsee-Insulaner in Berlin’, in Ralph Melcher (ed.), Die Brücke in der Südsee – Exotik der Farbe (Cologne, 2005), 78. See also Holger Lippke, ‘Über der Heizung ein echter Pechstein’, in Berliner Illustrirte Zeitung, 10 July 2005, 2. For the frieze, see Will Grohmann (ed.), 10 Jahre Novembergruppe. Sonderheft der Kunst der Zeit (Berlin, 1928), 90–91. 312 See H 166 – H 175, in Krüger, Das druckgraphische Werk Max Pechsteins, 163–165.

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Fig. 3.27: Wall frieze in Pechstein’s studio in Kurfürstenstrasse 126, created 1917.

Apart from these mosaics, Gurlitt also commissioned Pechstein to create several stained glass windows for the redecoration of his villa in Potsdamer Strasse.313 Because of the ambitious scale of the project, and the involvement of various other Expressionists like Rudolf Belling and Cesar Klein, the villa came to be called ‘Neuschwanstein of Expressionism’. Although not quite as extravagant as the playful fairytale palace of Bavarian King Ludwig, Gurlitt’s villa too was an attempt to create a total work of art. After the successful reception of his cycle The Seasons in 1913 Pechstein was the obvious choice for the design of this new stained glass window commission. Heinersdorff, the workshop owner in charge of the execution of the project, was slightly concerned about the long break in Pechstein’s artistic practice due to the war, but at the same time full of high hopes. ‘These have now been exceeded by far by what Pechstein brought us yesterday’, he wrote in an enthusiastic letter to Gurlitt in late September 1917. ‘It is so beautiful, so mature and so spiritualized that I am lacking the right words to describe it.’314 Gurlitt replied that he was looking forward to seeing the windows and that he was proud of ‘his’ Pechstein: ‘I have

313 See Günter Krüger, ‘Glasmalereien der “Brücke”-Künstler’, in Brücke-Archiv 1 (1967), 30; Maria-Katharina Schulz, Glasmalerei der Klassischen Moderne in Deutschland (Frankfurt/ Main, 1987), 54–60. 314 Letter Gottfried Heinersdorff to Wolfgang Gurlitt, 29 September 1917, in Archiv Puhl & Wagner, Gottfried Heinersdorff (APWGH).

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Fig. 3.28: Expulsion from paradise, 1917, detail of a mosaic in the newly built art gallery of Wolfgang Gurlitt, executed after designs by Pechstein. Published in Das Kunstblatt (1918), no. 6, 234.

always expected great things from him and he will deliver, too!’315 Pechstein produced a total of five large-scale stained glass windows, two for the bedroom, two for a bathroom, and one for the staircase. Unfortunately, the 315 Letter Wolfgang Gurlitt to Gottfried Heinersdorff, 1 October 1917, in APWGH.

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villa suffered destruction in an air raid in 1943, so none of the windows survived. However, they were widely acclaimed by critics and reproduced as photographs in magazines at the time. The journalist Theodor Heuss, who later became the first President of the Federal Republic of Germany, thought that the designs were interesting because of Pechstein’s ‘attempt to achieve a slightly classicist unity’.316 He praised the bathroom window Round Dance for its ‘splendid rhythm, melody and movement’.317 Its motif was probably inspired by Matisse’s dance paintings which Pechstein had already picked up in some of his graphic work in 1912.318 But the truly innovative characteristic of the window was that it was lit electrically from the back. For the first time in the history of stained glass, a window could be appreciated regardless of its location or the time of the day. More than anything else, Pechstein revelled in the opportunity to paint again. After having worked his way through his Palau sketches, he searched for further motifs. Some he found in his studio where he rearranged various objects day after day, churning out around thirty still lifes during these months. He also produced a number of self-portraits and portraits of Lotte and Frank; he painted his sister Gertrud, his friend Eduard Plietzsch, and the Berlin industrialist Sommerfeld. Pechstein then turned to his older works for inspiration.319 The most astonishing result of this trip down memory lane was a large triptych, Monterosso Bay, of a beach scene in Monterosso al Mare where Pechstein had last been in 1913. The work was less naturalistic in style then the Palau triptych, and reminiscent of some of his earlier oil paitings, with broad and clearly visible brushstrokes, thinner layers of colour and simplified shapes. In terms of subject matter, however, there was an obvious similarity to the Palau triptych: here too were simple people living and working in harmony with nature, at the intersection of land and sea, timeless because of their distance from modern life. It is indicative of Pechstein’s character as a painter that when he revisited past experiences, nature would take centre stage. Even though he had encountered an abundance of powerful motifs of modern life over the last couple of years, like the skyscrapers of New York or the fires of a steam ship’s boiler room, these were never translated into paintings. Perhaps most striking in this respect is the fact that Pechstein never produced a single painting dealing with his war experience. Unlike Otto Dix and George Grosz, two younger artists who were politicized and turned into angry men

316 317 318 319

Theodor Heuss, ‘Pechsteins Glasgemälde’, in Wieland 5 (1919/20), no. 7, 3. Ibid., 4. See H 157, R 55, L 149, in Krüger, Das druckgraphische Werk Max Pechsteins, 142, 144, 152. See letter Pechstein to Fechter, 18 August 1917, in GRL, Special Collections, 2001.M.19.

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Fig. 3.29: Dance, 1917, stained glass window executed after a design by Pechstein. Published in Wieland 5 (1919/20), no. 7, 3.

by their war experience, Pechstein never attempted to capture the colours and shapes of exploding shells or muddy trenches in oil. It is difficult to say why this was so. Of course, already prior to the war, Pechstein had preferred to seek out nature for inspiration and had largely ignored the modern, metropolitan scenery of Berlin that his Brücke colleague Kirchner used to great effect. It is also true that Pechstein generally tended to paint beautiful and harmonious scenes rather than capturing the ugly or disturbing. But what makes the lack of war paintings so intriguing is the fact that Pechstein did not completely shy away from war-related motifs in other media. Apart from the the occasional watercolour like Ecce Homo, of soldiers digging graves, he produced a series of prints which his

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Fig. 3.30: Somme (Exploding Shell), 1916, etching, 39,5 × 31,5 (Krüger R 99), private collection.

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art dealer Gurlitt presented under the title Somme 1916 in 1919.320 Based on his sketches from the trenches, the prints were not as graphic in their depiction of war scenes as Otto Dix’s later cycle The War, but an image like Somme 1916 IV/Exploding Shell certainly captured the vulnerability of the human body in the midst of machine warfare. The most likely explanation for the existence of these prints, and the lack of equivalent oil paintings, is the German art market of the time. By this stage, there was a sufficient number of modern art collectors willing to pay a certain amount of money for artworks even if they had no intention of displaying these images in their houses.321 Prints were reasonably cheap; in 1918 and 1919 works on paper by Pechstein were offered for less than 100 Marks apiece.322 Oil paintings were a different matter. Already by 1914, Pechstein’s paintings fetched up to two thousand Marks, approximately the annual income of an average worker’s household.323 Even rich collectors chose their paintings carefully and only bought those works which they felt comfortable putting up on their walls at home. It is worth keeping in mind that an oil painting like Otto Dix’s The Trench from 1923 did not find a private buyer, but was acquired by the Wallraf-Richartz-Museum in Cologne, leading to a great art scandal and the eventual dismissal of the then director Hans Secker by the city’s mayor, Konrad Adenauer.324 Without private demand for such war paintings there was no reason for Pechstein to overcome his preference to depict nature’s harmony. In any case, Pechstein’s artistic output of this time enjoyed great popularity. From May to July 1918, some of his most recent paintings – like the triptych Monterosso Bay – went on display at the Free Secession’s spring exhibition, and were positively reviewed.325 Equally, his contributions to the ‘Great Berlin Art Exhibition’ in Düsseldorf received critical acclaim. ‘Of all the younger generation in this exhibition he is undoubtedly the strongest’,

320 See R 96 – R 104, in Krüger, Das druckgraphische Werk Max Pechsteins, 216–218. Krüger dates their creation to 1918, but the fact that several of these prints exist with signature and the date ‘1917’ seems to suggest that they were created already in 1917. 321 For an analysis of the proliferation of graphic collecting in Germany, see Curt Glaser, ‘Vom Graphik-Sammeln’, in Kunstblatt 3 (1918), no. 11, 321–330. 322 See, for example, Kunstblatt 2 (1918), no. 3, 95–96; Kunstblatt 3 (1919), no. 8, 256. 323 See Pechstein’s five entries to the New Secession exhibition of February – April 1911, which were priced between 1,000 and 2,000 M. See ‘Preise der Kunstwerke’, entries 29–33, in Katalog der Neuen Secession Berlin (Berlin, 1911), unpaginated. 324 Dennnis Crockett, ‘The Most Famous Painting of the “Golden Twenties”? Otto Dix and the Trench Affair’, in Art Journal 51 (1992), 72–80. See Fritz Löffler, Otto Dix. Life and Work (New York, 1982), 65. 325 Katalog der Freien Secession (Berlin, 1918), entries 123–126. See also letter Irma Stern to Pechstein, 12 May 1918, in Cape Town, SA Library, Irma Stern papers, MSC 31.2 (2).

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declared one critic.326 Most importantly, it was widely noticed that when Gurlitt reopened his art gallery after renovation and extension works in June 1918, he did so with a major show dedicated to Pechstein. For over two months, 44 recent portraits and still lifes were shown, followed by an exhibition exclusively dedicated to Pechstein’s Palau paintings from mid-August onwards. It was an art event that attracted many artists, collectors and art dealers, and it received extensive coverage in all of Berlin’s leading newspapers.327 As in previous years, reviews were either wholesale endorsements or furious condemnations. ‘This is truly a painter’, exclaimed one enthusiastic critic. ‘He devours the world. He embraces her, and hence there are children. All these paintings have been created like in a love affair.’328 Others were less taken with the show. ‘One stands underneath these paintings as if one is facing an orchestra that begins to storm at you with lots of kettledrums and trombones, triangles and percussion instruments’, one conservative critic described the experience.329 Many reviewers noted that Pechstein was experimenting with his style of painting. Especially those critics who had previously been rather sceptical of Pechstein were jubilant to note his more naturalistic approach. ‘Pechstein’s paintings […] provide evidence for the great progress in the artist’s development’, announced the reviewer of the conservative National-Zeitung.330 The recent works were no longer characterized by harsh contours and jagged shapes, but by a ‘softness of painting’, resulting in work which ‘belonged to the most beautiful in Pechstein’s oeuvre’.331 Other critics concurred with this view. ‘Only now do I believe in the painter Pechstein’, Fritz Stahl announced in the prestigious Berliner Tageblatt.332 ‘No longer caricatures, [but] humans are standing there, women even in all gracefulness with delicate limbs and fine hands.’333 The subsequent show of Pechstein’s Palau paintings attracted similar attention. Never before had a German painter presented a cycle of works with such exotic subject matter, and some reviewers thought that Pechstein had surpassed even Gauguin.334

326 Fritz Stahl, ‘Grosse Berliner Kunstausstellung 1918 in Düsseldorf ’, in Berliner Tageblatt, no. 239, 11 May 1918. 327 Vossische Zeitung, no. 280, 4 June 1918: ‘Der Kunstsalon Gurlitt’. 328 R.Br. [probably Robert Breuer], ‘Max Pechstein’, undated newspaper clipping in Zentralarchiv der Staatlichen Museen Berlin, Preußischer Kulturbesitz, Pechstein documentation. 329 Franz Servaes, ‘Eine Pechstein-Ausstellung’, in Vossische Zeitung, no. 284, 6 June 1918. 330 H.S., ‘Max Pechstein’, in National-Zeitung, 2 June 1918. 331 Ibid. 332 Fritz Stahl, ‘Max Pechstein’, in Berliner Tageblatt, no. 279, 3 June 1918. 333 Ibid. 334 Georg Biermann, ‘Max Pechstein’, in Cicerone 10 (1918), no. 17/18, 270; Paul Friedrich, ‘Palau’, undated newspaper clipping in SMB-ZA, Pechstein documentation.

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It was not just in the daily press that Pechstein received extensive coverage. All of the major German art journals devoted long articles to him. Already in autumn 1917, the great antagonist of Expressionism, Karl Scheffler, had praised Pechstein’s most recent artistic output in his journal Kunst und Künstler, especially his arts and crafts works, and announced that this was clearly an artist with a promising future.335 In 1918, coinciding with the Gurlitt exhibition Paul Westheim’s newly founded journal Das Kunstblatt devoted its entire June issue to Pechstein, including extracts from his Palau diary.336 Two months later, Deutsche Kunst und Dekoration published a portray of Pechstein’s career by the socialist art historian and critic Wilhelm Hausenstein. ‘Within the range of Expressionism Pechstein’s paintings are about the most subtly differentiated as regards taste that exist’, Hausenstein declared.337 In September, Georg Biermann produced an extensive analysis of Pechstein’s oeuvre in Cicerone.338 With their small print run, these publications were unknown to most Germans at the time, but they helped cement Pechstein’s reputation within the art world, among art collectors and dealers, museum curators, art critics and fellow artists. The acclaim from connoisseurs in turn meant that popular journalism could now sell Pechstein to the wider public as the as the controversial and interesting ‘leader of contemporary German art’.339 Ever since the art scandal which his paintings had produced at the New Secession show in 1910, Pechstein had been something of an art celebrity. His trip to Palau, news of his deportation by the Japanese and of his adventurous return to Germany had elicited further journalistic interest. The serialized publication of his travel reports in Berlin’s Vossische Zeitung in 1915 had caught the public’s imagination, and when Pechstein entered the military in Zwickau later that same year he found that he was a known figure even among his instructors.340 Women’s magazines published photos showing elegantly dressed contemporaries in front of his paintings in the Free Secession exhibition, and the Gurlitt exhibition in 1918 was given full-page coverage in the fashion journal, Die Elegante Welt.341 335 Karl Scheffler, ‘Max Pechstein’, in Kunst und Künstler 16 (1917), 32. 336 Max Raphael, ‘Max Pechstein’, in Das Kunstblatt, no. 6, June 1918, 161–179. 337 Wilhelm Hausenstein, ‘Max Pechstein’, in Deutsche Kunst und Dekoration 21 (1918), 205–236, here 229. 338 Georg Biermann, ‘Max Pechstein’, in Cicerone 10 (1918), no. 17/18, 263–270. 339 Paul Kraemer, ‘Pechstein-Ausstellung bei Gurlitt’, in Elegante Welt 7 (1918), no. 14, 13. 340 Max Pechstein, ‘Reise nach Palau’, in Vossische Zeitung, no. 492, 26 September 1915, ‘Kriegsausbruch in der Südsee’, in Vossische Zeitung, no. 518, 10 October 1915, and ‘Als Gefangener nach Japan’, in Vossische Zeitung, no. 544, 24 October 1914. For Zwickau, see Pechstein, Erinnerungen, 102. 341 Ibid. For the photo, see ‘Freie Secession’, in Elegante Welt 6 (1917), no .16, 5. For the link between fashion and Expressionism, see Sherwin Simmons, ‘Ernst Kirchner‘s Street-

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Fig. 3.31: The “Pechstein-Wall” in the exhibition of the Free Secession in the summer of 1917.

Fame brought some modest rewards. In August 1918, Pechstein was able to move from his flat in Offenbacher Street to a considerably more spacious appartment in Kurfürstenstrasse 126. The house, built in the 1890s after plans by the renowned Berlin architect Alfred Messel, had been specifically designed as a living and working space for artists.342 Located in the prosperous district of Charlottenburg, Pechstein’s new home was visible proof of his establishment in the Berlin art scene. When moving in, his friend Plietzsch called him ‘Friedrich August von Pechstein’, in memory of the fashionable studio surroundings of the director of the Munich Academy, Friedrich August von Kaulbach.343 Pechstein did not mind. He enjoyed his new home, and in particular the green of the trees in front of his house.344 But generally, he was rather downbeat. The summer was cold and rainy, and like in 1917 he was unable to travel to the Baltic Sea. ‘I have to spend walkers: Art, Luxury, and Immorality in Berlin, 1913–16’, in The Art Bulletin 82 (March 2000), no. 1, 117–148. 342 Werner Breunig, ‘Spuren bekannter Persönlichkeiten in der alten Berliner Einwohnermeldekartei’, in Berlin in Geschichte und Gegenwart (2004), 110–111. 343 Paul Fechter, ‘Malen ist für ihn ein anderes Wort für Leben’, in Neue Zeitung (Munich), 29 December 1951. 344 Letter Pechstein to Irma Stern, 24 August 1918, in Cape Town, SA Library, Irma Stern papers, MSC 31.2 (3).

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Fig. 3.32: Residential housing complex built by Alfred Messel, Kurfürstenstr. 126: Pechstein’s Berlin residence from August 1918 to October 1944. Photograph: K & M, 1894. Foto Marburg.

this summer in the city again, and you can believe me that this does not put me in a good mood’, he wrote to a friend.345 He was running out of inspiration, and in the second half of 1918 did not pick up his painting brush once.346 This was partly a result also of the worsening wartime scarcity in Berlin. Already in autumn 1917, Pechstein complained about the lack of food from which his family was suffering. ‘I most pity my small fellow [Frank] who already at his tender age is forced to get to know the privations of war, without us having the opportunity to make him happy now and then with a bit of chocolate.’347 In winter, the situation got even more dra345 Letter Pechstein to Irma Stern, 5 July 1918, in Cape Town, SA Library, Irma Stern papers, MSC 31.2 (3). 346 Letter Pechstein to Gerbig, 6 January 1919, in SMZ, no inv. no.. 347 Letter Pechstein to Gerbig, 6 October 1917, in SMZ, no inv. no.. See also letter Pechstein to Fechter, 18 August 1917, in GRL, Special Collections, 2001.M.19.

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matic, as gas for heating was discontinued. ‘It is incredible how little time one has’, Pechstein described the situation in a letter, ‘one literally has to sleep most of the time otherwise one eats too much, and in the remaining hours one is mostly freezing.’348 For most of 1918, the Pechsteins lived on cabbage and the occasional food parcel sent by friends.349 These experiences on the home front contributed significantly to Pechstein’s increasing politicization during this time. Unfortunately, due to the dearth of letters which have survived from 1918 in particular, it is difficult to reconstruct a very clear picture of his political development. In any case, it was not straight-forward progress towards socialism. When Pechstein returned to Berlin in 1917, he arrived at a time of high political tension. In July, Reich Chancellor Bethmann Hollweg resigned following the demands of the military leadership, whilst the democratic parties in the German parliament, the Reichstag, passed a resolution demanding the beginning of negotiations for a compromise peace without annexations.350 At this moment in time, Pechstein, who was following events closely in the daily press, was apparently still supporting the established authorities. After a speech by the new conservative Reich Chancellor Michaelis, in which he had harshly criticized Germany’s enemies for their alleged annexationist war aims, Pechstein told Plietzsch how much he had enjoyed the assertive nationalist tone: I think [he] will cut these brothers short, and it is mightily uplifting after all this lukewarm water over these last days to be enjoying a stronger broth. Apart from that, I do not believe that the old Prussian state will come apart, those existing [forces] will take good care not to [allow?] democratic responsibility […]351

Annoyingly, the rest of this letter has not survived, so we do not know what Pechstein thought about the chances for democratic reform at this point. Within a few weeks of this letter, however, there were first signs of his increasing dissatisfaction with conditions on the home front, and jibes at the war industry.352 In view of the patriotic comments in his letters from the front it is also interesting that Pechstein had little regard for the annexationist Fatherland Party, founded in late August 1917, which became the most vociferous proponent of a ‘Siegfrieden’, a victorious peace. 348 Letter Pechstein to Fechter, 3 January 1918, in GRL, Special Collections, 2001.M.19. 349 Letter Pechstein to Fechter, undated, copy in Günter Krüger papers, Berlin. See also Below, ‘Irma Stern und Max Pechstein’, 53. 350 Roger Chickering, Imperial Germany and the Great War, 1914–1918 (Cambridge, 2004), 161. 351 Fragment of a letter Pechstein to Plietzsch, Berlin, 30 July 1917, in AM, 1964/445. For the content of Michaeli’s speech, see Berliner Tageblatt, no. 382, 29 July 1917: ‘Der Reichskanzler über französische Eroberungspläne.’ 352 Letter Pechstein to Fechter, 18 August 1917, in GRL, Special Collections, 2001.M.19.

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Pechstein abused its members as ‘war profiteers’, and accused them of being responsible for preventing the coming of peace. ‘We are governed too marvellously!’ he vented his anger in a letter from October 1917.353 There was no indication in the few letters of this time, however, that Pechstein considered the Social Democrats or indeed revolution a viable alternative to present conditions. In fact, one letter from December 1917 to Gerbig echoed some of the cultural pessimism and antisemitism propagated by rightwing nationalists at this time. ‘We still have to do so much work’, Pechstein informed his friend. ‘Jews and old men overgrow everything else here. It is time for us for mighty peaceful work, otherwise we will get another culture, and not a German one, grafted on us. And despite the good work which women are currently doing, a women’s state is not right either.’354 This was the only antisemitic comment which Pechstein ever made in his correspondence which spanned over five decades. But in terms of his approach to politics, it was typical for him. He was primarily interested in the effects politics had on culture, and the fine arts in particular. This was certainly not the statement of an artistic radical eager to revolutionize society by violent means. On the contrary, Pechstein clearly believed that once peace had been achieved his job was to contribute to society through his brushwork. In early November 1918, revolution broke out in Germany. Triggered by a sailors’ mutiny in Kiel, Wilhelmine authority broke down throughout the country and so-called soldiers’ and workers’ councils took over political control. By 11 November, the Republic had been proclaimed, Emperor Wilhelm II had abdicated and gone into Dutch exile, and an armistice had just been signed with the Allies. That evening, Pechstein invited his friends Fechter, Plietzsch and Glaser to his flat to discuss the new situation. According to Fechter, Pechstein and Lotte were happy about the new freedom.355 It meant new opportunities in particular for contemporary artists, and the group decided to draft a memorandum calling on the new government to establish a Reich Office for Art. What they feared was not so much the prospect of the new government turning a cold shoulder to modern art, as Wilhelm II had done, but the possibility of rival modernists getting their foot in first. ‘In essence, the aim of the undertaking is to prevent elements like Walden from pushing to the front and causing nonsense,’ Fechter later noted in his diary. ‘It is terribly easy nowadays to become something. One 353 Letter Pechstein to Gerbig, 6 October 1917, in SMZ, no inv. no.. These comments were probably a reaction to the first big public demonstration of the Fatherland Party in Berlin, on 24 September 1917. 354 Letter Pechstein to Gerbig, 31 December 1917, in SMZ, no inv. no.. 355 For this and the following, see entry 11 November 1918, diary-type notes by Fechter, handcopied in Günter Krüger papers, Berlin.

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goes to the Reichstag, occupies a room, and establishes oneself as a Workers’ Council or for anything.’356 The next day, Pechstein met up with a Social Democratic Under Secretary of State to hand over the manifesto, but the initiative led nowhere.357 Still, Pechstein refused to give up. Some days later, he happened to bump into a colleague, fellow Expressionist Heinrich Richter, one of the co-founders of the New Secession, on Potsdamer Platz. Richter later claimed this was the moment when the November Group was conceived: ‘[Pechstein] had a plan. He believed one should start anew. I should rally my people (Tappert, Klein, Melzer) and he would bring the Brücke. He even had a name already: November Group!’358 They then had to disperse very quickly, as a street battle was just about to erupt. It is interesting that despite his exclusion from Brücke in 1912 and the group’s dissolution in 1913, Pechstein was still making use of his former affiliation for art politics. In fact, his promise of bringing on board the Brücke artists was mere rhetoric. When some twenty artists came together for the first meeting of the November Group on 3 December 1918, Otto Mueller was the only former Brücke colleague who was present.359 This did not prevent Pechstein from taking centre stage, explaining to the gathering the need for a new association, and presenting a press release and a circular letter to like-minded fine artists. While everyone agreed on the need for a new organization, there was little consensus on what they actually wanted to achieve. The circular letter, the group’s first public statement, was therefore primarily a call to membership, dressed up with some revolutionary pathos: ‘The future of art and the seriousness of the present hour force us revolutionaries of the spirit (Expressionists, Cubists, Futurists) to unification and close alliance. We therefore direct to all artists, who shattered the old forms in art, the urgent request to announce their joining in the November Group.’360 The letter was rather vague on the group’s aims. A wide ranging programme was to eventually lead to a close relationship of people and art, and a joint exhibition was to announce the new union by 356 Ibid. In fact, the day after their meeting, Herwarth Walden, editor of the journal Der Sturm, did indeed make a stab at securing a role in cultural politics, when sending a letter to the Social Democrat Konrad Hänisch, head of the Prussian Ministry for Culture, arguing for the superiority of Expressionism; see Weinstein, End of Expressionism, 39. 357 See Fechter diary entry, 13 November 1918, handcopied in Günter Krüger papers, Berlin. 358 Heinrich Richter-Berlin, ‘Mein Leben’, in Kunstblätter der Galerie Nierendorf (Berlin, 1974), no. 32, 9, translated and quoted in Joan Weinstein, The End of Expressionism. Art and the November Revolution in Germany, 1918–19 (Chicago, 1990), 27. 359 See minutes of the meeting, reprinted in Kunst der Zeit. Zeitschrift für Kunst und Literatur 3 (1928), no. 1–3, special edition: ‘Zehn Jahre Novembergruppe’, 10. Other artists present were Klein, Tappert, Melzer, Richter-Berlin, Belling, Leschnitzer, Moll, Frey, Steiner, Hirsch, Stern, Krauskopf, Bauer, Schmid, Hasler, Mendelsohn, Janthur, and Freundlich. 360 Dated 13 December 1918, ibid, 12; translated and quoted in Weinstein, End of Expressionism, 27.

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touring all major cities in Germany and later Europe. Pechstein himself did not really have a clear vision, either, rather than the urge to use the opportunity to improve the situation for the fine arts. ‘[…] I am turning over in my head plans how one could achieve the recovery of artistic life,’ he wrote to his friend Gerbig, ‘after all we are responsible ourselves for the directions which art takes, and in particular the way in which art training takes place.’361 It was this zeal for reform which made Pechstein become one of the leading members of yet another revolutionary union of radical German artists and architects, the Working Council for Art. Led by architects like Walter Gropius, Bruno Taut and Adolf Behne, it called for the ‘union of arts under the wings of a great architecture’.362 Like Cesar Klein and Käthe Kollwitz, Pechstein was a welcome member as his name signalled the inclusion of fine artists well-known for their disrespect for traditional Wilhelmine art. In its first public manifesto, the new group declared that art should ‘no longer be the pleasure of a few, but the happiness and life of the masses.’363 It attacked Wilhelmine art institutions and demanded the abolition or radical reform of the royal academies, the Prussian Provincial Art Commission, state-sponsored exhibitions, and state museums. It was not simply the self-serving interest as a painter which motivated Pechstein to get involved in revolutionary art politics. His initiatives were also inspired by a strong sense of patriotism and national duty. When his conservative friend, the art historian Eduard Plietzsch, considered emigration to Sweden, Pechstein harshly criticized him for even thinking about leaving his fatherland at the hour of need: ‘that would mean shirking: you are a German!’364 Pechstein himself was relatively optimistic about the future, even if he thought that it would take five to ten years before the revolution would bring about real improvements. In terms of party politics, Pechstein was firmly on the right within the revolutionary camp, supporting the Majority Socialists against the Communists. He was suspicious of Moscow’s influence on the latter and rejected their readiness to resort to violence to achieve their political aims. He started leaving his house only with a gun in his pocket, to be prepared for ‘all contingencies’.365 He reported in early January 1919: Berlin is a powder-keg which explodes once every week, since yesterday […] we have a lot of shooting going on, one strike and demonstration comes after the 361 Letter Pechstein to Gerbig, 6 January 1919, in SMZ, no inv. no.. 362 See facsimile of Working Council for Art publication, in Eberhard Steneberg, Arbeitsrat für Kunst. Berlin 1918–1921 (Düsseldorf, 1987), 4. 363 Ibid. 364 Quoted in Fechter diary entry, 27 November 1918, handcopied in Günter Krüger papers, Berlin. 365 Letter Pechstein to Gerbig, 6 January 1919, in SMZ, no inv. no..

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other. If this continues even only for a short time then Berlin will become the hot-bed for this rabble of the Spartacists, who in turn are dependent of the Russians.366

Two days after Pechstein had written this letter, fighting broke out in Berlin between communists and Freikorps troops called in by the Majority Socialdemocrats. After an evening of wine drinking in a little pub on Wittenbergplatz, Pechstein and his friend Paul Fechter felt sufficiently fired up to follow the provisional government’s call for volunteers. They boarded a carriage, taking a goodly number of wine bottles with them, and made their way to the Reich Chancellery on Wilhelmstrasse to enlist. A sergeant there praised them for their resolve but sent them home to have a good sleep first.367 The following day, the prospect of joining in the bitter fighting probably looked less appealing; wisely, Pechstein and Fechter decided to keep out of it. Still, Pechstein was strongly committed to the anti-Spartacist cause. But it was not with arms, but with his art that he made the greatest contriubtion to the revolutionary politics of this period. In the run-up to the elections to the National Assembly, Pechstein was recruited by the Werbedienst der Deutschen Sozialistischen Republik, the provisional government’s propaganda office, to produce posters and leaflets calling for a return to order and encouraging people to cast their votes. Other Expressionists, like Cesar Klein, Oskar Kokoschka, Willy Jaeckel and Heinz Fuchs received similar commissions. Significantly, they were all active in the November Group, and were sympathetic to the socialist or social democratic cause. It was the first time that Expressionists benefited from official state patronage, and it was through their posters that these artists loaded the November Group with political significance. Whilst the involvement of Expressionists in the revolutionary art politics of this time was known only to a small number of insiders, their posters which the Werbedienst produced in huge print-runs secured them a great deal of public attention. Prior to the war, posters for political propaganda had been restricted by a rigorous poster law allowing only printed words and no illustrations. After 1914, illustrated posters had been used primarily for patriotic propaganda such as the promotion of war bonds. From November 1918, artists finally had the opportunity to make full use of posters by combining text and image for political messages. A flood of posters and leaflets literally changed the face of the city. According to one contemporary observer, ‘Berlin’s streets became a riot of colour. The normally grey facades of houses now resembled 366 Ibid. 367 Paul Fechter, ‘Malen ist für ihn ein anderes Wort für Leben’, in Neue Zeitung (Munich), 29 December 1951.

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Fig. 3.33: Call to the National Assembly, 1919, poster – colour lithograph, 67.8 × 44.3 cm (Krüger L 358), private collection.

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Fig. 3.34: Don’t strangle the newborn freedom, 1919, poster – colour lithograph, 99.5 × 67.7 cm (Krüger L 360), private collection.

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an agitated mask. […] Shop windows, shutters, houses, crates and boxes were bedecked in poster finery.’368 If political posters were a revolutionary novelty in themselves, the anti-traditionalist aesthetic of the Expressionist posters seemed to suggest that a new era had been ushered in not just in politics but also in culture. Prior to the November Revolution, Expressionist art had been confined to art galleries and the private houses of a limited number of collectors. Now, all of a sudden, Expressionism gained a prominence in the urban public sphere which was unprecedented. For most contemporaries it was their first encounter with Expressionist art, and many found it a disturbing experience. Even many years after the revolution one conservative writer still remembered vividly the appearance of these posters: ‘Arms wildly trashing about, mouths wide open, large flags waving, lettering running wild, everything in loud colours, in jagged unruly forms […].’369 This could well have been a description of Pechstein’s poster ‘The National Assembly – cornerstone of the German Socialist Republic’, or his leaflet ‘Call for Socialism’. Over the winter of 1918/1919, Pechstein produced more posters, leaflets and illustrations dealing with revolutionary subject matter than any other Expressionist.370 Pechstein’s best-known poster was that of a putto – possibly his son Frank – embracing the red flag, Don’t strangle the Young Freedom, allegedly one of the most popular posters in Berlin. It was frequently reproduced and became a familiar symbol for the revolution.371 Ironically, the reason for its popularity was probably its relative lack of Expressionist aesthetic. In fact, the calculation of the Werbedienst that a new era needed a new style and that the working-class would recognize and welcome the revolutionary spirit embodied by Expressionist art turned out to be wrong. Most of the posters by members of the November Group provoked only resentment among the urban masses. Workers considered avant-garde art itself the product of bourgeois society, and suspected in these posters a lack of respect, even mockery. They demanded comprehensible realism and uplifting idealism

368 O. Bauer, ‘Das Politische Gesicht der Strasse’, in Das Plakat 10,1 (1919), 75, quoted in Willi L. Guttsman, Art for the Workers: ideology and the visual arts in Weimar Germany (Manchester, 1997), 171. See Vorwärts, no. 49, 27 January 1919: ‘Politische Plakate’. 369 Walter Schubert, Die deutsche Werbegraphik (Berlin, 1927), 84–85. 370 See. L 358–361, in Krüger, Das druckgraphische Werk Max Pechsteins, 262–263. Also illustration ‘Rührt Euch! / Auf zur Nationalversammlung!’, in DHM Berlin, Do2 2000/612. Pechstein also contributed cover illustrations to all nine issues of the short-lived, antiSpartacist journal An die Laterne in 1919, see Weinstein, End of Expressionism, 51–55. 371 For a more detailed discussion of Pechstein’s posters of 1918/19, see Bernhard Fulda, ‘“Nationalversammlung”. Plakatwerbung für die Republik’, in Gerhard Paul (ed.), Bilderatlas des 20. und beginnenden 21. Jahrhunderts (Göttingen, 2009), vol. 1, 226–235.

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instead.372 In March 1919, the Werbedienst was dissolved; from then on, parties preferred to commission artists working in more traditional styles for their political propaganda. But by this time, the Werbedienst’s massive publicity campaign had succeeded in establishing Expressionism as an art form widely associated with political revolution, and Pechstein as the leading revolutionary artist.373 The young Dadaist George Grosz, who would later become a good friend, ridiculed him as ‘the people’s fine artist’.374 His new prominence turned Pechstein into an interesting contact for all those involved in art politics and publicity work. As he was an executive member of both November Group and Working Council for Art, it often took only a handful of visitors for such meetings to become official sessions of these groups. Fechter commented on one such gathering in Pechstein’s home on 30 January 1919: ‘Westheim is there, [art critic Carl] Einstein comes, as does Walter Gropius. So it is a session of the Working Council for Art. Lots of talk – the aim is missing, for which they have joined forces. That still has to be established.’375 Over the following days, Pechstein produced a programmatic article, which he circulated to museum directors and art critics, and which was published in both the bourgeois Deutsche Allgemeine Zeitung as well as in the socialist newspaper Die Freiheit.376 Pechstein argued for a new unified artistic culture to be achieved through the joining of art and handicrafts. ‘On the basis of craftsmanship […],’ he declared, ‘the light of the unity “people and art” will dawn on us.’377 If only all artists were properly trained, even those who were left behind by the art-buying public could still serve the state as high-quality handicraft 372 See Fulda, ‘Plakatwerbung für die Republik’, 234; Guttsman, Art for the Workers, 175; Weinstein, End of Expressionism, 29. 373 See Curt Glaser, ‘Berliner Ausstellungen’, in Kunstchronik und Kunstmarkt, no. 21, 7 March 1919, who credits Pechstein as ‘the man of the day’ for his poster advertising the Werbedienst’s magazine An die Laterne. This magazine, for which Pechstein produced all cover illustrations, was allegedly distributed in editions of twenty-eight million throughout the country, see Sherwin Simmons, ‘War, Revolution, and the Transformation of the German Humor Magazine, 1914–1927’, in Art Journal 52 (1993), no. 1, 50. 374 See the satirical journal, Jedermann sein eigener Fussball I (1919), no. 1, caricature on final page of issue. 375 Fechter diary entry, 30 January 1919, handcopied in Günter Krüger papers, Berlin. See also postcard Pechstein to Walter Gropius, 29 January 1919, in Bauhaus-Archiv Berlin, Gropius-Nachlass 10/372 and 372x. 376 Max Pechstein, ‘Was wir wollen’, in Deutsche Allgemeine Zeitung, no. 58, 4 February 1919, and Max Pechstein, ‘Volk, Kunst und Künstler’, in Die Freiheit, no. 134, 20 March 1919. See also letter Pechstein to Ludwig Justi, 3 March 1919, in Archiv der BerlinBrandenburgischen Akademie der Wissenschaften, Berlin (AAdW), Justi papers, no. 13. The article has been translated and reprinted in Rose-Carol Washton Long (ed.), German Expressionism. Documents from the End of the Wilhelmine Empire to the Rise of National Socialism (Berkeley, 1995), 215–216. 377 Ibid, 215.

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Fig. 3.35: To all artists, 1919, cover design – colour lithograph (Krüger L 359a), private collection.

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workers, which would solve the perennial problem of a destitute art proletariat. More important than Pechstein’s rather vague statements on art training was his explicit praise for the revolution: ‘The revolution brought us the freedom to give voice to and to realize wishes of years. […] May the socialist republic give us trust; we have freedom, and soon flowers will bloom from the dry soil to its honour.’378 This article would probably not have caught many peoples’ eyes, but it was reprinted one month later under the title ‘What We Want’ in the first publication of the November Group, a manifesto with the title To All Artists. This pamphlet, one of the last brochures to be sponsored by the Werbedienst, eventually reached a broad audience.379 The group’s programmatic name and the manifesto’s exclamatory title allowed contemporaries to perceive it as the summary statement of the goals of modern art with the revolution. Pechstein was not the only artist to contribute to the pamphlet, but his name was most commonly associated to it. This was not because of his view on art training expressed in his article. Indeed, the lack of discussion it triggered in journals and newspapers suggests that few considered it a crucial contribution to the debate of the role of art in post-revolutionary German society. Rather, it was Pechstein’s cover illustration of the pamphlet which people remembered. It showed a muscular figure in front of a factory skyline, clutching his red heart like a pallette with his left hand, whilst reaching upwards with his right. Surrounded by flames coming out of the heart, the figure could easily be seen as a representation of the new revolutionary synthesis of worker and artist which Pechstein promoted in his article. The image had all the pathos and fervour associated with the revolution, and as its creator, Pechstein soon became a shorthand for revolutionary art generally.380 In a way, this was not a new phenomenon in the reception of Pechstein’s work. As the most publicly visible of the Brücke members after 1906, he had soon been identified by critics as the leader of the group. The same happened after the foundation of the New Secession in 1910:as the founding member producing all of the new movement’s exhibition posters, Pechstein quickly acquired the reputation of being the head of the New Secession. Now, his stature as the revolution’s preeminent artist was the product of outside observers’ reaction to a small range of publicity material rather than grounded in the general nature of the work which he produced or 378 Quoted in Weinstein, End of Expressionism, 55. Interestingly, while this concluding sentence was part of the article in Deutsche Allgemeine Zeitung, it was left out in the socialist Freiheit. 379 Weinstein, End of Expressionism, 260, ftn. 94. 380 See Oscar Gehrig’s description of Pechstein as ‘leader of the November Group’, who with Cesar Klein formed ‘the vanguard of all artists of the revolution’, in Gehrig’s article ‘Plakatkunst und Revolution’, in Wasmuths Kunsthefte 5 (1919), 2.

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Fig. 3.36: Victims of the Revolution (1919/8), oil on cardboard, 32.5 × 41 cm, private collection, California.

exhibited in this period. In fact, Pechstein’s enthusiasm for revolutionary subject matter was limited to a relatively short time span. In February 1919 he produced two oil paintings depicting a funeral procession on 25 January 1919, after the end of the Spartacus uprising, Burial of the Revolution’s Victims I and II. Around that same time he submitted a design for a stained glass window with a revolutionary theme, which the commissioner, the director of the Magdeburg Museum, returned to the Heinersdorff workshop asking for a less topical motif.381 But after having written the article ‘What We Want’, Pechstein’s enthusiasm apparently started to wane. Although it is impossible to know with any certainty, this was probably a reaction to the very bloody fighting which broke out between regular troops and radical socialists in Berlin in early March 1919, and which cost the lives of over 1,200 people. Unlike the Spartacus uprising in January, where it had been possible to blame a small group of Communists for triggering the bloodshed, it was now a Social Democratic minister, Gustav Noske, 381 See copy of letter Professor Volbehr to Heinersdorff, Magdeburg, 3 April 1919, in APWGH.

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who had played a crucial role in escalating the conflict, which in turn led to disillusionment and a widening rift within the socialist camp.382 Pechstein, in any case, turned his back to revolutionary Berlin as soon as he could. Already prior to the November revolution he had longed to escape the city, and in early January 1919 he wrote to Gerbig that he would like to leave ‘in order to get healed by nature’.383 After spending two weeks in Hamburg in early May, visiting the photographer Minya Diez-Dührkoop, he moved on to Ratzeburg, an idyllic town situated on an island amidst of four lakes near Lübeck, where he stayed until the end of the month.384 In June, he took Lotte and Frank with him when travelling to Nidden, on the Curonian Spit at the Baltic Sea, where he had last been in 1912. They stayed there until the end of October, and when they eventually returned to Berlin, Pechstein did so only reluctantly.385 During his absence, Berlin had seen the first big exhibition of contemporary art after the revolution. Despite the rhetoric of artistic unity, the Berlin Art Exhibition which opened in the Glass Palace in July 1919 was in reality a series of disconnected shows staged by the Association of Berlin Artists, the Berlin Secession, the Free Secession and the November Group. The exhibition also signalled the failure of the November Group’s opposition to the dominant jury system. Apart from Pechstein, only Heckel, Paul Klee and Ludwig Meidner chose to exhibit in the unjuried November Group section – all other well-established Expressionist artists, including many members of the Novemberg Group and the Working Council for Art, preferred to place their works in the juried Free Secession show.386 Those exhibiting with the November Group were mostly young artists who had only recently adopted Expressionism, including some who tried to imitate Kandinsky with their abstract compositions. In terms of public response, the group’s first public appearance was a disaster. Even staunch supporters of Expressionism like Paul Westheim voiced their disappointment at the derivative, imitative nature of much of the November Group art on display. 382 Heinrich August Winkler, Von der Revolution zur Stabilisierung. Arbeiter und Arbeiterbewegung in der Weimarer Republik 1918 bis 1924 (Berlin, 1984), 178–182. 383 Letter Pechstein to Gerbig, 6 January 1919, in SMZ, no inv. no.. 384 Postcard Pechstein to Rosa Schapire, 2 May 1919, in BMB 77/67; letter Pechstein to Lotte Pechstein, from Ratzeburg, 18 May 1919, copy in Günter Krüger papers, Berlin; postcard Pechstein to Paul Fechter, from Ratzeburg, 26 May 1919, in GRL, Special Collections, 2001.M.19. For Minya Diez-Dührkoop, see Indina Woesthoff, ‘Verzeichnis der Passiven Mitglieder der Künstlergruppe BRÜCKE 1906–1911’, in Birgit Dalbajewa, Ulrich Bischoff (eds.), Die Brücke in Dresden 1905–1911 (Cologne, 2001), 340. 385 Postcard Pechstein to Steinbarth, from Ratzeburg, 26 May 1919, copy in Günter Krüger papers, Berlin; letter Pechstein to Ludwig Justi, from Nidden, 10 July 1919, in AAdW, Justi papers; letter Pechstein to Fechter, from Nidden, 2 October 1919, in GRL, Special Collections, 2001.M.19. 386 For this and the following, see Weinstein, End of Expressionism, 89–92.

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Fritz Stahl, the conservative critic of the Berliner Tageblatt, who only a year earlier had praised Pechstein’s Gurlitt exhibition, now described the rooms of the November Group as a ‘lunatic asylum’ in which Pechstein resembled an ‘arch reactionary’; many of the young artists, the critic claimed, were only ‘malingerers who reproduce traits of strange madness with cold method’.387 Other conservatives revelled in the opportunity of mocking the incomprehensible art of the November Group, and presented an image of the group’s artists as degenerate.388 Criticism soon acquired political overtones and became increasingly hostile and aggressive. In a journal article, a member of the new commission advising on state purchase wondered ‘if our time is condemned to destroy the forms of the old art, just as the bolshevists in Russia smash the forms of social life’.389 The author who equated the anti-traditional thrust of November Group artists’ works with the reputed violence of the bolshevists was no stranger to Pechstein: Curt Glaser had been one his early supporters, who had even helped him out with money when Pechstein was stuck in New York in 1915.390 By early September 1919, assaults on the November Group were no longer confined to the pages of the daily press, but took place in the exhibition itself. A representative of the Anti-Bolshevist League appeared regularly in the November Group rooms and inveighed against the ‘art which brings down and dishonours [the] fatherland’, declaring that the ‘nihilism which topples everyting previously established in art also brought about the upheaval in public life.’391 Other newspapers reported on the ‘intolerant heresy and abusive language’ encountered in the exhibition rooms, which reminded one journalist of a ‘tumultuous [political] gathering.’392 The situation deteriorated further, and once the first sculpture had been damaged, the general exhibition committee suggested that November Group members patrol their own rooms to ensure the safety of the exhibited works.393 387 Fritz Stahl, ‘Kunstausstellung Berlin 1919’, Berliner Tageblatt, no. 338, 24 July 1919; quoted in Weinstein, End of Expressionism, 90. 388 Ibid. Weinstein quotes A. von Montbe, ‘Berliner Bilder’, Dresdner Nachrichten, no. 254, 14 September 1919, who provided his readers with a list of fictitious titles like The Sex Murderer, The Drunkard I and II, Madness and Suicide and The Deranged Philistine. 389 Curt Glaser, ‘Kunstausstellung Berlin 1919’, in Kunstchronik und Kunstmarkt 30, no. 45, 5 September 1919, 962, quoted in Weinstein, End of Expressionism, 91, 270, ftn. 208. 390 Letter Pechstein to Fechter, New York, 23 July 1915, in GRL, Special Collections, 2001.M.19. For Glaser’s interest in Expressionism and his friendship to artists like Beckmann, Kirchner and Munch, see Andreas Strobl, Curt Glaser: Kunsthistoriker – Kunstkritiker – Sammler. Eine deutsch-jüdische Biographie (Cologne, Weimar, Vienna 2006). 391 BZ am Mittag, 5 September 1919: ‘Bilderstürmer im Glaspalast’, quoted in Weinstein, End of Expressionism, 91. 392 Vorwärts, no. 457, 7 September 1919: ‘Kunstdebatten – Kunstskandale’, quoted in Weinstein, End of Expressionism, 91. 393 Ibid.

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There is little doubt that despite his remote location in Nidden, Pechstein heard of these events. Although there is no record of his reactions, he was probably displeased about being associated with an aspect of contemporary art which he rejected himself, namely abstraction. He was certainly convinced that his own figurative works on display did not warrant such fundamental criticism: they had mostly been painted in 1917, and some of them had already been exhibited and praised before the revolution by the same critics who now inveighed against the art of the November Group.394 Unlike in 1910, when Pechstein’s own works had triggered public outrage in the New Secession exhibition, severe criticism of the derivative character of much of the November Group’s art now threatened to diminish his position as one of the leading contemporary artists in Germany. This was certainly the view put forward by the art critic Fritz Stahl. In a review in December 1919 of an exhibition in the Gurlitt gallery of the paintings which Pechstein had produced in Nidden over the summer, Stahl argued that there were two Pechsteins. The one was a true artist, who produced the most wonderful paintings almost instinctively: ‘He does not paint, it paints out of him.’395 The second Pechstein, however, ‘is a revolutionary by profession’ who – influenced by his literary friends – ‘believes in a programme which determines how one has to paint these days’: ‘Like a dancing dervish, he lets himself be spurred on by the wild shouting of his circle and begins to hack away.’396 The latter Pechstein – ‘member of the November Group’ – was a bad influence on the former, or so the critic announced: cows suddenly looked like ‘cow-dogs’, Curonian fishermen like ‘ridiculous dwarfs’, and humans generally like crosses of Europeans and colourful savages.397 For critics like Stahl, Pechstein’s affiliation to the November Group simply served as a pretext for criticizing stylistic elements in his oeuvre which they disliked. Of course, many of these had already been criticized prior to 1914, but the controversial nature of the November revolution – and Pechstein’s apparent involvement in it – now presented critics with an easy target. Four months of tranquility and intensive work at the sea in Nidden had changed Pechstein’s attitude to the art politics in Berlin which now appeared as an unnecessary burden on his time and energy. After the blood394 Cellospieler [1919/17] (a portrait of Pechstein’s friend, the physicist Erwin Finlay Freundlich, of 1919); Japanischer Kimono [1917/107], Knabenbildnis [1917/105], Jüngling (Palau) [1917/73], and Morgen (Palau) [1917/72], see no. 1229–1233, in catalogue Kunstausstellung Berlin 1919, Glaspalast am Lehrter Bahnhof, 24 July–30 September 1919, 72. 395 Fritz Stahl, ‘Pechstein. Im Salon Gurlitt’, in Berliner Tageblatt, undated [December 1919], copy in Günter Krüger papers, Berlin. 396 Ibid. 397 Ibid.

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shed in March 1919 and the signing of the controversial peace treaty of Versailles in June 1919, there was little left of his initial enthusiasm for the revolution and its opportunities. The November Group had proven unsuccessful as an agent of institutional reform. Worse still, as an exhibition platform it seemed to do Pechstein more harm than good. In the section in his memoirs dealing with this period Pechstein wrote that ‘after 1918 there existed a wealth of talents which signed up boisterlously to our direction, Expressionism, but who thereby diminished it to mass production.’398 In terms of access to the art buying public, the conventional structure of art dealers and galleries proved far superior. Almost all major galleries dealing with contemporary art had exhibited works by Pechstein in 1919: Möller, Cassirer, Neumann and Gurlitt in Berlin; Thannhauser and Goltz in Munich; Möller in Breslau, and Hermann Abels in Cologne.399 Neumann in Berlin and Commeter in Hamburg staged big solo exhibitions of his graphic oeuvre; and Arnold in Dresden put on a show with nearly one hundred of Pechstein’s oil paintings spanning the last fourteen years.400 By the end of the year it was clear that Pechstein had nothing to gain by his membership in an artists’ association such as the November Group, and so he left. In November 1919, when the first proper November Group exhibition opened in Berlin, Pechstein was not among the exhibiting artists.401 The only public announcement of his decision to leave was found in the trade journal, Kunstmarkt und Kunstchronik: ‘Max Pechstein informs us that he has left the Berlin art association “November Group” some time ago’, read a small note towards the end of the January 1920 issue.402 It was an inconspicuous departure. If Pechstein’s intention had indeed been to dissociate himself from the November Group to safeguard his reputation, it was only a partial success. Many years later, during the National Socialist dictatorship, Pechstein was defamed as ‘one of the instigators of the red art revolt’, and ‘the founder of that November Group which polluted exhibitions with its garbage.’403 The fact that Pechstein only exhibited once with 398 Pechstein, Erinnerungen, 104. 399 Der Cicerone 11 (1919), no. 8, 224; Der Cicerone 11 (1919), no. 12, 381; ‘Sommerausstellungen in Berlin’, in Der Cicerone 11 (1919), no. 17, 565–566; Der Cicerone 11 (1919), no. 13, 416; ‘Herbst 1919 (5. Gesamtausstellung Galerie Goltz-München)’, in Der Cicerone 11 (1919), no. 18, 600; ‘Breslau’, in Der Cicerone 11 (1919), no. 15, 498 and Der Cicerone 11 (1919), no. 18, 600; Der Cicerone 11 (1919), no. 19, 631; 400 Das Kunstblatt 3 (1919), no. 2, 64; Der Cicerone 11 (1919), no. 16, 530. For Arnold, see undated newspaper article, F. Geissler, ‘Max Pechstein Ausstellung in Dresden’, copy in Günter Krüger papers, Berlin. 401 Helga Kliemann, Die Novembergruppe (Berlin, 1969), 15. 402 Kunstchronik und Kunstmarkt, no. 18, 30 January 1920, 369. 403 Das Schwarze Korps, no. 40, 1 October 1936: ‘Die Gegenseite hatte das Wort – und wir antworten!’, 6.

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the November Group was of no importance to those contemporaries keen to equate avant-garde art with left-wing politics. Pechstein’s reputation as the artist most closely associated with the November Revolution had been made in the early months of 1919, and it endured irrespective of Pechstein’s decision to quit the November Group. In retrospect, the departure from the November Group, and the year 1919 more generally, proved an important watershed in Pechstein’s career. Ever since 1906, Pechstein had been a member in one or another artists’ group or association battling against conventional artistic practice. Brücke, the New (and later the Free) Secession, and the November Group all had in common an ambition to challenge traditional concepts of what constituted good art, and to define the appropriate aesthetic mode of expression for their own time. In this respect, Pechstein was part of a wider avant-garde movement which contested the accepted artistic norms within Wilhelmine Germany.404 At the same time, these groups and movements were not simply oppositional in character: probably their most important reason for existence had been their members’ desire to establish themselves firmly within the German art market, and to break into the institutional monopoly on modern art held by organizations like the Berlin Secession. But what if they succeeded in this? Pechstein’s decision in 1912 to accept the Secession’s invitation to exhibit with them was viewed by his then less established Brücke colleagues as treason, not because they rejected the Secession in principle, but because they felt that a Secession that did not include all of them was not yet an acceptable organization. When the Brücke group dissolved a year later it did so because it had largely succeeded in launching its individual members on the German art market, providing them with a sufficiently large number of patrons and buyers each to continue on their own.405 Still, in view of official Wilhelmine art politics and the dominance of Impressionism as the only widely accepted challenge to traditional art tastes, there continued to be a perceived need for an alternative exhibition platform with sufficient leverage to compete with the Berlin Secession, in order to provide the latest artistic tendencies with access to the public 404 The term ‘avant garde’ is highly loaded amongst scholars. The art historian Peter Bürger argues that Expressionists were modernists, but never part of the avant-garde because of their limitied ambition to supersede the dominant artistic styles of their epoch, rather than attacking ‘the institution of art’ itself like Dada or Surrealism. See Peter Bürger, Theory of the Avant-garde (Minneapolis, 1984). Although useful as a conceptual tool, we find this distinction unhelpful in describing the historical reality of competing art movements, especially prior to 1914, and their contemporary reception. 405 See Heckel’s recollections in 1958 that after Cassirer’s offer to include the remaining Brücke artists in the new Free Secession they had agreed that now Brücke had become ‘superfluous’, in Roman Norbert Ketterer (ed.), Dialoge. Bildende Kunst – Kunsthandel (Stuttgart, 1988), 49.

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sphere. Days after the November revolution of 1918, proponents of Expressionism like Herwarth Walden demanded ‘for our artistic efforts the same rights – also state support and help – as all other directions in art.’406 Obviously, at this moment in time, Expressionists and other avant-garde artists still perceived themselves as disadvantaged outsiders. This changed within a relatively short time. Despite disappointment with the slow pace of institutional reform after the revolution and general disillusion with the failure of utopian revolutionary ideas, it became clear over the course of 1919 that Expressionism had finally succeeded in gaining recognition as a major German art phenomenon. Already in March 1919, professors of the Dresden Academy voted unanimously to offer a teaching position to Max Pechstein. Had he accepted, it would have been the first appointment of an Expressionist artist to a major academy. When Pechstein eventually declined after several months of negotiations, the faculty hired another Expressionist, Oskar Kokoschka.407 In the second half of 1919, numerous of Pechstein’s Expressionist colleagues were appointed to academies throughout Germany: the former Brücke member Otto Mueller at the Breslau academy, Cesar Klein at the School of the Berlin Museum of Decorative Arts, and Georg Tappert at the State Academy for Art Education in Berlin. In Weimar, Walter Gropius opened the Bauhaus, with Lyonel Feininger and Gerhard Marcks among the first teachers appointed.408 These cases did not constitute a revolution in the practice of art teaching in Germany, but they did signal a new esteem for Expressionist art. The same was true of museums. With Wilhelm II gone, the director of the Berlin National Gallery, Ludwig Justi, hastened to add Expressionist paintings to the museum’s collection. While in Nidden, Pechstein was overjoyed to receive a personal request from Justi for one of his portraits.409 In August 1919, Justi opened a gallery dedicated to contemporary artists in the Kronprinzenpalais on Unter den Linden. The entire second floor was given over to Expressionist art, including works by all of the former Brücke artists, as well as Nolde, Barlach, Marc, Feininger and others. Erich Heckel even became a member of the new commission advising on state purchases.410 Most importantly, there was an unprecedented demand for Expressionist paintings among German art buyers. Partly driven by postwar inflation and the subsequent flight into real values, and the dominance 406 407 408 409 410

Quoted in Weinstein, End of Expressionism, 39. Ibid, 121, 136. Ibid, 222. Letter Pechstein to Justi, Nidden, 10 July 1919, in AAdW, Justi papers. Alfred Hentzen, ‘Die Entstehung der Neuen Abteilung der Nationalgalerie im ehemaligen Kronprinzen-Palais’, in Jahrbuch Preußischer Kulturbesitz 10 (Berlin, 1972), 9–75, here 32, 36; Weinstein, End of Expressionism, 85.

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of foreign bidders in the market for older art, modern German art flourished on the domestic art market. Expressionists in particular experienced a dramatic increase in their sales in the second half of 1919. ‘[T]he Expressionist who was yesterday still derided becomes overnight an artist with a public and a capitalist’, commented one art journalist sarcastically on this recent phenomenon.411 For Pechstein and fellow Expressionists of his generation, this was the realization of their long-held ambitions. Of course, their art was still not popular in any real sense of the word, as the fate of the Werbedienst’s Expressionist propaganda campaign showed. Within the small community of the German art world, however, they had become established figures. Inevitably, their new standing had implications for their artistic self-understanding. They could not simply continue in their role as self-proclaimed art opposition. This in turn meant that their artistic style lost some of its previous significance, and it was unclear which direction further developments were to take. In summer 1919, Pechstein wrote in a letter to Justi that he was currently embarking on ‘a search for the forms of expression’.412 His artistic output over this summer proved that he was not searching for stylistic changes to continue rattling the establishment. Rather, he obviously wanted to consolidate his newly-won position by honing his style in a way that he thought befitted a widely acclaimed leading contemporary German artist of this time. ‘I hope to achieve a strong maturity’, he explained in a letter to Plietzsch, ‘because what is really at issue is to create and leave for posterity works which bring honour to German art.’413 His paintings of the sea front in Nidden, or the depictions of Curonian pine forests showed careful experimentations with some elements of Cubism, but only in minimal doses. Pechstein had no inclination to venture into abstraction, which he rejected, just like many of the more conventional painters of his time. In terms of subject matter, too, he was not prone to controversy. Unlike younger, politicized artists like George Grosz and Otto Dix, who at this stage were still relatively unknown, he did not see his art as political commentary on the state of post-war German society.414 In short, Pechstein no longer sought to provoke with his art because he had no reason for doing 411 ‘Ausverkauf ’, in Kunst und Künstler 18, no. 5, 1 February 1920, quoted in Weinstein, End of Expressionism, 87. See also Gerstenberg, ‘Die moderne Galerie in Berlin’, in Der Cicerone 11, 1919, no. 17, 564. 412 Letter Pechstein to Justi, Nidden, 10 July 1919, in AAdW, Justi papers. 413 Pechstein letter to Plietzsch, Nidden, undated fragment [autumn 1920], in AM, 1964/443. Although written a year later, this statement is typical of Pechstein’s selfperception at this time. 414 For Grosz and Dix, see Beth Irwin Lewis, George Grosz. Art and Politics in the Weimar Republic (Madison, 1971); Andreas Strobl, Otto Dix. Eine Malerkarriere der zwanziger Jahre (Berlin, 1996).

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so. Pechstein’s decision to leave the November Group towards the end of 1919 can therefore also be described as a conscious move away from the fringes of contemporary art towards its centre. He thereby ceased to be a member of the artistic avant-garde, chosing instead the role of standard-bearer of respectable modernism. Later generations were to hold this against his post-war oeuvre. Contemporaries at the time, however, praised the increasing maturity allegedly evident in his most recent works. ‘There are not many paintings within Pechstein’s oeuvre which are so harmonious – in the best sense of the word – as these [here]’, Fechter commented on the exhibition of Pechstein’s Nidden paintings in the Gurlitt gallery at the end of 1919.415 For Pechstein, the future seemed to look very promising.

415 Paul Fechter, ‘Ausstellungen. Max Pechstein – Anton Kerschbaumer’, in Deutsche Allgemeine Zeitung, no. 12, 7 January 1920.

CHAPTER IV

The Weimar Years 1919–1932 ‘The sun is round and hot, the wine is sweet and good, and the lobster which I had for lunch today was big and still alive before cooking. I am holding my sketch book all the time, and if I paint only a tenth of it, my head will explode.’ (Pechstein to Eduard Plietzsch, from Monterosso-al-Mare, 19 June 1924)

During his stay on the shores of the Baltic Sea in Nidden in summer 1919, Pechstein worked like in trance, churning out well over one hundred oil paintings. he reported in a letter: I drown everything in colour, my brain is filled only with paintings, and the idea of what to paint drives me from one place to the other, already at eight in the evening I fall into bed dead tired, and yet I have still got mountains [of work] to deal with, if it were possible I would have to spend three years here without interruption and work like a horse to finish it at some point.1

He felt like a ‘slave, [a] tool of art’, working until total physical and mental exhaustion. ‘[O]nly painting still keeps me going, once it is over, I will certainly collapse, so [one has to] harvest, bring into the barn, as long as still possible.’2 Back in Berlin, Pechstein did indeed fall ill, struggling with his health for most of the winter.3 Yet he revelled in the intensity of those summer months. ‘I have never before experienced such a time, a rebirth!’, he enthused.4 In spring 1920, he was already looking forward to returning to 1 2 3 4

Letter Pechstein to Fechter, Nidden, 2 October 1919, in Getty Research Library (GRL) Los Angeles, Special Collections, 2001.M.19. Ibid. See also letter Pechstein to Walter Minnich, 7 March 1920, in Stiftung Historische Museen Hamburg, Altonaer Museum für Kunst und Kulturgeschichte, Hamburg (AM), 1987/49.1. Letter Pechstein to Fechter, from Nidden, 2 October 1919, in GRL, Special Collections, 2001.M.19.

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Fig. 4.1: Return of Barges (1919/43), oil on canvas, 89 × 63 cm, Stiftung Moritzburg, Kunstmuseum des Landes Sachsen-Anhalt, Halle.

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Nidden ‘to take up the fight with forest and sea once more’.5 He left Berlin in early June, and again spent more than three months on the Curonian Spit. Like in the year before, he threw himself into work wholeheartedly. ‘The moment one is once again in full flow like I am now it [just] streams out of your head, and one has to be careful not to lose consciousness’, Pechstein described his work to his friend Fechter.6 This time, however, he did not produce as many oil paintings straight away, but concentrated on sketches and drawings as foundation for later work in his Berlin studio.7 ‘[M]y head is spinning from those things that still await painting, the aim is ambitious, and I will have to work hard this coming winter in order to achieve it’, he explained in a letter to Plietzsch.8 He planned to produce a big cycle of paintings, ‘Fishermen’s lives’, which he intended as a stepping stone for a series called ‘Lord’s Prayer’.9 Upon his return to Berlin, he spent the autumn and winter working on a total of forty paintings depicting the life of fishermen in Nidden.10 Rather surprisingly in view of his art political involvement in the first months after the November revolution, there is no reference in Pechstein’s letters to any of the dramatic politics of the early years of the Weimar Republic: no mention of the Versailles Treaty, or of the right-wing Kapp Putsch in March 1920, or of the first Reichstag elections in June 1920 wich resulted in a resounding defeat for the Weimar Coalition. Pechstein made a virtue of withdrawing into his work. ‘Here in Berlin I am sitting around wonderfully on my own in the studio, so that I notice nothing of all this trouble, only visitors bring news of it’, he reported to a friend in December 1920.11 Even when in summer 1920 it became clear that Pechstein would have to forego his annual trips to Nidden in future, because under the treaty of Versailles half of the Curonian Spit – including Nidden – had been assigned to the newly-found state of Lithuania, he only complained in the most general terms. ‘[E]ven more than previously, before my trip [to Palau], Europe strikes me as the most absurd and awful [place] for a human’, he wrote to a friend in South Africa.12 ‘These states and power 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12

Letter Pechstein to Minnich, 7 March 1920, in AM, 1987/49.1. Letter Pechstein to Fechter, from Nidden, 28 August 1920, in GRL, Special Collections, 2001.M.19. See also letter Pechstein to Kurt Steinbart, from Nidden, 25 July 1920, copy in Günter Krüger papers, Berlin. Letter Pechstein to Plietzsch, from Nidden, 21 August 1920, fragment in Brücke-Museum, 21/70. The other half of this letter is in AM, 1964/443. Ibid. See letter Pechstein to Minnich, 7 December 1920, in AM, 1987/49.3. Ibid. Letter Pechstein to Irma Stern, from Nidden, 11 September 1920, in Cape Town, SA Library, Irma Stern papers, MSC 31.2 (3).

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relations are most shameful.’13 For Pechstein, the loss of German territory in the east meant he had to find a new summer retreat, ideally one which was ‘not overrun by painters, tourists, and bathers’.14 On a map of the Baltic shoreline he found a remote location looking similar to the Curonian Spit: it was a thin stretch of land in East Pomerania, between the Baltic Sea and a big lake, the Lebasee. In April 1921, Pechstein hiked along the Pomeranian coastline to see for himself, and he liked the huge sand dunes around the small village of Leba so much that he decided to stay there for spring and summer.15 In numerous letters from Leba he eulogized about the beauty of his new retreat and the stimulation he received for his work. Leba offered him a rural hinterland, too, which meant ‘a significantly larger field for work than Nidden’, as he explained to a friend.16 On top of his depictions of coastal life, he now also started portraying agricultural work throughout the seasons, the sowing in spring, the reaping of corn in late summer, the harvesting of potatoes, as well as corn sheafs, animals, and the like. Peasants now joined fishermen as personifications of timeless working life in Pechstein’s oeuvre. Painting the country folk was a bit like going on a hunt for the artist. ‘Heavy [and] with lots of schnapps in their bodies they resemble walruses and have to be harpooned, [and] if I do not succeed this year, I will next’, he reported back to Berlin.17 The period from 1919 to 1921 was Pechstein’s most productive after the exceptional year of 1917. He produced nearly 250 oil paintings, more than he would paint in the following nine years. Yet despite his productivity he hardly managed to satisfy popular demand for his paintings. ‘Whatever Pechstein paints is being sold; his pictures go “like hot cakes”’, a critic observed.18 Justi, the director of the National Gallery, who tried to buy two of Pechstein’s oils for the new contemporary art gallery, struggled to find any on offer in 1919. According to the museum director Pechstein was ‘completely “sold out”’.19 To some extent, Pechstein benefited from a handful of wealthy collectors who bought his works in large quantities. 13 14 15 16 17 18 19

Ibid. See also his quip in a letter from Nidden, to Fechter, 28 August 1920, that he would soon leave ‘ das hiesige Ausland’, in GRL, Special Collections, 2001.M.19. Max Pechstein (ed. Leopold Reidemeister), Erinnerungen (Wiesbaden, 1960), 107. Ibid, 108. Letter Pechstein to Steinbart, 4 August 1921, from Leba, quoted in Ostdeutsche Galerie Regensburg (ed.), Max Pechstein an der Ostsee (Regensburg, 1981), 8. Ibid. Franz Servaes, ‘Pechstein Ausstellung’, undated newspaper clipping [December 1921], in Zentralarchiv der Staatlichen Museen Berlin, Preußischer Kulturbesitz, Pechstein documentation. Ludwig Justi, ‘Neue Kunst’, in Hans Flemming (ed.), Rudolf Mosse Almanach 1921 (Berlin, 1920), 202–217, here 204. See also Thomas W. Gaethgens and Kurt Winkler (eds.), Ludwig Justi. Werden, Wirken, Wissen. Lebenserinnerungen aus fünf Jahrzehnten I (Berlin, 2000), 444.

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First among them was Hans Heymann, the brother of Walther Heymann who had written a book about Pechstein in 1914. Hans Heymann, director of an insurance company in Berlin, built up a collection of Pechstein oil paintings as a memorial to his brother who had died in the early years of the First World War. By 1920, his collection already included forty works; by 1928, he owned a total of sixty-five of Pechstein’s paintings.20 Another of Pechstein’s patrons was Alfred Hess, wealthy industrialist and owner of a large shoe factory in Erfurt, who started collecting modern art after the First World War.21 Pechstein, who stayed in his house for twelve days in April 1919, was apparently his induction into Expressionism. Hess bought many of Pechstein’s works, including the large Palau triptych from 1917, and donated several of his paintings to the local Angermuseum. In early 1920, when the new museum director Walter Kaesbach visited Hess at home, he found that works by Pechstein dominated the entire house. Other collectors of Pechstein’s works included Josef von Sternberg, the film director who in his 1930 film Blue Angel discovered Marlene Dietrich, the publisher of the art journal Deutsche Kunst und Dekoration, Alexander Koch in Darmstadt, the art dealer Karl Lilienfeld in Dresden, the scientist Professor Finckelstein in Berlin, the Swiss doctor Walter Minnich in Montreux, and not least Wolfgang Gurlitt, Pechstein’s Berlin art dealer.22 There were more than just these few individual connoisseurs to fuel the demand for Pechstein’s works. From 1919, many middle-class Germans who prior to 1914 would not have considered buying ‘modern’ art works began taking an interest in contemporary art. One can only speculate as to the reasons for this sudden change of heart. Of course, at a time of post-war inflation, art was one possible investment to safeguard capital, and as old masters were already too expensive for most art buyers, contemporary art presented an affordable alternative. Still, this does not explain why avantgarde artists in particular benefited from this trend, whilst more traditional academic painters languished in comparison. It is likely that many of those 20 For spring 1920, see letter Pechstein to Minnich, 7 March 1920, in AM, 1987/49.1, referring to an exhibition in Amsterdam of a Berlin collection of 40 of his paintings, which can only have been Heymann’s. For 1928, see Thormaelen, ‘Neuere deutsche Kunst aus Berliner Privatbesitz’, in Kunstblatt (1928), no. 5, 133. 21 For the following, see Monika Kahl, ‘Alfred Hess – ein Erfurter Kunstmäzen’, in Museen der Stadt Erfurt (ed.), Veröffentlichungen zur Stadtgeschichte und Volkskunde I (1984), 76–85; Hans Hess (ed.), Dank in Farben. Aus dem Gästebuch Alfred und Thekla Hess (Munich, 1987), 41; interview Ketterer with Walter Kaesbach, in Roman Ketterer (ed.), Dialoge. Bildende Kunst/Kunsthandel (Stuttgart, 1988), vol. 1, 29–33. For the Palau triptych, see Max Osborn, Max Pechstein (Berlin, 1922), 243. 22 For Alexander Koch, see Alexander Koch, Alexander Koch. Haus eines Kunstfreundes (Darmstadt, 1926). In 1922, Lilienfeld apparently owned at least 24 Pechstein paintings, see Kunstchronik & Kunstmarkt, no. 4, 27 October 1922, 80.

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(admittedly not very many) middle-class Germans who welcomed the dramatic political changes of 1918/19 felt that they wanted to identify with an art form which could represent the new spirit of their time. What is clear is that decision-makers in the world of media and entertainment felt there was an audience out there for Expressionism, and they started catering for it in unprecedented ways from 1919. Women’s journals, for example, discovered the decorative side of Expressionism and ran illustrated articles on Expressionist dance, Expressionist photography, Expressionist fashion, and Expressionism in interior design.23 Expressionist architecture was used to sensationalist effect in case of the roller coaster and various buildings in Berlin’s amusement park, the Lunapark, or in nightclubs such as the Skala Dance-Club.24 Advertisements in newspapers and on posters used an Expressionist style to promote products as diverse as cigarettes and music hall entertainment. Theatre directors like Max Reinhardt and Leopold Jessner caused scandals by bringing Expressionist productions onto Berlin’s stages. Most influential, however, was the popularization of Expressionism through film. Preceded by a widely noted advertisement campaign, The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari premiered in February 1920 and became an instant success.25 It spawned a whole range of other films imitating its innovative use of Expressionist design, among them Genunine with costume designs by Cesar Klein, and The Golem with stage architecture by Hans Poelzig.26 By the second half of 1920, faced with a deluge of films adopting an Expressionist aesthetic, one production company found it advisable to dissociate its next film from the ‘old catchphrase (Expressionist)’.27 The popularization of Expressionism met with hostility among artists and critics who felt that it debased the artistic genius inherent in the earlier art movement. The art critic Wilhelm Hausenstein, one of the early supporters of Expressionism, was the first to criticize Expressionism for becoming a stylish commodity. Its bankruptcy, he claimed, was painfully evident in the corruption of mime, set design, and especially dance. ‘In 23 E.g. ‘Expressionismus in Tanz und Bild’, in Elegante Welt, no. 11, 21 May 1919, 4; Max Osborn, ‘Wohnung Wolfgang Gurlitt in Berlin. Expressionistische Innenarchitektur’, in Die Dame (1919), vol. 48, no. 19, 1921, 7–8. 24 See ‘Wiedereröffnung des Lunaparks’, in Berliner Morgenpost, no. 141, 23 May 1920; Erich Richard Majewski, Geschichten aus dem alten Halensee, vom Lunapark und vom Kurfürstendamm (Berlin, 1983); Joan Weinstein, The End of Expressionism. Art and the November Revolution in Germany, 1918–19 (Chicago, 1990), 227–228. 25 Jürgen Kasten, Der expressionistische Film. Abgefilmtes Theater oder avantgardistisches Erzählkino? Eine stil-, produktions- und rezeptionsgeschichtliche Untersuchung (Münster, 1990), 39–51, 61. 26 Ibid, 62–63; Heide Schönemann, Paul Wegener: frühe Moderne im Film (Stuttgart, 2003), 82–88. 27 Kasten, Der expressionistische Film, 68.

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these areas’, Hausenstein railed in an article in late 1919, ‘we must tolerate numerous dilettantes who want to be expressive at all costs while expressing nothing.’28 Popularization and institutionalization of Expressionism went hand in hand, resulting in the loss of earlier idealism, Hausenstein argued. ‘Today Expressionism has its crystal palace. It has its salon. No cigarette advertisement, no bar can get along without Expressionism. It is revolting. Those who did it should have their heads bashed in.’29 Expressionism, Hausenstein concluded, had ‘come to an end’: ‘Expressionism is dead.’30 Other experts shared the feeling that Expressionism was now attracting acolytes who turned art into mere fashion. Paul Westheim, another early proponent of Expressionism, wrote in his journal Das Kunstblatt: ‘The Expressionist Academy, Expressionist fashion, Expressionist fellow-travelers, that catchphrase Expressionism with which the smart art dealers and clever art critics practice their propaganda; would that it was already at an end!’31 By late 1920, the architect Bruno Taut, one of the founders of the Working Council for Art, was equally disillusioned with Expressionism which he claimed had been ‘absorbed into literariness and vaudeville’.32 Around the same time, the influential art historian Wilhelm Worringer, too, abandoned his championship of Expressionist art. ‘Art, once the central organ for metaphysical energy, is now content to be a beautiful, interesting spot on the wall for people who now and again are also aesthetically inclined’, he explained his disillusionment.33 Expressionism had degenerated into ‘wall decoration’ and a ‘new superficial attraction’.34

28 Wilhelm Hausenstein, ‘Die Kunst in diesem Augenblick’, in Der neue Merkur 3 (1919– 1920), Sonderheft no. 2, reprinted and translated in Rose-Carol Washton Long (ed.), German Expressionism. Documents from the End of the Wilhelmine Empire to the Rise of National Socialism (Berkeley, 1995), 281–283, here 282. 29 Ibid. 30 Wilhelm Hausenstein, Die Kunst in diesem Augenblick (Munich, 1920), 11, 35, quoted in Weinstein, End of Expressionism, 231. 31 Paul Westheim, ‘Das “Ende des Expressionismus”’, in Das Kunstblatt, no. 6, June 1920, 188, quoted in Weinstein, End of Expressionism, 231. See also Paul Westheim, ‘Angewandter Expressionismus’, in Berliner Börsen Courier, no. 149, 28 March 1920, reprinted in Andreas Strobl, Curt Glaser: Kunsthistoriker – Kunstkritiker – Sammler. Eine deutschjüdische Biographie (Cologne, Weimar, Vienna 2006), 333–335. 32 Quoted in Weinstein, End of Expressionism, 229. See also ibid, 303, footnotes 7 and 8. In early 1919 Taut had still been in favour of a popularization of the arts: ‘Art should no longer be the pleasure of a few but should bring joy and sustenance to the masses’, he had declared in the Working Council for Art programme. See Washton Long (ed.), German Expressionism, 193. 33 Speech given to the Goethe Society in Munich in October 1920, reprinted in Wilhelm Worringer, Künstlerische Zeitfragen (Munich, 1921), 15, translated in Washton Long (ed.), German Expressionism, 285. 34 Ibid, 285–286.

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Some art critics thought that Pechstein’s particular qualities predestined him to benefit most from the general fashion for Expressionism. ‘[H]e knows how to fuse certain radical demands in the area of colourism, drawing and general picture composition in such an appealing formula that even very bourgeois elements are not barred from proving themselves patrons of Expressionism’, Franz Servaes explained the success of Pechstein’s paintings.35 Pechstein was currently ‘the great man’ because of the current fashion for ‘gaudiness’.36 Another critic argued that the average viewer found those elements in the decorative senseousness of Pechstein’s paintings which reconciled him with contemporary art: opulence, gracefulness, and a pleasing degree of naturalism. Pechstein had turned Expressionism ‘market compatible, popular and comfortable’, and had therefore become ‘the bourgeois’s idea of “Expressionism”’.37 Pechstein’s works were included in a great number of exhibitions throughout Germany in 1920. They were shown not only by the handful of galleries specialising in contemporary art in Berlin, Frankfurt, Dresden, Breslau and Munich, but also by provincial museums and galleries in towns such as Darmstadt, Krefeld, Mannheim, Erfurt, Lübeck, Chemnitz, Bremen and others. In terms of public reception, 1921 proved an even more important year. In February, the new gallery Goyert in Cologne opened an exhibition showing over forty of Pechstein’s paintings, mainly from the years 1919 and 1920, which received very favorable reviews. One critic was surprised by what he called an ‘unexpected upswing’: ‘Only little reminds one in view of these very balanced works of the paintbrush-violent Expressionist of former times. The synthesis of Palau and East Prussia has resulted in a calming down in the picture, [and] in a culture of colourful surface and an increase in symbolic power which one would no longer have expected from Pechstein.’38 Nearly a quarter of the paintings on display were sold. The remainder formed the basis of a solo exhibition in Frankfurt at the gallery Schames in May and June. From June, Pechstein also participated at the Potsdam Art Summer exhibition which took place in Schloss Sanssouci, and he received high praise for his works from Karl Scheffler.39 December 1921 finally saw the crowning of Pechstein’s exhibition career so far when Justi, the director of the National Gallery, organized a 35

Franz Servaes, ‘Pechstein-Ausstellungen’, undated newspaper clipping [December 1921], in SMB-ZA, Pechstein documentation. 36 Ibid. 37 Paul F. Schmidt, ‘Dresdner Ausstellungen’, in Der Cicerone 14 (1922), no. 7, 319. 38 A. S., ‘Köln’, in Kunstblatt V (1921), no. 4, 127. See also Paul F. Schmidt, ‘Köln’, Der Cicerone 13 (1921), no. 5, 162. 39 Karl Scheffler, ‘Berlin-Potsdamer Kunstsommer’, in Kunst und Künstler 19 (1920/21), 379–398, here 391.

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sizable solo exhibition in the Kronprinzenpalais on Unter den Linden. It was part of a new undertaking by Justi, who aimed to present periodically the so-called ‘yearly harvest’ by those contemporary masters for whom he assumed general public interest.40 It was no coincidence that he chose Pechstein to begin this new series. He considered Pechstein the first German painter in the group after Impressionism to have gained acceptance in wider sections of the population.41 Pechstein was widely hailed in both popular and specialist publications as the ‘leader of the Expressionists’.42 Already in 1919, when the art publisher Georg Biermann decided to start a new book series on so-called ‘Young Art’, the first volume, written by Biermann himself, was a treatise on Pechstein.43 The book went through two editions and sold 10,000 copies. Justi could safely expect Pechstein to attract the crowds. He presented twenty-six paintings which Pechstein had produced just a few months earlier in his new summer retreat in Leba, along with ten paintings from 1919 and 1920 for comparison. The show in Kronprinzenpalais coincided with an exhibition of some hundred watercolours, pastels, drawings and woodcuts by Pechstein from the years 1918 to 1921 in the gallery Ferdinand Möller, a watercolours exhibition including Pechstein at the gallery Cassirer, and a show of his woodcuts at the Berlin Print Cabinet.44 The proliferation of Pechstein exhibitions in Berlin attracted a great deal of media attention, and while reviewers disagreed on some detail, the general consensus was overwhelmingly positive. His friend Fechter proclaimed in the Deutsche Allgemeine Zeitung that the oil paintings in the National Gallery were the best by Pechstein ever. He praised the incomparable vitality and energy of these paintings which he claimed made Pechstein stand out from among the other painters in the permanent collection at the Kronprinzenpalais: ‘One should make an experiment, and walk into the room where Marc and Feininger and the others are on display: it is as if one was suddenly entering thin air, [like] coming from summer into

40 ‘Berliner Ausstellungen’, in Feuer 3 (1921/22), 39; J.L, ‘Max Pechstein’, in Die Deutsche Warte, 18 December 1921. 41 Ludwig Justi, Von Corinth bis Klee. Deutsche Malkunst im 19. und 20. Jahrhundert, ein Gang durch die Nationalgalerie (Leipzig, 1931), 135. 42 Der Querschnitt durch 1921. Mitteilungen der Galerie Flechtheim (1921), no. 2/3, 91; ‘Expressionismus in Tanz und Bild’, in Elegante Welt, no. 11, 21 May 1919, 4. 43 Georg Biermann, Max Pechstein (=Junge Kunst, Band 1) (Leipzig, 1919 [Leipzig, 1920]) 44 John Schikowski, ‘Glückliche Erben’, in Vorwärts, 8 December 1921; Paul Fechter, ‘Max Pechstein. Ausstellung im Kronprinzenpalais’, in Deutsche Allgemeine Zeitung, no. 568, 9 December 1921; J.L, ‘Max Pechstein’, in Die Deutsche Warte, 18 December 1921; Karl Scheffler, ‘Max Pechsteins Bilder’, in Kunst und Künstler 20 (1922), no. 5 (1 February 1922), 158.

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winter.’45 Fechter’s colleague from the liberal Vossische Zeitung, Max Osborn, praised the continuing rise of Pechstein’s artistic maturity and his sensitivity for the ‘glory of the world’ evident in the paintings on display.46 The Social Democratic Vorwärts announced that even sceptical critics had to surrender their weapons ‘in view of the wonder of this elite collection’.47 Even a newspaper like the right-wing agrarian Deutsche Tageszeitung found words of praise, and preferred Pechstein’s paintings to those by Matisse on display at the gallery Flechtheim.48 Many critics commented on Pechstein’s ‘supernatural’ productivity and the fact that despite his incredible output he maintained a high level of artistic quality.49 Some claimed he had overcome and modernized the leading artist of German Impressionism, Max Liebermann.50 It was also pointed out that he had just been voted President of the Free Secession, taking over from Liebermann.51 Pechstein was now at the height of his success and his craft, Karl Scheffler proclaimed in Kunst und Künstler: ‘Within the orchestra of new German art Pechstein’s talent is the trumpet. He blares out forceful passages in such a way that no one can ignore them; his painting is characterized by an intensity which one cannot evade.’52 Not everyone, however, was equally impressed. The critic of the Berliner Tageblatt, Fritz Stahl, published a passionate diatribe after seeing the various exhibitions. He strongly criticized Justi’s exhibition concept, and accused Pechstein – the first beneficiary of such ‘state propaganda’ – of mass producting kitsch. ‘This is where stupid gushing leads an artist to, who could surely create something significant if he tried to gather his strength’, Stahl judged. ‘But for what, if contemporaries gulp down anything as art that they are being given?!’53 In a similar vein ‘the Pechstein 45

Paul Fechter, ‘Max Pechstein. Ausstellung im Kronprinzenpalais’, in Deutsche Allgemeine Zeitung, no. 568, 9 December 1921. 46 Max Osborn, ‘Neues von Pechstein. Kronprinzenpalais. Galerie Möller’, in Vossische Zeitung, 8 December 1921. 47 John Schikowski, ‘Glückliche Erben’, in Vorwärts, 8 December 1921. 48 Hugo Kubsch, ‘Matisse und Pechstein’, in Deutsche Tageszeitung, 11 December 1921. 49 Ibid. See also Franz Servaes, ‘Pechstein-Ausstellungen’, undated newspaper clipping [December 1921], in SMB-ZA, Pechstein documentation. 50 Ernst Collin, ‘Pechstein – Kokoschka – Beckmann’, undated newspaper clipping [December 1921], in SMB-ZA, Pechstein documentation. See also Willy Ganske, ‘Max Pechstein im Kronprinzenpalais’, in Berliner Lokal-Anzeiger, 8 December 1921. 51 ‘Weihnachtsausstellungen’, undated newspaper clipping [December 1921], in SMB-ZA, Pechstein documentation; Scheffler, Karl, ‘Max Pechsteins Bilder’, in Kunst und Künstler 20 (1922), no. 5 (1 February 1922), 158. Pechstein had already been voted member of the Free Secession’s executive committee in 1919 and 1920, see Vorwärts, no. 69, 7 February 1919: ‘Notizen.’; ‘Der Vorstand der Freien Berliner Secession’, in Cicerone 12 (1920), no. 1, 37; Kunstchronik und Kunstmarkt, no. 16, 16 Jan 1920, 331–332. 52 Scheffler, ‘Max Pechsteins Bilder’, 159. 53 Fritz Stahl, ‘Ausstellungen’, in Berliner Tageblatt, 22 December 1921.

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case’ was discussed in a journal article by the critic Roland Schacht. Three quarters of the works on display, Schacht claimed, were ‘studio rubbish’, kitsch prodcued for an art buying public still suspicious of modern art.54 The critic maintained that Pechstein was indeed a very good painter, but considered him an ‘eclectic’ who picked up many elements from successful contemporaries like Nolde, Schmidt-Rottluff, Kirchner, Heckel, Meidner, Matisse and Mueller. Pechstein was no innovator, Schacht argued, but a comrade-in-arms, and a skilful craftsman: ‘No deep spirit [….], a nature-boy (with some surprising examples of bad taste) who shrewdly adapted himself to the Kurfürstendamm milieu.’55 Though these were minority views at the time, the criticism by Stahl and Schacht of Pechstein’s mass output and his popularity struck a chord with a number of art experts, collectors and fellow artists. Various art books published over the next few years deplored the fact that Pechstein had dropped off into mass production. Carl Einstein, in his Art of the Twentieth Century, labeled Pechstein’s recent works products of quick and cheap craftsmanship.56 In 1922, terms like ‘decorativism’, ‘trivial’ and ‘superficiality’ appeared increasingly often in reviews covering Pechstein exhibitions.57 Walter Kaesbach, director of the Angermuseum in Erfurt and advisor to the collector Alfred Hess, considered Pechstein the least interesting of the former Brücke artists, and influenced Hess to part with many of his Pechstein paintings in favour of other artists.58 In Davos, Ernst Ludwig Kirchner resented the fact that even now press reports would sometimes refer to Pechstein as the ‘founder and leader of Brücke’, and dismissed his former Brücke colleague as ‘a department store for modern art fashions’.59 He called Pechstein an ‘eclectic’ and ‘fraud’, and boasted that collections which featured his own works did not include any by Pechstein. Pechstein was collected only by ‘nouveaux riches and other upstarts’.60 Although Kirchner’s spitefulness was by no means representative, many fellow artists were in two minds about Pechstein. Max Liebermann, for example, the doyen of German post-Impressionism and newly-appointed President of the Prussian Academy of Arts, personally disliked Pech54 Roland Schacht, ‘Der Fall Pechstein’, in Das Blaue Heft, 7 January 1922, 434, 432. 55 Ibid, 430–431. 56 Carl Einstein, Kunst des 20. Jahrhunderts (Berlin, 1926), 122, 126. See also Fritz Knapp, Die künstlerische Kultur des Abendlandes (Bonn/Leipzig, 1922), vol. 3, 402. 57 E.g. Dr Schellenberg, ‘Barmen-Elberfeld’, in Feuer 3 (1921/22), 51; ‘Hannover’, in Cicerone 14 (1922), no. 2, 87; ‘Erfurt’, in Cicerone 14 (1922), no. 10, 444. 58 Ketterer (ed.), Dialoge, 22. 59 Letters Kirchner to Gustav Schiefler, 11 March and 30 March 1923, in Wolfgang Henze (ed.), Ernst Ludwig Kirchner. Gustav Schiefler. Briefwechsel: 1910–1935/1938 (Stuttgart/ Zurich, 1990), 225, 231. 60 Letter Kirchner to Schiefler, 8 June 1925, in Henze (ed.), Briefwechsel, 365.

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stein’s painting style. Craftsmanship and skill were no longer valued in contemporary art, he complained in a speech in 1921, and in their place the primitive expressions of South Seas islanders and Papua negroes were presented to youth as a model.61 Yet at the same time Liebermann launched an initiative to rejuvenate the Prussian Academy, and Pechstein was one of the three painters suggested as potential candidates in December 1921. Not everyone agreed with Liebermann that the Academy did indeed need new, fresh air, and Pechstein’s name caused a great controversy.62 At the first meeting at which the proposals were discussed, August Vogel, one of the many traditional painters among the members of the Academy, voiced strong opposition and argued that Pechstein’s rise to fame was an arbitrary product of current art constellations. His works, Vogel pronounced, were caricatures, exaggerated, and simply bizarre: he was unable to recognize art in Pechstein’s oeuvre. Liebermann defended the choice of Pechstein, Heckel and Weiss, by claiming that there were currently no other painters with such strong artistic potential. Whether or not one liked their works, they clearly had talent, and should be admitted as the relatively best forces of the new generation. A handful of other colleagues spoke up in Pechstein’s favour, arguing that he was not just a fashion phenomenon, but a born painter and an extraordinary artistic personality.63 But resentment continued to linger among the conservative members of the Academy. Pechstein (and Heckel) made it onto the official shortlist, but despite the forceful support by Liebermann, they narrowly missed the necessary two-thirds majority at the formal vote in early March 1922.64 The result caused a scandal. Progressive members like Käthe Kollwitz, Hans Purrmann, Max Slevogt, Philipp Franck and Max Liebermann left the meeting in protest, and resigned from the Academy’s exhibition committee.65 After months of acrimonious discussions a further attempt at electing new members followed in autumn 1922, and this time Pechstein – but not Heckel – was elected into Prussia’s most prestigious art institution.66 61

Günter Busch (ed.), Max Liebermann. Die Phantasie in der Malerei. Schriften und Reden (Frankfurt/Main, 1978), 190. 62 The other two painters were Erich Heckel and Emil Rudolf Weiss. For the following section, see minutes of meeting of 28 December 1921, in Preussische Akademie der Künste (PrAdK), 0707 I, ff. 339–342. See also Kristina Kratz-Kessemeier, Kunst für die Republik: die Kunstpolitik des preussischen Kultusministeriums 1918–1932 (Berlin, 2008), 341–342. 63 Pechstein’s supporters included Purrmann, Hübner, Dettmann, Klimsch and Plontke. 64 See minutes of meeting on 1 March 1922, in PrAdK, 0707 I, f. 359. At the election on 8 March 1922, Pechstein received 23 and Heckel 21 votes; 25 would have been necessary, see PrAdK, 0707 I, f. 364. 65 Ibid, ff. 365–366. 66 See minutes of meetings of 13 October and 3 November 1922, in PrAdK, 699, ff. 209, 212. Pechstein did not receive a nominal Professorship as one sometimes reads in the secondary literature. Heckel had been replaced by Schmidt-Rottluff on the second short

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At this point in time, Pechstein was at the height of his fame. He was the first – and for some years to come the only – Expressionist of his generation to become a member of the Prussian Academy, and thereby part of the institutional art establishment. His oeuvre was acknowledged as being of major importance within the German art world. Paul Fechter published a catalogue raisonné of Pechstein’s graphic works in 1921, on which he had been working since 1918. Twenty-five copies were sold as a luxury edition including ten original prints, seventy-five as a privileged edition with four original prints, the remaining 400 copies contained one original, the frontispiece lithograph.67 The catalogue was extravagantly decorated by Pechstein throughout with lettrines, head- and tail-pieces, and full-page drawings to open each section. Towards the end of 1922, Max Osborn, critic of the Vossische Zeitung and an early supporter of Pechstein’s art, published a Pechstein biography with the renowned Propyläen-Verlag. Already during their first meeting over twelve years ago he had the feeling that Pechstein was an artist ‘who with strong hands opened the gate to an unknown country’, Osborn declared in the introduction.68 Pechstein’s talent was ‘unspoilt’, his art more optimist than that of any of his contemporaries. There was a new world of experiences in Pechstein’s paintings, Osborn declared, ‘self-confident, laughing, bursting with the fullness of sensuous jubilation, drunken of the glowing beauty of pure colour, which increases and multiplies the beauty of the outer world.’69 The biography was written in close cooperation with Pechstein. The chapter on Pechstein’s early life was based on conversations with the artist, and the section on his time in the South Seas included excerpts from his Palau diary. Not least because of the proximity to the artist, Osborn’s account gained great influence. One of the reviewers recognized this already in early 1923: ‘The Pechstein biographer from 1953 will see more clearly, will judge more decisively, will analyze more comprehensively, [and] will categorize more finely. But he will not know more than this Osborn, the intimate friend and companion of Pechstein.’70 In the biography, Osborn paid due respect to the importance of Pechstein’s membership in Die Brücke. According to the critic, summer 1906, when Pechstein joined Brücke, was the ‘birth time’ of modern painting in Germany.71 But Osborn list, but did not make it. Among the other new members were Emil Weiss, Emil Orlik, and the cartoonist Thomas Theodor Heine. 67 Paul Fechter, Das graphische Werk Max Pechsteins (Berlin, 1921). 68 Osborn, Pechstein, 12. 69 Ibid, 16. 70 Julius Elias, ‘Lieber Pechstein’, undated newspaper clipping [early 1923], in SMB-ZA, Pechstein documentation. 71 Osborn, Pechstein, 49.

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Fig. 4.2: Self portrait, 1920, lithograph, 19.5 × 15 cm (Krüger L 366). The print was added to each copy of Paul Fechter’s Das Graphische Werk Max Pechsteins which appeared in 1921.

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also emphasized the artists’ individual trajectory. Even when describing the summer in Moritzburg in 1910, he stressed that each of them was clearly developing his own style. Interestingly, among the books 140 illustrations, only one – Horse Market – had a Moritzburg subject matter, and stemmed from what later art historians considered the high point of Brücke’s collective style. According to Osborn, however, the chief oeuvre of 1910 was The Dance which he called ‘a symbol of the entire Pechstein-art’.72 The majority of the book’s illustrations were works which Pechstein had created after he had left Brücke, mostly from 1917 or later. Osborn considered the most recent paintings superior to his earlier works, and evidence of Pechstein’s continuing progress.73 ‘We seek to understand what his existence means for the German art of our day,’ Osborn concluded on the final page, ‘and we greet in joyful expectation the promises of his future.’74 One would have expected Pechstein to revel in the public recognition as one of Germany’s major contemporary artists. Instead, he was preoccupied with personal problems. His relationship with his art dealer Gurlitt had started to deteriorate at some point after the revolution, and for several years, Pechstein was locked into a bitter battle with his former patron. At the core of this conflict lay Gurlitt’s right of exclusive representation. By 1922, Pechstein considered this arrangement a ‘business stupidity’.75 For years, Gurlitt had managed all of Pechstein’s sales, without ever providing the artist with accounts or receipts. All of the oil paintings which Pechstein produced were stored in the basement of Gurlitt’s gallery, and as far as Pechstein could see were treated by Gurlitt as his private property.76 At the same time, Pechstein felt his art dealer was no longer passing on sufficient money to him, forcing him to beg for paltry sums.77 In summer 1922, Pechstein tried to terminate his contract with Gurlitt, and asked to be returned his works. By the end of the year, after long negotiations, Gurlitt temporarily ceased to sell Pechstein’s paintings but refused to hand over the works in his possession. Pechstein eventually had no choice but to sue him. In order to fund the law suit, he sold several of his paintings to the Van Diemen gallery in Berlin.78 The trial went well for Pechstein. Early 72

Ibid, 96. See also 1910/48 in Aya Soika, Max Pechstein. Das Werkverzeichnis der Ölgemälde (Munich, 2011), vol. 1, 262. 73 Osborn, Pechstein, 212. 74 Ibid, 240. 75 Letter Pechstein to Minnich, from Leba, 23 July 1922, which also mentions ‘years of trouble with Gurlitt’. 76 Letter Pechstein to Minnich, 22 February 1923, in AM, 1987/49.11. 77 Pechstein, Erinnerungen, 107. 78 Letter Pechstein to Plietzsch, from Leba, 12 August 1922, in AM, 1964/446; letter Pechstein to Minnich, 23 November 1922, in AM, 1987/49.7; letter Pechstein to Minnich, 23 December 1922, in AM, 1987/49.8; and letter Pechstein to friend in Rome [probably

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on, he managed to secure thirty-nine of his paintings for an exhibition in Zurich. However, in view of the massive legal costs which he had already incurred, and dreading the prospect of a long drawn-out trial, he decided to settle out of court in March 1923.79 The two parties agreed to terminate their business contract. Gurlitt kept fourteen paintings as part of his private collection, committing himself to paying Pechstein or his descendants fifty percent of the proceeds if he ever sold any of them, and he was also allowed to chose another ten as stock for his gallery. Pechstein received back the rest: 129 oil paintings on top of those already secured for the Zurich exhibition, 174 watercolours and coloured drawings, nearly 300 black-andwhite drawings, around 890 woodcuts, over 900 lithographs and etchings, and three bronze sculptures.80 For ten paintings which Gurlitt had sold in the meantime, Pechstein was granted 180,000 Marks, a measly sum at the height of hyperinflation. When he received the money he could not even buy a box of matches with it; for years he kept the bundle of thousand marks notes in a cupboard as a reminder of the Gurlitt disaster.81 The break with his long-time art dealer meant a deep caesura for Pechstein. For over ten years, Gurlitt had taken care of Pechstein’s career and had provided the artist with a constant income. He had funded Pechstein’s trip to Palau, and had supported the family with 100 Marks per month during the war.82 Now, at a time of constantly accelerating inflation, Pechstein reluctantly had to take care of business himself. ‘Above all I dislike having to look after material things, something which was never an issue before the war’, he complained to one of his patrons.83 He was disillusioned to find himself treated like an article: One can become miserable here in Berlin, in view of the quarrelling and greedy haggling of the art dealers, […] and these people wrangle carelessly like dogs about bones. […] It is then [considered] a favour when one receives so much as to eke out just about a bare existence.84

Part of the problem was that he was not particularly good at managing his own sales, as Pechstein admitted himself. ‘I am really no businessman’, he wrote to late May 1939], quoted in Leonie von Rüxleben, ‘Lebensdaten 1881–1955’, in Magdalena M. Moeller (ed.), Max Pechstein. Sein malerisches Werk (Munich, 1996), 37. 79 See letters Pechstein to Minnich, 8 and 22 February 1923, in AM, 1987/49.10 and 1987/49/11. 80 See agreement between Pechstein and Gurlitt, 7 March 1923; receipt Pechstein of 9 March 1923; list of 14 paintings in Gurlitt collection, of 16 March 1923; and letter Justizrat Boerne to Landgericht II Berlin, 9 April 1923; all as copies in Günter Krüger papers, Berlin. 81 Letter Pechstein to friend in Rome [probably late May 1939], quoted in Rüxleben, ‘Lebensdaten’, 37. 82 Letter Pechstein to Frank, 2 March 1940, in private collection. 83 Letter Pechstein to Minnich, undated [probably April 1922], in AM, 1987/49.4. 84 Letter Pechstein to Minnich, 2 March 1923, in AM, 1987/49.12.

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his father half a year after his settlement with Gurlitt.85 More importantly, he now lacked a powerful institutional supporter within the art market, someone who maintained and cultivated his name as an art brand at a time of rapidly changing styles. Around the same time, Otto Dix, for example, signed a contract of exclusive representation with Karl Nierendorf who quickly established him as one of the shooting stars of the German art scene.86 Alfred Flechtheim, Germany’s most influential art dealer, signed up the young George Grosz and provided him with an average monthly income of 800 marks in the mid– 1920s.87 Without commercial patron, Pechstein’s financial situation was to remain very shaky throughout the rest of the decade. Pechstein’s private life was in disarray, too. His relationship with Lotte became increasingly strained, and finally broke down, towards the end of 1921, around the time of his big exhibition in the Kronprinzenpalais. In his memoirs, written twenty-five years later, Pechstein provided only a very sketchy account of what had gone wrong. On top of this [dispute with Gurlitt] came an estrangement, which became apparent between myself and my wife, caused by the drifting apart which originated during the war. I could not afford to fulfil her certain wishes, because I still considered the money more important for buying painting material.88

Although Pechstein’s correspondence at the time sheds little light on the divorce, arguments about money seem to have been at the core of their relationship trouble. In one letter from autumn 1920 Pechstein sounded annoyed by the fact that his wife had ‘again fallen ill’, this time with blood poisoning, ‘so it is made sure that one can’t always achieve one’s ambitions, Berlin is awfully expensive, [and] worries about heating material become increasingly pressing’.89 In another letter, written in the late 1920s, Pechstein depicted Lotte as a spendthrift, and it is very likely that the financial pressures caused by inflation exacerbated tensions between the two.90 To complicate things further, Pechstein fell in love with a local girl in Leba in 1921. Lotte had just left for Berlin to see off the tenant to whom they had sublet their apartment, and Pechstein used the opportunity to confide in a letter to his friend Gerbig that he had fallen for ‘a small

85 86 87 88 89 90

Letter Pechstein to his father, 2 January 1924, in Städtische Museen Zwickau (SMZ), 57/428k. Anja Walter-Ris, Die Geschichte der Galerie Nierendorf. Kunstleidenschaft im Dienst der Moderne Berlin/New York 1920–1995 (Zurich, 2003), esp. 77–92. For Grosz’s income, see Beth Irwin Lewis, George Grosz. Art and Politics in the Weimar Republic (Madison, 1971), 213. Pechstein, Erinnerungen, 107. Letter Pechstein to Gerbig, 7 October 1920, in private collection. Letter Pechstein to Gertrud Pechstein, from Leba, 1 October 1927, in SMZ, 60K162 e/2.

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Fig. 4.3: At the dressing Table (1921/53), oil on canvas, 91.5 × 121 cm, Wilhelm-Hack-Museum, Ludwigshafen.

black devil’.91 She was one of the daughters of the owner of the Strandhotel Möller where Pechstein was staying. Her name was Marta. She was only 16 at this time, less than half his age, a lively little person, enthusiastic and talkative, with a penchant for coarse humour, and aware of her feminine appeal.92 In previous years, Lotte had always featured as Pechstein’s main model. Now, Marta took her place. Pechstein produced over a dozen paintings of Marta and her younger sister Liese during his first summer in Leba. The paintings chronicle the increasing closeness between painter and model. In earlier pictures, Marta is shown in full dress, or at the beach in a swimsuit. Over the course of the summer, the paintings’ settings became more intimate, and finally Pechstein was able to paint Marta as a nude, 91 Letter Pechstein to Gerbig, from Leba, 4 August 1921, in SMZ, 2002/56e/Au. 92 See the unpublished recollections of Max Pechstein by Brigitte Busch, in Germanisches Nationalmuseum Nuremberg (GMN), Pechstein papers, unpaginated. Marta Hermine Anna Möller was born 7 January 1905, in Lauenburg in Pomerania, daughter of Conrad Möller (b. 1866) and Johanna Möller (née Langosch, b. 1866); see ‘Abstammungsnachweis’ Marta Pechstein, in BArch, ex-BDC files, Pechstein file, ff. 577–578.

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too. Soon after his return to Berlin, in December 1921, he got divorced from Lotte. The breakdown of his relationship with Lotte and the trouble he had with his art dealer Gurlitt plunged Pechstein into a deep depression. One visual expression of this depression was his painting Self-portrait with Death which he produced in 1921, thematically one of the most remarkable he ever painted.93 It showed Pechstein flanked on his right side by a skeleton turning towards him. In its skull one can see a bullet hole, caused by a bullet which the skeleton is offering to Pechstein with its left hand. On Pechstein’s other side one can see the face of a young woman with almond-shaped eyes and dark hair, one of her bare breasts, and her left hand with which she holding a smoking cigarette. Pechstein seems to have visualized what he saw as his choices at the time, between suicide on the one hand, and the temptations embodied by a young, emancipated woman – probably Marta – on the other. To cope with his loneliness, Pechstein sought refuge in his work. ‘[I] have my work, and when I am tired my books’, he wrote in a letter in early 1922, ‘also I can cope on my own very well, or go through the streets picking up people like beetles for a collection. But I readily admit that the city depresses me, and [that it] sometimes paralyses me, I need air, the sky, and an unrestricted view.’94 When a newspaper conducted a survey amongst artists asking whether Berlin affected their creativity, Pechstein replied he felt disheartened by the sight of ‘grey, unhappy faces of its inhabitants’, and compared his situation to that of a bird in a cage.95 At the earliest possible opportunity in 1922 he returned to Leba, ‘in order to forget during spring the sickening shadowy side of life’, as he wrote in a letter.96 He was bitterly disappointed when both spring and summer turned out cool and rainy. ‘[T]he sun, for which I had longed so much and which I needed so desparately, remained absent’, he reported to a friend just before leaving Leba in mid-September 1922. ‘Instead, I now

93

According to Irene Below, ‘Irma Stern und Max Pechstein’, in Renate Berger (ed.), Liebe macht Kunst. Künstlerpaare im 20. Jahrhundert (Cologne, 2000), 61, ftn. 41, Max K. Pechstein, Pechstein’s second son, also dated this painting to 1921 rather than around 1920 as is often done in the secondary literature. However, he thought it showed Lotte. Below herself argues the woman in the painting is Irma Stern, Pechstein’s South African painter friend and a protegee of his. In the context of 1921, however, it is much more likely that Pechstein painted his new love, Marta. 94 Letter Pechstein to Minnich, undated [ca. April 1922], in AM, 1987/49.4. 95 Max Pechstein in Vossische Zeitung, no. 180, 16 April 1922: ‘Berlin und die Künstler / Eine Umfrage’. 96 Letter Pechstein to Minnich, from Leba, 23 July 1922, in AM, 1987/49.6.

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Fig. 4.4: Self-portrait with Death (1921/59), c. 1921, oil on canvas, 80 × 70 cm, private collection.

face a dreary winter, including the worries caused by inflation. […] I am caught in a dark hole and cannot see an exit.’97 At this time of need, one of his patrons stepped in. Walter Minnich was a Swiss doctor of German origins living in Montreux, on the shores 97 Letter Pechstein to Irma Stern, from Leba, 10 September 1922, in Cape Town, SA Library, Irma Stern papers, MSC 31.2 (3). For another explicit reference to his depression, see letter Pechstein to Minnich, from Leba, 23 December 1922, in AM, 1987/49.8.

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Fig. 4.5: Dr. Walter Minnich: Portrait outdoors (1925/20), oil on canvas, 70 × 80 cm, Kunstmuseum Luzern (loan from private collection).

of Lake Geneva. Minnich was a passionate art collector, whose collection included many works by the French Fauves and by a variety of Swiss artists. He had attended exhibitions of the Berlin New Secession prior to the outbreak of war, and owned two of Pechstein’s paintings from before the war.98 In 1919, he met Pechstein during a visit to Berlin, and began to take a personal interest in the artist’s development. He invited Pechstein to come and visit him in Montreux, he regularly bought Pechstein’s recent oil paintings, and he provided the artist with elaborate and positive feedback on the works he received.99 In 1920 and 1921, Pechstein never found 98 See 1911/33 and 1912/13, in Soika, Werkverzeichnis der Ölgemälde, vol. 1. See also inventory ‘Sammlung Minnich–1936.1’, of 8 March 2006, in Kunstmuseum Luzern. However, the painting listed as Gewittertag of 1911 is misdated here: it is Graues Wetter of 1919 (Soika 1919/92). The authors are grateful for the communication by Christoph Lichtin. 99 Letters Pechstein to Minnich, 7 March 1920, in AM, 1987/49.1; 29 November 1920, in AM, 1987/49.2; from Leba, 23 July 1922, in AM, 1987/49.6.

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the time to travel to Switzerland, but in autumn 1922, after his return from Leba, he finally accepted Minnich’s invitation.100 He only stayed for a short time, but long enough to take a liking to the mountain scenery and to forge a close bond with his patron whom he now considered ‘a dear friend’.101 ‘It does me really good to have the feeling for once not to be treated as an article’, Pechstein told Minnich in one of his many letters.102 In early 1923, Minnich provided Pechstein with money to travel to the opening of the big Pechstein exhibition at the Kunsthaus in Zurich. The trip was a great psychological boost for the artist who felt uplifted by the reception he received in Switzerland.103 The prospect of spending spring with Minnich in Montreux helped Pechstein cope with his depression. ‘[I] am so much looking forward to the sun, the warmth [and] the radiant life, because currently my sadness has resulted in such solemn paintings, I had taken a strong liking to black, but now I would like to flee from it’, he wrote in March 1923.104 In early May he left for Montreux, where he stayed for nearly ten weeks with Minnich. It was a welcome escape not least from the material worries in Berlin at a time of spiralling inflation.105 In the section of his memoirs dealing with this period, Pechstein described how out of the disappointments of the post-war years, Minnich emerged as a ‘comrade for life’.106 Indeed, for the rest of the 1920s, Minnich proved a reliable and resourceful patron and friend. But it was Marta, Pechstein’s new-found love in Leba, who became his true companion for life in 1923, a fact passed over in silence in Pechstein’s autobiography. After his divorce from Lotte, Pechstein spent the summer of 1922 as well as the following Christmas and Easter at the Pomeranian seaside. Once Marta had turned eighteen, the two got married in Leba on 21 September 1923, after Pechstein’s return from Switzerland.107 Lotte, too, found a new partner in Leba: ironically, it was Marta’s brother.108 In early October, 100 See Pechstein’s entry in Hess guestbook, 13 October 1922, in Hess (ed.), Dank in Farben, 31. 101 Pechstein letters to Minnich, 23 January 1923, in AM, 1987/49.9, and 16 March 1923, in AM, 1987/49.13. 102 Pechstein letter to Minnich, 2 March 1923, in AM, 1987/49.12. 103 Ibid, and letter Pechstein to Minnich, 16 March 1923, in AM, 1987/49.13. 104 Ibid. 105 Letter Pechstein to Minnich, 4 May 1923, in AM, 1987/49.14; letter Pechstein to Irma Stern, 15 July 1923, Cape Town, SA Library, Irma Stern papers, MSC 31.2 (3); letter Pechstein to Minnich, from Leba, 11 September 1923, in AM, 1987/49.15. 106 Pechstein, Erinnerungen, 108–109. 107 See copy of wedding registrary entry of 21 September 1921, in Landesarchiv Berlin (LAB), B Rep 080, no. 78, f. 28. See also letter Pechstein to Minnich, from Leba, 11 September 1923, in AM, 1987/49.15. 108 See Brigitte Busch’s memoirs of Pechstein, in Deutsches Kunstarchiv im Germanischen Nationalmuseum Nürnberg (GNM), Pechstein papers.

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Pechstein and Marta returned to Berlin, at the peak of hyperinflation. ‘[T]his winter will probably be the worst winter of all which I have experienced these last years’, he reported in a letter to Minnich.109 Politically, it was a highly turbulent time which saw Germany on the verge of civil war. Typically, none of the dramatic events like the threat of a Communist takeover, the declaration of an Independent Republic in the Rhineland, or the Hitler putsch in Munich found its way into Pechstein’s correspondence. The only veiled reference he made to these events can be found in a letter to his father from early January 1924, after the crisis had passed and inflation had been brought to a standstill: ‘May the coming year finally see some peace for our fatherland, and sufficient income so that everyone can live as a human being.’110 Pechstein’s income at this point was very low. ‘How much I long to be back in the South Seas where one did not need any money’, he wrote to a friend, with nostalgia clouding his recollection of the financial difficulties experienced on Palau.111 He also suffered from the decline in appreciation by art critics. Normally, a person’s productivity would be praised as a positive feature, only in his case it was deemed problematic, he complained in a letter to Minnich.112 Pechstein explained the critics’ stance as a reaction to his social behaviour, rather than the quality of his works: ‘I am in the habit of having fun when going out, and not to give a damn about all of these lying monkeys, [and] also to tell them what they are. Therefore they take revenge in their own way, which is petty and stinks.’113 He generally considered his recent works misunderstood. He was reluctant to follow an invitation by his colleagues in the Prussian Academy of Arts to stage a small solo show as part of the Academy’s spring exhibition, because he felt ‘that these gentlemen do not recognize nor understand the work which I have now achieved for myself. ’114 He eventually agreed after all. In order to demonstrate his intensive occupation with each work he produced, and probably to challenge critics who had labeled him ‘Fa Presto’ because of his speedy output, his solo exhibition included several paintings which were presented in a variety of versions.115 The major work of the show, Profane and Sacred Love, an adaptation of Titian’s famous painting in Rome, was 109 Letter Pechstein to Minnich, from Leba, 11 September 1923, in AM, 1987/49.15. 110 Letter Pechstein to his father, 2 January 1924, in SMZ, 57/4282k. 111 Letter Pechstein to Irma Stern, 17 May 1924, in Cape Town, SA Library, Irma Stern papers, MSC 31.2 (3). 112 Letter Pechstein to Minnich, 17 January 1924, in AM, 1987/49.17. 113 Ibid. 114 Ibid. For the invitation, see minutes of Academy’s Exhibition Committee, 10 January 1924, in PrAdK, 1254, f. 133. 115 For references to Pechstein as ‘Fa Presto’, see Wilhelm Hausenstein, ‘Max Pechstein’, in Frankfurter Zeitung, 3 October 1923; and Otto Holtze, ‘Max Pechstein’, in Leipziger Ta-

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Fig. 4.6: Profane and sacred Love (1924/24), oil on canvas, 123 × 148.5 cm, private collection, Berlin.

shown in three different versions. Pechstein gave the last of these to Minnich, who was very flattered to receive what he considered one of the artist’s ‘key works’.116 Pechstein was keen to leave Berlin at the earliest possible opportunity and to move south towards the sun. His friend, the South African painter Irma Stern encouraged him to visit her in Cape Town. Pechstein was very tempted, but securing a permit for entry into the British dominion was not easy.117 Pechstein’s lack of money proved an even greater obstacle. ‘I have turned the idea of making the journey over and over’, he reported to Minnich in February 1924. geblatt, 15 February 1920. For the works on display, see exhibition list in Soika, Werkverzeichnis der Ölgemälde, vol. 2. 116 See letter Minnich to Fritz Pauli, from Montreux, 30 March 1924, in Kunstmuseum Luzern; letter Pechstein to Minnich, 23 February 1924, in AM, 1987/49–17. 117 Letter Pechstein to Irma Stern, 17 May 1924, in Cape Town, SA Library, Irma Stern papers, MSC 31.2 (3).

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But as [my] colours still cost four times more than they did in previous times, and as I am currently using up a lot of them, I cannot afford to spend that much on the voyage, and will therefore have to cancel Cape Town, it will probably have to be Italy, although I detest [the fact] that almost everyone these days is hanging around in Italy. […] Perhaps one can find a place where one can sit on one’s own with fishermen at the sea.118

He contacted his old friend Gerbig and proposed to seek out a fishing village together, telling him Minnich had recommended Sardinia, and asking him what he thought about the Canary Islands.119 Eventually Pechstein decided to travel to Chioggia, a seafaring town on one of the islands in the Venetian lagoon. Prior to their departure, Pechstein fetched his ten-year old son Frank who was staying with his mother Lotte in Leba, and signed him up for a boarding school in Hellerau near Dresden, an experimental school led by Alois Schardt, a former Assistant Curator of the Berlin National Gallery. After paying Minnich a short visit in Montreux in late May, Marta and Pechstein arrived in Venice in early June.120 However, Chioggia turned out to be too big and urban for Pechstein’s liking, so he decided to return to Monterosso al Mare, the small fishing hamlet in Cinque Terre, where he and Gerbig had last worked in the summer of 1913.121 ‘It was like the return of the prodigal son when I arrived there unannounced with my young wife’, Pechstein described the warm reception by his Italian friends in his memoirs.122 Little had changed since 1913, and the atmosphere and beauty of the village and its surrounding countryside delighted him once again. ‘[T]he sun is round and hot, the wine is sweet and good, and the lobster which I had for lunch today was big and still alive before cooking’, he reported back to Berlin. ‘I am holding my sketch book all the time, and if I paint only a tenth of it, my head will explode.’123 After three weeks, Marta and Pechstein were joined by Alexander Gerbig. Over the next weeks, the two painters spend day after day working, swimming, eating and enjoying the sun.124 For the first time for years, Pechstein was entirely happy. Some of his enthusiasm was conveyed in a letter to Minnich, in which the artist tried to entice his patron to join him in Monterosso: 118 Letter Pechstein to Minich, 23 February 1924, in AM. 119 Letter Pechstein to Gerbig, 2 April 1924, in private collection (transcript in SMZ, no inv. no.). 120 Postcard Pechstein to Plietzsch, from Montreux, 26 May 1924, in AM, 1964/440; postcard Pechstein to Frank Pechstein, from Venice, 7 June 1924, in private collection. 121 Letter Pechstein to Plietzsch, from Monterosso, 19 June 1924, in AM, 1963/294. 122 Pechstein, Erinnerungen, 109. 123 Letter Pechstein to Plietzsch, Monterosso, 19 June 1924, in AM, 1963/294. 124 Wolfgang Knop, “Schaut her – ich bin’s!” Der Maler und Grafiker Alexander Gerbig (1878–1948) (Suhl, 1998), 25, 86–87, 168–169.

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Fig. 4.7: Monterosso al Mare, 1924, ink and crayon drawing on a postcard to Robert Langstadt, private collection.

One can go crazy with the fullness of work which has to be mastered here, […] there are cool, shadowy little valleys, beautiful mountains, with vine and olives [and] lemons, then the sea with its fishermen whose little boats swarm out like bees in the evenings, the women carry everything but really everything on their heads […].125

Monterosso, according to Pechstein, was a ‘stroke of luck for a painter’.126 Two weeks later, however, with the beginning of Italian school holidays, Pechstein’s work conditions changed dramatically. The artist described the invasion of tourists to Minnich: At the moment the paradise has turned into its opposite because many spa visitors have arrived with their children, […] now there are so many beach bums that I cannot turn around whilst working so surrounded am I, on top of this comes the quite noisy discussion about every brushstroke I do, and the occasional quarrel about the depicted object. In short, a tiger in his cage in a zoo is better off.127

125 Letter Pechstein to Minnich, from Monterosso, 6 July 1924, in AM, 1987/49.19. 126 Ibid. 127 Letter Pechstein to Minnich, from Monterosso, 20 July 1924, in AM, 1987/49.20.

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He was tempted to leave at this point, but because problems had arisen with the canvasses he had brought along he had only managed to create a limited number of oil paintings, so that he felt he still had to record many motifs in drawings and watercolours as groundwork for later paintings.128 In early August, the Pechsteins and Gerbig eventually returned to Germany. After less than two weeks in Berlin, Pechstein and Marta left again for Leba, where they stayed until the end of October. Now that Pechstein had married Marta, one of the added attractions of Leba was the fact that they could stay for free with Marta’s family. Since his break with his art dealer Gurlitt, the sale of Pechstein’s paintings had plummetted. His last painting had been sold in February, he informed his son Frank towards the end of the year.129 He therefore gladly accepted Minnich’s offer of spending the winter months with him to work out in peace his sketches and drafts from Monterosso.130 In mid-November, Pechstein and Marta arrived in Montreux where Minnich put them up in a small flat with a view of Lake Geneva and the mountains. He reported on his new working environment in a letter to Gerbig: [It is] a view which I have always missed in Berlin, where I constantly felt imprisoned in my studio because the sun never found its way to me. Here I am now digesting the inspiration which I received during our stay in Monterosso and am letting things mature in their own time, since arriving here I have still continued to do preparatory work, that means I have not reached for oil yet, but instead have treated and clarified picture composition in a bigger format in watercolours.131

He felt that this kind of concentrated work would not have been possible in Berlin with its many distractions and demands on his time. In Montreux, his daily life consisted of nothing but work, interupted only by eating and sleeping, and the occasional visit to the cinema or a concert.132 In January, they went to a fancy-dress ball, Minnich as a smoker, Pechstein as a matchbox, and Marta – with her head painted red – as a match, and won a first prize for originality.133

128 ‘I have been working hard and hope to exploit the best of my sketches later [and] in peace, because I have been unlucky with my canvasses’, in letter Pechstein to Plietzsch, from Monterosso, 20 July 1924, in AM, 1964/432. See also letter Pechstein to Minnich, from Monterosso, 20 July 1924, in AM, 1987/49.20. 129 Letter Pechstein to Frank, from Montreux, 24 November 1924, in private collection. 130 Letters Pechstein to Minnich, 11 August 1924 and 3 November 1924, in AM, 1987/49.21 and 1987/49.23. 131 Letter Pechstein to Gerbig, from Montreux, 29 December 1924, in private collection. 132 Letter Pechstein to Plietzsch, from Montreux, 22 January 1925, in AM, 1964/466. 133 Ibid.

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Pechstein enjoyed his new carefree life enormously. ‘All of the wounds of former time had healed, and I led a happy painter’s life’, he described this time over twenty years later in his memoirs.134 He knew he could not stay for ever, and soon began to consider affordable options to spend his summer abroad, too. ‘I am always contemplating plans, if it would not be useful to be renting something in Italy where the garden could contribute to making existence easier’, he confided in a letter to Gerbig. ‘Friend Minnich wants to help me find something, and I really wish the plan will succeed, because I dread Berlin with its worries.’135 In early April 1925 he and Marta had to return to Berlin shortly, to renew arrangements for their flat which they were subletting, and to find a new school for Frank because the boarding school in Hellerau had gone bankrupt. Pechstein’s sister Gertrud in Zwickau eventually volunteered to take care of Frank, and to register him with a local secondary boarding school.136 Towards the end of the month, the Pechsteins were already back in Montreux where they remained until summer. Pechstein produced various portraits of his patron during this time, including one which showed Minnich at work as a lung specialist.137 Unfortunately, all of the major works which Pechstein created during this time were destroyed in his Berlin studio during the course of the Second World War. Only a photo has survived of a big painting which the artist completed in early July 1925: Painter and Audience showed Pechstein painting Marta from the nude in the garden, watched upon by Minnich, his later wife Frau Heilbuth, her daughter Käthe and another man, possibly the Swiss artist Fritz Pauli, another protégé of Minnich. In fact, Marta was only added later in his Berlin studio, as the depiction of nudes among on-lookers was a delicate issue, and Pechstein always had to worry about getting his works past customs. For Pechstein, it was an unusually narrative composition. It was probably the result of Minnich’s prodding, who had long encouraged him to produce a major work in the style of the eighteenth-century Japanese woodcut artist Utamaro, with his carefully arranged everyday-life panoramas. ‘I hope to be able to pull him together for a great work’, Minnich confided his ambitions for Pechstein to a friend, ‘if outside influences have any effect at all on this artist who stubbornly follows his own paths. Frescoes are so rarely commissioned these days that a structured painting is the only possibility of tearing an artist out of his routine and of forcing him towards the skies.’138 134 135 136 137

Pechstein, Erinnerungen, 109. Letter Pechstein to Gerbig, from Montreux, 6 February 1925, in private collection. Letter Pechstein to Gertrud and his father, from Leba, 12 April 1925, in SMZ, 1957/4282i. Exhibition catalogue of Munich Secession, I. Allgemeine Kunstausstellung München, Glaspalast 1926, 64. 138 Letter Minnich to Pauli, from Montreux, 10 June 1924, in Kunstmuseum Luzern.

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Fig. 4.8: Painter and Audience (1925/11), oil on canvas, measures unknown, lost.

In July, after staying with Minnich for well over half a year, the Pechsteins left for Italy. They traveled south, via Naples, to Positano, on the Amalfi Coast. With its steep coast and piled-up little colourful houses, the scenery was similar to that in and around Monterosso. They rented a little house at the very top of the village, with a garden in which they were unobserved, which allowed them to move around naked all day. ‘The sea is wonderful, and the nights are already cool, we sleep on a terrace outdoors, under ripening vine’, Pechstein reported in a letter to Minnich.139 Because of the heat one can naturally only work in the mornings and evenings, we cook for ourselves, fish, cucumber salad, macaroni, figs and grapes are in the garden, and the wine costs 2 Lire per litre, for Sunday I have ordered lobster, for only 18 Lire!140

Because of the cheap life many German painters resided in Positano, a fact which Pechstein disliked. ‘I am disinterested in making too many acquaintances because it costs time and eventually nothing valuable comes out of 139 Letter Pechstein to Minnich, from Positano, undated [August 1925], in AM, 1987/49.26. 140 Ibid.

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them’, he explained to Minnich.141 But he was very satisfied with his choice of location which he described as exceedingly rich in pictorial motifs. Towards the end of August, they slowly made their way back to Germany. They first stayed for two weeks with the art historian and editor Emil Schaeffer in Lugano, and then continued to Montreux, where they spent the rest of September with Minnich. In his memoirs, Pechstein claimed that when leaving Switzerland in autumn 1925 he thought it was only for a temporary visit to Germany.142 From his letters at the time, however, it becomes clear that Pechstein had all intentions of returning to Berlin for good. In October, the Pechsteins left Montreux for Zwickau, to witness the first Pechstein exhibition in his town of birth, organized by the cousin of his former art dealer, Dr Hildebrandt Gurlitt, who had recently become curator of the local art museum. Pechstein felt very indifferent about his birthplace and resented the rejection which he claimed he had so far experienced there. In June 1925, he had welcomed news of Gurlitt’s appointment, and expressed his wish that thereby ‘there may grow an oasis in this desert too’.143 The exhibition in October showed nearly twenty of his recent oil paintings and some thirty watercolours and was a mixed success. Financially, it was very lucrative, as a surprisingly high number of works were sold for nearly 2,000 mark.144 But there was also a great deal of hostility among the conservative middle-classes who rejected the art on display. ‘I guess these people consider any innovation as bolshevist’, Pechstein commented to Gurlitt on the cultural climate in Zwickau.145 Apart from seeing his exhibition, the visit in Zwickau also allowed Pechstein to meet up with his son Frank again, whom he had not seen for half a year. The return to Berlin was not without hitches. The tenant to whom they had sublet their flat was causing troubles and refused to move out so that the Pechsteins had to spend the rest of October with Marta’s parents in Leba. When they finally moved back into their Berlin flat in early October they found the place devastated and in urgent need of an expensive renovation: ‘The fellow had ripped out electrical cords, taken down the curtains, moved all the furniture into different rooms, an incredible num141 Ibid. 142 Pechstein, Erinnerungen, 109. 143 Letter Pechstein to Hildebrandt Gurlitt, from Montreux, 25 June 1925, in SMZ, Museumsschriftwechsel. 144 For Zwickau sales, see letters Pechstein to Hildebrandt Gurlitt, from Leba, 28 October 1925; from Berlin, 18 December 1925; and from Berlin, 2 January 1926, in SMZ, Museumsschriftwechsel. 145 Letter Pechstein to Hildebrandt Gurlitt, from Leba, 28 October 1925, in SMZ, Museumsschriftwechsel. See also letter Pechstein to Minnich, from Zwickau, 6 October 1925, in AM, 1987/49.28; letter Pechstein to Fechter, from Zwickau, 8 October 1925, in Getty Research Library (GRL) Los Angeles, Special Collections, 2001.M.19.

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ber of things are still missing and terribly much has been broken’, Pechstein complained in a letter to Minnich.146 Among the things stolen were also several of his works.147 He also received news that a number of his watercolours which he had given into commission with his temporary art dealer Steinbart in 1923 had been impounded, and that his only chance of receiving them back was by going to court which he could not afford.148 The money from the Zwickau sales took a long while to come through, much to Pechstein’s annoyance. He was shocked to find how expensive Berlin had become during his long absence. ‘Although I am certainly cost-conscious, it is nowhere near enough, the expenses for the flat and everyday life alone devour everything’, he informed Minnich.149 He already missed bitterly the untroubled time which Minnich had made possible over the last two years. ‘When I think back it appears to me like a dream’, he told his patron in late November 1925, ‘that I was able to live and work with you free from care, and I am very glad that I used my time, because here [in Berlin] one’s blood freezes after a while, and thereby creativity!’150 It was not all bad news, though. In early December, just when he was about to spend their last money, Pechstein was commissioned by the famous theatre director Max Reinhardt to design one of his productions. ‘I have been working the entire week like a horse until deep at night’, Pechstein wrote to Minnich, ‘to complete the drafts for the stage set for Kleist’s Käthchen von Heilbronn to such an extent that I can have a provisional decoration rehearsal tomorrow morning.’151 The play premiered on 29 December and received enthusiastic reviews. ‘[I]t was a smashing success, even I had to take curtain calls’, Pechstein reported afterwards.152 He received 1,000 marks for his work, which allowed him to turn a cold shoulder to various Berlin art dealers whom he described as ‘vultures’, and to keep his oil paintings for himself, at least for the time being.153 Soon, however, financial worries started to plague Pechstein again. ‘At the moment it is really incredibly difficult to earn any money’, he wrote to his sister Gertrud.154 His concern was greater than usual because Marta had become pregnant. ‘After long consideration the two of us have decided to have a small child after all’, Pechstein informed Minnich in February 146 147 148 149 150 151 152

Letter Pechstein to Minnich, 22 November 1925, in AM, 1987/49.30. See letter Pechstein to Minnich, 3 December 1925, in AM, 1987/49.32. Ibid. Letter Pechstein to Minnich, 22 November 1925, in AM, 1987/49.30. Letter Pechstein to Minnich, 29 November 1925, in AM, 1987/49.31. Letter Pechstein to Minnich, 13 December 1925, in AM, 1987/49.33. Letter Pechstein to Minnich, 2 January 1926, in AM, 1987/49.34. See also ‘Das Käthchen von Heilbronn/Deutsches Theater’, in Deutsche Allgemeine Zeitung, 30 December 1925. 153 Letter Pechstein to Minnich, 13 December 1925, in AM, 1987/49.33. 154 Letter Pechstein to Gertrud, 2 March 1926, in SMZ, 57/4282.

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1926. ‘It really is a scandal that at my age one is still forced to worry financially if […] one can afford to call into life [such] a little being.’155 A month later, he was relieved after securing a major commission. He had to design a group of five big stained glass windows which the German Reich government intended to contribute to the new building of the International Labour Office in Geneva.156 The commission was a stroke of luck, as Pechstein had initially not been involved in the project which had been in the making for some time. But when none of the designs submitted to the Labour Ministry by the commissioned artists, Johann Bossard from Hamburg and Harold Bengen from Berlin, found the wholehearted approval of the Swiss architect Georges Epiteaux, the Reich Secretary for Art and Design Edwin Redslob took charge.157 Redslob was a great supporter of Expressionism. In 1920, he had tried (and failed) to push through a new design for the imperial eagle by Pechstein’s former Brücke colleague Schmidt-Rottluff. 158 Now, he asked Pechstein to provide him with drafts for a stained glass window which would celebrate labour in its different forms. He was delighted when he saw Pechstein’s proposal and enthusiastically recommended him to Reich Labour Minister Heinrich Brauns.159 In mid-March, Brauns chose Pechstein’s design and commissioned the Heinersdorff workshop with the execution of the stained glass window.160 For the next two months, Pechstein worked as hard as never before, to complete the commission in time. It was a great challenge, not least because of the window’s dimensions. Each of the five panels measured four metres in height and one and a half in width, with sixty centimetres in between each of them, so that each composition had to be self-contained and yet relate to the others. Because of the time pressure, Pechstein had to hand over each cardboard the moment it was completed, and could thus not make changes after seeing them as an ensemble.161 There were other considerations to keep in mind, too. As the window served as the only source of light for the building’s staircase and entrance area, the building’s architect insisted on a design using very light colours. He also preferred the design not to include any ‘hypermodern’ elements, so that it would harmo155 Letter Pechstein to Minnich, 13 February 1926, in AM, 1987/49.35. 156 Letter Pechstein to Minnich, 9 March 1926, in AM, 1987/49.36. 157 Letter Epitaux to Heinersdorff, 16 December 1925, translated from French into German; note Heinersdorff of 25 February 1926, on Redslob commission of Pechstein; both in Archiv Puhl & Wagner, Gottfried Heinersdorff (APWGH). Also Heinersdorff to Prof. Sievers (Foreign Office), Berlin 7 January 1925, in APWGH. 158 Edwin Redslob, Von Weimar nach Europa (Jena, 2002 [Berlin, 1972]), 172–173. 159 Letter Edwin Redslob to Labour Minister Brauns, 26 February 1926, in Bundesarchiv Berlin (BArch), R32, 133, f. 124. 160 Letter Labour Ministry to Heinersdorff, 13 March 1926, in APWGH. 161 Letter Pechstein to Minnich, 28 March 1926, in AM, 1987/49.37.

Fig. 4.9: Cycle of stained glass windows for the International Labour Office in Geneva, based on designs by Max Pechstein, 1927. Published in Deutsche Kunst und Dekoration, April 1927.

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nize with the Renaissance-oriented style of the architecture.162 Pechstein’s large, stage-like composition eventually included more than twenty workers. From left to right, the five panels showed different sorts of labour: agriculture, mining, metallurgy, construction, and transport.163 Pechstein’s early drafts had included female labour, too, but he had to remove them on instruction of his commissioners. He only succeeded in ‘smuggling in’ a peasant women binding corn into sheafs into the agricultural panel.164 After having completed the final panel at the end of April, Pechstein was very satisfied with his work. ‘During the creation of the cardboards I was not guided by any stylistic historical consideration’, he reported in a letter, ‘other than those made necessary by the technique, and thereby I hope to have created a work which is generally comprehensible, [and] despite that does not lack strength.’165 The first stained glass window, the central panel, was produced in midMay. Together with the other cardboard designs it was shown to Monsieur Thomas, the President of the International Labour Office who happened to be in Berlin at that time. Pechstein was happy about the reception of his work. ‘[H]e spoke […] in very flattering terms not only about the completed central window, but also about the total composition’, Pechstein reported to Minnich. ‘He was visibly delighted with the work.’166 Soon, however, Pechstein’s satisfaction vanished. As a wholehearted patriot, he was increasingly distressed by the fact that he never received any feedback, praise or otherwise, from the German authorities. ‘Here in one’s fatherland one is being treated too miserably’, he complained in a letter to Minnich. I have made the sad experience that people only value money, not the best deed. […] [American] materialism is contaminating us, I will soon feel like a parasite, and the treatment which art and artists receive in these grand times makes one feel so bitter.167

The completed window cycle was eventually exhibited as part of the official celebrations of Constitution Day on 11 August in the Reichstag, but to Pechstein’s great annoyance the press had not been invited to the unveiling. 162 Letter Pechstein to Minnich, 1 April 1926, in AM, 1987/49.38. For the architect’s insistence on brightness, see also letter Heinersdorff to Bossard, 5 November 1925, in APWGH. For the ‘hypermodern elements’, see translated letter Epitaux to Heinersdorff, 16 December 1925, in APWGH. 163 For a description, see letter Pechstein to Minnich, 28 March 1926, in AM, 1987/49.37. 164 Letter Pechstein to Minnich, 1 April 1926, in AM, 1987/49.38. 165 Letter Pechstein to Minnich, 28 April 1926, in AM, 1987/49.39. 166 Letter Pechstein to Minnich, 19 May 1926, in AM, 1987/49.50. In his memoirs, Pechstein claimed Ms Thomas started to recite Schiller’s poem Die Glocke, inspired by the bell at the top of the central panel, see Pechstein, Erinnerungen, 111. 167 Letter Pechstein to Minnich, from Leba, 26 June 1926, in AM, 1987/49.41.

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‘[T]hus my brainchild has been buried in all quietness, and I have been robbed of the non-material benefit of my work’, he commented on the lack of official appreciation. My name was not even mentioned as the artist underneath the reproduction of the central window panel in the celebratory publication of the International Labour Office. […] [S]till I will struggle along even if burdened with the stigma of being German.168

He received some satisfaction when his life-size cardboard designs for the window cycle were included in the autumn exhibition of the Prussian Academy of Arts, and reproduced in various newspapers.169 He was also pacified when receiving another government commission, this time by the German Foreign Office, to design a window plate which Reich President Hindenburg intended to donate to the Swiss state as a sign of gratitude for the humanitarian aid which Germany had received in the post-war period. Pechstein’s composition showed Mother Helvetia with her child in a Madonna-like pose, in front of a mountain range, with three banners on which Hindenburg expressed his gratitude to ‘friends in need’. The composition included four putti, like those in his popular stained glass windows from before the war. The sweet-romantic idealization of the composition bordered on kitsch, but this time there was no question about the commissioners’ approval: they ordered a total of 38 plates.170 Despite his complaints about the lack of appreciation expressed for his big stained glass window cycle, Pechstein was very grateful for the money which he made through it. He had asked – and apparently received – ten thousand marks for the job, which helped the family through the following months.171 ‘[I]t is a very bad time for picture sales. Without the commission, I would not have known from what to live’, he wrote in a letter in May 1926.172 As soon as the job was completed, Pechstein looked forward to escaping from the city to go to the seaside once more. ‘[M]y heart is longing 168 Letter Pechstein to Minnich, from Leba, 18 August 1926, in AM, 1987/49.43. 169 For the decision to include them see minutes of exhibition committee meeting, 23 July 1926, in PrAdK, 1254, f. 157. For press reproductions, see Angermünder Zeitung, no. 278, 28 November 1926: ‘Pechstein’s Glasfenster-Entwürfe für das Internationale Arbeitsamt in Genf. ’ 170 For the so-called ‘Hindenburgscheibe’, see letter Heinersdorff to Pechstein, 31 May 1926, and receipt signed by Pechstein for 760 Mark, for 38 Hindenburg plates, 30 December 1926, copies in APWGH; and dossier by Barbara Giesicke on ‘Mother Helvetia in front of Swiss Mountains (1926)’, in SMZ. See also ‘Hindenburgs Dank an das Schweizer Volk’, in Heimat und Welt, no. 7, 13 February 1927, 98 (with illustration). 171 See copy of letter Pechstein to Reich Labour Minister, 11 March 1926, in BArch, R32, 133, f. 123. 172 Letter Pechstein to Minnich, 19 May 1926, in AM, 1987/49.50.

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Fig. 4.10: Mother Helvetia, 1926, stained glass window, 43 × 41 cm, Städtische Museen Zwickau, Kunstsammlungen.

for nature and colour’, he wrote to Minnich.173 ‘I just cannot settle down in Berlin.’174 The intensive work on the stained glass window cycle had been a great physical strain, and Pechstein repeatedly complained about pain in his eyes and severe headaches. Now he hoped that swimming in the sea would improve his health. He and Marta left for Leba in late May where they were joined by Frank once his summer holidays began. In early July, Marta gave birth to a son, Konrad Max, whom the family soon called Little Maxe, or Mäki. ‘It is a sturdy [and] lively chap, and my dear wife 173 Letter Pechstein to Minnich, 28 April 1926, in AM, 1987/49.39. 174 Letter Letter Pechstein to Minnich, 19 May 1926, in AM, 1987/49.50.

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Fig. 4.11: Feeding Mothers (1926/17), oil on canvas, 80 × 100 cm, Kunsthalle in Emden, Stiftung Henri und Eske Nannen und Schenkung Otto van de Loo (loan from private collection).

is a good mother’, Pechstein announced to Minnich full of pride.175 They stayed in Leba well into autumn. ‘These days I am drawing a lot,’ he reported to friends in Berlin in early September, ‘because the winds storm so strongly against the canvas that one cannot paint.’176 Some of his sketches, showing tourists populating the beaches around Leba during summer, were published later that year in a little brochure.177 Among the tourists in Leba that summer were also friends from Berlin who had come specifically to stay with the Pechsteins. It was George Grosz, his wife Eva, and their new-born son Peter. It is not entirely clear how and when Grosz and Pechstein met for the first time. Twelve years Pechstein’s junior, Grosz studied at the Royal Art Academy in Dresden between 1909 and 1912, during Pechstein’s membership in Brücke. In his memoirs, Grosz claimed not to have encountered their art then, behind the ‘thick 175 Letter Pechstein to Minnich, from Leba, 18 July 1926, in AM, 1987/49.42. 176 Letter Pechstein to Plietzsch, from Leba, 12 September 1926, in AM, 1964/452. 177 Galerie Henning (ed.), Sonntagsgäste am Ostseestrand. 22 Skizzenblätter von Max Pechstein (Halle/Saale, undated [1926]).

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walls of the Academy’; Pechstein at that point already lived in Berlin.178 Radicalized by the war, the young Grosz joined the Dada movement in Berlin in 1918, which criticized the bourgeois art world generally, and the gentrification of Expressionism in particular. Grosz probably met Pechstein when the Dadaists participated in the first November Group exhibition in summer 1919. Although Pechstein was in many ways the personification of the Expressionist establishment which Dada criticized, he soon seemed to be on good terms with individual Dadaists. In early 1921, Pechstein was one of the signatories on a leaflet advertising the ‘First Dada Carnival Ball’ in Berlin, together with Johannes Baader, George Grosz, Raoul Hausmann, and John Heartfield.179 After Pechstein’s return from Switzerland in 1925, he and Grosz met each other repeatedly, often at parties organized by their mutual friend Eduard Plietzsch.180 Pechstein’s habit of letting his hair down at these occasions obviously impressed Grosz, who invited Pechstein and Marta to a dinner which he hosted in April 1926. Having ordered 50 kilograms of sausages, Grosz encouraged his guests to eat as much as they possibly could. The critic Carl Einstein turned out an ‘eating miracle’; ‘Max Pechstein equally ate with the talent of a nature boy, similarly his wife, who is from the country, and used to coarse food’, Grosz wrote to a friend afterwards.181 As intended by Grosz, and helped by vast amounts of alcohol, the dinner quickly degenerated into something of an orgy. At times during that night, his small living room resembled the threshing floor during a harvest festival, Grosz reported with glee, ‘it was a great racket – lacking a drum, Maxe was hammering with both fists onto the door panel, caught up in old memories of the South Seas. It was meant to be a negro rhythm.’182 That spring, Grosz and Pechstein became such good friends that they decided to spend the summer together with their families at the beach in Leba.183 For Grosz, it was a memorable experience. Although he understood Pechstein’s fascination with the Pommeranian countryside, Grosz was even more intrigued by everyday provincial life which he recorded in several colourful letters to friends. 178 Uwe M. Schneede, George Grosz. Der Künstler in seiner Gesellschaft (Cologne, 1989), 10–13. 179 Entry for 20 January 1921, in Deutsche Geschichte von Tag zu Tag. Digitale Bibliothek Band 39, 1088. 180 Letter George Grosz to Mark Neven DuMont, 11 March 1926, in Karl Riha (ed.), Teurer Makkaroni! George Grosz. Briefe an Mark Neven DuMont 1922–1959 (Berlin, 1992), 70–71. 181 Letter George Grosz to Mark Neven DuMont, 9 April 1926, in Riha (ed.), Teurer Makkaroni!, 78. 182 Ibid. 183 Letter George Grosz to Mark Neven DuMont, 30 June 1926, in Riha (ed.), Teurer Makkaroni!, 81.

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Fish and potatoes [is] the food of these people. Beer, Lauenburg pilsner and rye whiskey their drink; the Navy Association and skittles their culture – on top of this, [they are] of Protestant belief. Off and on a celebration with [the] rifleassociation, veterans’ association and gun shooting – [a] parade with flag hissing and [playing of the] Presentation March. In the evening the best thing: [a] dance and binge drinking at the counter, until the benevolent wheelbarrow (a fact) then delivers the drunken heap to his angry wife.184

In fact, drinking was an important part of everyday life in Leba with its fourteen pubs. Going into one of them sealed one’s fate, as one would inevitably get invited to a never-ending number of drinks. ‘If you avoid these manly delights, you are a miserable sissy in the eyes of the hard drinking […] Pommeranian folks’, Grosz reported on his experiences. ‘So you cannot do that at all – simply impossible. Is holy law among men, nothing to be done against it.’185 Both Grosz and Pechstein liked a good drink and could stand a lot of it, too, which made bonding with the locals relatively easy. In one of his letters, Grosz described one of these drinking sessions: Maxe [Pechstein], customs inspector Eggert and smokehouse owner Berg and the doctor sat on their asses from 10 o’clock in the morning, drinking beer and whiskey and played skat. Towards noon they switched to red wine. […] Around 3 o’clock ten bottles of red wine had been emptied. Commotion and violent abuse when Maxe tore himself away, staggering slightly, towards his daily bath. Blue-violet-red the face. Tannic red wine odour in [his] breath.186

The rest of the day continued with heavy drinking and singing until the early hours. By the end of the drinking bout, ‘almost everyone had puked’, Grosz concluded his report. ‘Outside a clear sky full of stars, and a gentle autumn breeze – [and] at the trees in front of Möller’s Grand Hotel, staggering figures which pissed.’187 Many years later, Grosz still fondly recalled the time spent boozing with Pechstein at the beach in Leba.188 For Pechstein, the fishermen and peasants of Leba represented an idealtype of timeless, hard working labour in harmony with nature, which he tried to capture in his paintings. Grosz, too, was captivated by the characters around him. He observed in one of his first letters from Leba:

184 Letter George Grosz to Eduard Plietzsch, from Leba, 16 Augugst 1926, reprinted in Herbert Knust (ed.), George Grosz. Briefe 1913–1959 (Reinbek/Hamburg, 1979), 98–99. 185 Letter George Grosz to Mark Neven DuMont, from Leba, 3 September 1926, in Riha (ed.), Teurer Makkaroni!, 86. 186 Ibid, 87. 187 Ibid, 88. 188 Letter Grosz to Hermann Borchardt, December 1942, and letter Grosz to Pechstein, May 1947, in Knust (ed.), Briefe, 311, 394.

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The Pomeranians fall into two types, the seasoned, lean, suntanned fishermen and peasants, and the fat hinterlanders (mostly merchants, civil servants, minor squires etc), completely east Asian types, flat faces, terrific calfs, asses like hamburgers, and […] a fat neck, like smoked saveloy.189

But Grosz viewed the situation in a much more politicized way than Pechstein ever did. He was particularly struck by the poverty of the farm labour on the great estates. Day labourers, he reported to Berlin, were ‘almost still serfs’, living a ‘miserable slave’s existence without hope / a real piece of the Middle Ages.’190 In view of the social gulf between these groups Grosz would have expected ‘a Breughel-like fight between the fat and the thin’, between capitalists and labourers.191 To his great surprise, though, there was no class conflict to speak of. ‘On the contrary, the fat fishmonger is in the same veterans’ association like the poor but strictly nationalist thinking fisherman slave.’192 Grosz, who had been member of the Communist Party between 1919 and 1923, and whose drawings were still widely published in the Communist press, was fascinated by this reactionary consensus of people around him. ‘The Pomeranian disposition is conservative down to his thick bones. He abhors modern innovatoins – [like] bob and the republic’, he told his brother-in-law, Otto Schmalhausen. ‘Jews are not loved at all around here. One is nationalist, and despises them a lot. That is also why purely semitic species, apart from the tolerated local textile Jew, are rare like amber at the coast.’193 One day, he and Pechstein joined two Jewish tourists throwing a ball hence and forth at the beach. ‘[Y]ou should have seen how the waves of palpable scorn swept over us, too. […] As a Jew, I would not come here’, Grosz commented on his first-hand encounter with local antisemitism.194 After his return from Leba, Grosz produced his famous painting Pillars of Society in which he summarized his criticism of the reactionary forces within German society during the Weimar Republic. A little of Grosz’s political outlook on life obviously rubbed off on Pechstein during the weeks which they spent together. Towards the end of his stay in Leba, he sent Minnich a letter in which he commented – for the first and only time ever – on local politics. 189 Letter George Grosz to Otto and Lotte Schmalhausen, from Leba, 27 July 1926, in Knust (ed.), Briefe, 97. 190 Letter George Grosz to Otto Schmalhausen, from Leba, 18 August 1926, in Knust (ed.), Briefe, 99. 191 Letter George Grosz to Eduard Plietzsch, from Leba, 16 August 1926, in Knust (ed.), Briefe, 98. 192 Ibid. 193 Letter George Grosz to Otto and Lotte Schmalhausen, from Leba, 27 July 1926, in Knust (ed.), Briefe, 97. 194 Ibid.

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I am sitting here in a region where people consider politics as their religion, and are furiously angry with the republic, not without reason Pommerania was called the darkest part of Germany already prior to the war. Even though I am trying to remain calm, sometimes I just cannot listen quietly to this brutal bitching.195

Prior to this summer, Pechstein’s interest in politics had been rather limited. Like many left-wing intellectuals he had joined the pro-Communist ‘Association of Friends of the New Russia’ and the pacifist ‘League for Human Rights’, and through the latter had lent his public support to numerous left-wing campaigns like, for example, the joint Socialist-Communist referendum for the expropriation of the former German princes in spring 1926.196 Now, the friendship with Grosz gave his involvement in politics a new boost. In autumn 1926, the two friends founded a political association, together with the publisher Maximilian Harden and the controversial theatre director Erwin Piscator, called ‘Club 1926’. The aim of the association was to bring together those intellectuals who considered ‘the joining of forces of left-wing workers of the spirit’ a progress.197 The new group did not have much of an impact in Berlin, where hundreds of such intellectual circles existed from left to right. But it drew Pechstein into a greater involvement with contemporary politics. In early 1927, he joined a campaign to protest against the destruction of frescoes by Heinrich Vogeler in a Communist orphanage in Worpswede; later that year he produced a poster commemorating the tenth anniversary of the Russian October Revolution which had been commissioned by the leadership of the German Communist Party.198 Although Pechstein mainly became involved in left-wing cultural initiatives, the range of his commissioners – from the then conservative Reich government to the Communist central committee – shows that his politics remained relatively vague. In some of his comments on contemporary culture he sounded more like a bourgeois conservative rather than a left-wing artist. ‘Film has already satisfied all demands for art here, by its cheapness and convenience’, Pechstein complained in early 1926. ‘What I always 195 Letter Pechstein to Minnich, from Leba, 5 October 1926, in AM, 1987/49.44. 196 Pechstein, Erinnerungen, 115. For the ‘Association’, see also Matthias Heeke, Reisen zu den Sowjets: der ausländische Tourismus in Russland 1921–1941 (Münster, 2003), 28; for the various campaigns which Pechstein publicly supported, see Stephan Reinhardt, Lesebuch Weimarer Republik. Deutsche Schriftsteller und ihr Staat von 1918 bis 1933 (Berlin, 1982), 60, 139, 153, 160, 163. He was also on the advisory committee of the German War Graves Association, see Wolfgang Fischer, Das politische Gedenken an die Toten des Ersten Weltkrieges: Der Volkstrauertag in der Weimarer Republik (Munich, 2008), 26. 197 See the association’s constitution, in AdK, Archiv Bildende Kunst: George Grosz Archiv, 1089. 198 See L 407, in Günter Krüger, Das druckgraphische Werk Max Pechsteins (Tökendorf, 1988), 314.

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Fig. 4.12: Solidarity with Soviet Russia, 1927, poster – colour lithograph, 70 × 45.5 cm (Krüger L 407). Photograph: bpk / Kunstbibliothek, Staatliche Museen zu Berlin.

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feared has become true, we are being Americanized, but without having the financial strength of the Americans.’199 His dislike of Berlin was as intense as that of some right-wing intellectuals. ‘[…] I have to sit here in this sceptical city which takes pride in copying only the bad things from America in order to ignore its own culture’, he wrote towards the end of 1926.200 His cultural pessimism was partly caused by the lack of critical acclaim for his own recent works. An exhibition of his Monterosso watercolours, for example, found little favour with Karl Scheffler, the influential art critic who had championed Pechstein at the beginning of the decade. ‘Pechstein has lost personality over the last years’, Scheffler pronounced, ‘he often comes worryingly close to purely decorative painting.’201 Willibald Wolfradt, another eminent critic, was similarly critical. ‘Pechstein turns out catastrophically’, was his damning verdict on the artist’s contribution to the 1926 spring exhibition in the Prussian Academy of Arts in the art journal Cicerone.202 In his letters to Minnich, Pechstein vented some of his frustration. He deplored the ‘irresponsibility of the local art popes’, and predicted that ‘the mob will howl again’ when seeing his recent paintings from Leba.203 ‘If one had to work towards the snobbish character of these few people who deem themselves authoritative it would be akin to committing artistic suicide’, Pechstein declared at the end of 1926.204 The following year gave Pechstein some vindication. In March, the gallery Victor Hartberg put on a solo exhibition of his recent works, Pechstein’s first major show in Berlin since the 1924 exhibition at the Prussian Academy of Arts. Fritz Stahl was one of many critics who praised the works on display. Pechstein, he claimed, had experienced a few unfortunate years after freeing himself from the dogma of Expressionism, now, he clearly allowed his talent to shine once again.205 To Minnich, Pechstein reported ‘that this small, but select exhibition was a great success, non-materially and particularly financially, too.’206 He still disliked the Berlin art scene, where he constantly encountered people pulling wry faces: ‘Previously ones 199 Letter Pechstein to Minnich, 13 February 1926, in AM, 1987/49.35. 200 Letter Pechstein to Minnich, 22 December 1926, in AM, 1987/49.45. 201 Karl Scheffler, ‘Kunstausstellungen Berlin’, in Kunst und Künstler, no. 5, 1 February 1926, 195–196. 202 Willi Wolfradt, ‘Frühjahrs-Ausstellung der Akademie der Künste’, in Cicerone 18 (1926), no. 11, 359. 203 Letter Pechstein to Minnich, 13 February 1926, in AM, 1987/49.35, and letter Pechstein to Minnich, from Leba, 5 October 1926, in AM, 1987/49.44. 204 Letter Pechstein to Minnich, 22 December 1926, in AM, 1987/49.45. 205 Fritz Stahl, ‘Pechstein und Hofer’, in Berliner Tageblatt, 23 March 1927. For an equally favourable review, see P[aul] W[estheim], ‘Ausstellungen’, in Das Kunstblatt 11 (1927), no. 4, 172. 206 Letter Pechstein to Minnich, 15 April 1927, in AM, 1987/49.47.

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of concealed Schadenfreude assuming that I am finished, now envious ones, because I have turned out more alive [than they thought].’207 From abroad, too, he received praise for his work. In summer, one of his paintings received an award at an exhibition in Bordeaux; in autumn, Pechstein was informed that his 1917 still life, Calla, on display at at the International Exhibition of the Carnegie Institute in Pittsburgh, had won a prize of 500 Dollars. Pechstein took some pleasure in the fact that he was the first German painter to win a Carnegie prize since the war.208 In the post-Versailles Treaty era of wounded German national pride, official recognition for German achievement by one of the former war opponents was a news-worthy event, and the Carnegie Prize moved Pechstein back into the media limelight.209 ‘Pechstein is currently once again praised to the skies as the enfant cheri of Berlin W.’, a friend of Pechstein’s former Brücke colleague Kirchner reported in a letter to Davos.210 Even fifteen years after Pechstein’s departure from Brücke, Kirchner was still fiercely competitive and obsessed to establish that he himself was the better artist. He was therefore galled that some commentators found his own latest work increasingly superficial and decorative, whereas Pechstein was credited to have further improved and refined his artistic style. This was the sort of comparison which drove Kirchner mad. ‘Pechstein is recently producing copies straight from van Gogh again’, Kirchner complained to one of his patrons. ‘That is the joke.’211 It is unknown which of Pechstein’s paintings Kirchner had in mind when accusing him of copying van Gogh. Certainly, some of the works which Pechstein created in Montreux in 1925 seemed to draw their inspiration from paintings by the Dutchman, like his Summer Night in Montreux which bore strong resemblance to van Gogh’s La Nuit Etoilee of 1888. In view of Minnich’s enthusiasm for modern art, it is quite likely that Pechstein had been able to browse through a sizeable collection of art books in Minnich’s library and that he then varied motifs which he had encountered in them. Generally, however, Pechstein’s move towards greater naturalism and a more balanced range of colours was a development which reached 207 Ibid. 208 Letter Pechstein to Minnich, 19 October 1927, in AM, 1987/49.49. See also letter Guillaume Lerolle (European Representative of Carnegie Institute), Paris, to Max Liebermann, 17 October 1927, in PrAdK, 1233, ff. 28–30. 209 Vossische Zeitung, 20 November 1927: ‘Deutsche Kunst im Auslande’; Das Kunstblatt 11 (1927), no. 11, 410. For an illustration of Pechstein’s new appeal, see Funk-Stunde, no. 48, 25 November 1927, 1553. 210 Letter Gustav Schiefler to Kirchner, Mellingstedt, 7 December 1927, in Henze (ed.), Briefwechsel, 508. 211 Letter Kirchner to Gustav Schiefler, Frauenkirch, 12 November 1927, in Henze (ed.), Briefwechsel, 500–501.

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Fig. 4.13: Summer Night in Montreux (1925/6), oil on canvas, 81 × 100 cm, private collection.

back to the early 1920s. It had little to do with van Gogh, and more with a widespread tendency towards a new naturalism. Pechstein himself considered his stylistic change an improvement. When the National Gallery staged an exhibition of modern art from private Berlin collections in early 1928, Pechstein complained to Justi that the impression left by the works on display had been skewed by the inclusion of many earlier paintings. I know that it would have been possible in my case, too, to bring together only works from one period […], thereby conveying a more cohesive impression, because there is a great difference between the pre- and post-war paintings, which I think you feel too, and therefore left out earlier works in the case of other artists.212

Justi, however, was particularly interested in Pechstein’s pre-war oeuvre. In February 1928, Pechstein’s painting North-West Storm from 1927, on display at the Berlin Secession exhibition, won a prize and was selected by the 212 Letter Pechstein to Justi, 2 April 1928, in AAdW, Justi papers, no. 13.

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Fig. 4.14: North-West Storm (1927/21), oil on canvas, 91 × 111 cm, private collection, Germany.

Prussian Cultural Ministry for acquisition by the National Gallery.213 Justi thought it was ‘not a bad picture’, but pointed out that he much preferred the prize money to be spent on Pechstein’s earlier works.214 Eventually, the National Gallery bought three Pechstein oils for 2,000 Reichmark, Two Ships in Königsberg of 1909, Horsemarket in Moritzburg of 1910, and Stormy Sea of 1919. Pechstein donated a fourth, Red Socks of 1910, as a gift.215 213 It was not the official Prussian State prize, awarded by the Prussian Academy of Arts, see ‘Akademie-Ausstellung Berlin’, in Das Kunstblatt 12 (1928), no. 6, 186–187. For a list of the winners of the Great Prussian State Prize, in which Pechstein is not included, see PrAdK, no. 3019, ff. 12–13. Pechstein won one of several prizes which had been funded by the Prussian State and some Berlin companies, specifically for art acquisitions, on a one-off basis, to celebrate the new Secession venue: Karl Scheffler, ‘Die Berliner Sezession im neuen Haus’, in Kunst und Künstler, no. 7, 1 April 1928, 273. 214 Letter Justi to Ministerialrat Gall, 8 February 1928, in SMB-ZA, Gen.10, Bd. 14, 564/28. 215 See handwritten note on payment order by Prussian Ministry for Science, Art and Education, of 4 May 1928, to Justi, in SMB-ZA, Gen.10, Bd. 14, 1094/28; see also comments by Rave and Thormaelen on letter Pechstein to Justi, Berln, 17 April 1928, in SMB-ZA, Gen.10, Bd. 14, 948/28. See also Annegret Janda (ed.), Das Schicksal einer Sammlung.

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Together with the painting Rowing Boat of 1913, which Justi bought from Pechstein’s former dealer Gurlitt that same year, the National Gallery now owned nine of Pechstein’s oils. The prize-winning painting North-West Storm, which had triggered the National Gallery’s shopping spree, originated on the Baltic coast, where Pechstein and his family spent another summer in 1927. To avoid the tourists in Leba, he moved to the small fishing hamlet of Rowe, some thirty kilometres from Leba. Rowe was idylically located, on a small stretch of land in between Lake Garder and the Baltic Sea, on the shores of the river Lupow which flowed into the Baltic Sea here. The village was very remote, and ‘like lost in time’, as Pechstein reported to George Grosz with satisfaction: Old houses from 130 years ago, with thatched roofs, the rooms so minute that I can reach the ceiling with my hand. […] [I]n term of scenery [it is] outstanding, the people very primitive, no streets, no electrical light, therefore a lot of quietness for reflections and work, three quarters of an hour from here a […] beach with beech forest, where surely the old Teutons still slaughtered their Whitsuntide sacrifices.216

He was ‘revelling in the Middle Ages here’, he boasted in a letter to Plietzsch, and to his friend Gerbig, he enthused about the traditional smallscale agriculture which he encountered in Rowe: ‘partly they still thresh [their corn] with flails, and they also still have sheep which they shear themselves, and spin their own wool. For me, it is a wonderful German countryside.’217 The only downside that summer was the weather, which was cold, windy and rainy. Pechstein therefore spent most of his time drawing, sometimes taking up to six hours on the same motif.218 Until 1932, Pechstein returned to Rowe every summer. Its main attraction, apart from the beauty of the countryside, was the absence of any tourists or other painters. Pechstein knew that this was not to last forever, not least because of his own presence. ‘In a few years [Rowe], too, will be overrun by painters’, he predicted in a letter to his friend Gerbig in early 1928, ‘because already now many [people] are inquiring about the location where I painted, and if they could go there too.’219 Pechstein recorded life in Rowe not only in his drawings and paintings, but also in many photos,

216 217 218 219

Aufbau und Zerstörung der Neuen Abteilung der Nationalgalerie im ehemaligen Kronprinzen-Palais Unter den Linden 1918–1945 (Berlin, 1988), 44. Letter Pechstein to George Grosz, Rowe, 12 June 1927, in AdK, Grosz papers, 534. Letters Pechstein to Plietzsch, Rowe, 5 July 1927, in AM, 1964/464, and Pechstein to Gerbig, 11 April 1928, in private collection (transcript in SMZ, no inv. no.). Letter Pechstein to Minnich, 19 October 1927, in AM, 1987/49.49. Letter Pechstein to Gerbig, 11 April 1928, in private collection (transcript in SMZ, no inv. no.).

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taken with a camera which Minnich had given him as a present.220 What becomes apparent in these photos is that Pechstein was fascinated by the economic backwardness of his new retreat. Many pictures showed fishermen and peasants at their backbreaking work, using equipment that was almost always handmade, and similar in character to that which had been used for centuries. They also document the extent to which Pechstein became an accepted part of the local community. On one photo, he posed with a group of fishermen and their eel-catching equipment, obviously at ease in the company of these hardworking men. Another aspect which Pechstein liked about Rowe was that the cost of living there was very low.221 In 1926, buoyed by the big stained-glass window commission for Geneva, Pechstein had still refused a job offer as an art professor at the Königsberg Academy because he thought that the pay was not sufficiently generous. He later regretted the decision somewhat, ‘after all the 1,000 Marks per month would have relieved me of all economic worries’, he admitted in a letter to Minnich.222 At exhibitions, Pechstein’s paintings were priced at several thousand Reichsmarks a piece, but by early 1928 his income had become very sporadic.223 The 2,000 Marks received from the National Gallery were a welcome windfall, as the artist explained in a letter to Gerbig, ‘because there is nothing going on regarding sales, [it is] simply hopeless, I have even lost all motivation of sending my works to exhibitions, because it just costs money and the frames come back damaged.’224 It was not just Pechstein who struggled to sell his paintings. The art market for modern art in Germany was generally flat; some prestigious galleries – like Arnold in Dresden, and Walden’s Sturm gallery in Berlin – had to close down, others were constantly in financial difficulties. ‘Simply no one is buying art’, the Berlin art dealer Nierendorf complained in 1928, ‘because the on-going Americanization [of people] distracts all attention towards automobiles, travelling and sport.’225 Pechstein, too, spent money on travelling and sport. He liked skiing in the Su220 Letter Pechstein to Minnich, 19 October 1927, in AM, 1987/49.49; and Ostdeutsche Galerie Regensburg (ed.), Max Pechstein an der Ostsee, 99–109. 221 Letter Pechstein to Gerbig, 11 April 1928, in private collection (transcript in SMZ, no inv. no.). 222 Letter Pechstein to Minnich, from Leba, 5 October 1926, in AM, 1987/49.44. 223 At the 96th Great Art Exhibition of the Hannover Art Association, 19 February to 15 April 1928, three Pechstein oils were offered for 3,000, 4,500 and 5,000 Mark. 224 Letter Pechstein to Gerbig, 11 April 1928, in private collection (transcript in SMZ, no inv. no.). 225 Letter Karl Nierendorf to J.B. Neumann, 5 September 1928, in Anja Walter-Ris, Die Geschichte der Galerie Nierendorf. Kunstleidenschaft im Dienst der Moderne Berlin/New York 1920–1995 (Zurich, 2003), 158. See also Robin Lenman, Artists and society in Germany, 1850–1914 (Manchester, 1997), 189–191; Ruth Negendanck, Die Galerie Ernst Arnold (1893–1951). Kunsthandel und Zeitgeschichte (Weimar, 1998).

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Fig. 4.15: The members of the fishing association Rowe – Lake Garder, c. 1929, with Pechstein wearing a white jumper. Photograph: Otto K. Vogelsang, Stolp.

deten Mountains, often together with the sculptor Rudolf Belling and the painter Otto Kyser. These were cheap holidays, though. ‘[W]e live there for 6 M[ar]k per day, in a good room, heated, with running hot and cold water’, Pechstein explained to Gerbig.226 Despite having little money, Pechstein did not live like a poor man. The family continued to reside in the big flat in Kurfürstenstrasse, and for some years they were able to afford a maid who helped Marta with the household.227 Pechstein paid for Frank’s boarding school near Dresden;

226 Letter Pechstein to Gerbig, 2 January 1929, in private collection. For mentions of Pechstein’s skiing trips, see letter Pechstein to Julius Langstadt, undated [Christmas 1926], in Deutsches Kunstarchiv im Germanischen Nationalmuseum Nürnberg (GNM), Pechstein papers, II C 1; letter Pechstein to Frank, 28 January 1928, in private collection; postcard Pechstein to Gerbig, 8 March 1929, in SMZ, 2005/15/Au; letter Pechstein to Gertrud, Oberwiesenthal, 19 January 1931, in SMZ, 60K 162n. 227 See letter Pechstein to Julius Langstadt, undated [Christmas 1926], in GNM, II C 1. After his return from Rowe, Pechstein writes to his son Frank that they have now a maid from 1 November, in letter Pechstein to Frank, 3 November 1927, in private collection.

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and he supported his father and his sister Gertrud in Zwickau.228 But he increasingly struggled to meet the expenses, and by late 1928 had seriously fallen behind with the rent for their flat.229 To make matters worse, upon his return from his summer retreat in Rowe he found that he had to finance major renovation works in Berlin. ‘I have dry rot in the studio, the floor had to be ripped open down to the foundation, because it had gone deep into the concrete,’ he reported his plight to Minnich, ‘doors and dividing walls have also been ripped out, the library has been destroyed, and with it many of my books, including beautiful first editions of Goethe and Schiller.’230 He had to cancel a trip to Montreux which he had planned for that autumn, for lack of money. For 1929, he hoped for an end of his financial worries, and expressed this wish in the illustrated New Year’s greeting cards which he sent to various of his friends, showing a small boy holding a big bag full of money.231 The new year started badly though. In mid-January, Marta came down with a serious illness which was to plague her for the following two years; in March, Pechstein himself contracted an inflammation of the middle ear which took him out for quite a while.232 His financial difficulties were temporarily alleviated when the Lord Mayor of Berlin, Gustav Böss, came for a visit and bought a painting for the City of Berlin. Pechstein initially asked for 3,000 Mark, and then reduced the price to 2,000 when he felt that the mayor was a little taken aback. Böss had obviously been advised by someone about Pechstein’s difficulties and had come to help. Pechstein also told him about Marta’s illness, his tax and rent debt and the need to support his father. His predicament left Böss moved; a week later, the mayor came again and bought another painting for 800 Mark.233 At that point, Pechstein did not know that through the second sale he became involved – even though only passively – in the Weimar Republic’s most damaging political scandal, the so-called Sklarek affair, which eventually cost Böss his job and which the National Socialists exploited with their propaganda.234 The Sklarek brothers ran a clothing factory in Berlin, and – by bribing numerous city officials – had 228 Letters Pechstein to Gertrud, 7 October 1927; Berlin, 16 October 1928; in SMZ, 60K 162d and 60K 162k; letter Pechstein to Minnich, 27 December 1928, in AM, 1987/49.54. 229 Letter Pechstein to Minnich, 24 September 1928, in AM, 1987/49.51. 230 Letter Pechstein to Minnich, 16 October 1928, in AM, 1987/49.52. 231 See Wolfgang Knop, ‘Illustrierte Postkarten und Briefe Max Pechsteins an den Malerfreund Alexander Gerbig’, in Dresdner Kunstblätter 29–31 (1985–1987), 181, Figure 5. 232 See postcard Pechstein to Gerbig, 8 March 1929, in SMZ, 2005/15/Au. 233 Witness statement by Pechstein, Stolp, 10 September 1930, in LAB, E Rep 200–24 NL Boess, no. 47, ff. 192–194. 234 For an exhaustive account of the Sklarek scandal, see Cordula Ludwig, Korruption und Nationalsozialismus in Berlin 1924–1934 (Frankfurt/Main, 1998), 133–181. See also Bernhard Fulda, Press and Politics in the Weimar Republic (Oxford, 2009), 147–149.

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been granted a virtual monopoly in supplying clothing to municipal institutions and employees. They had also tried to ingratiate themselves with Böss by undercharging the mayor for a valuable fur coat which his wife had bought. Böss insisted on a realistic bill, and when this was not forthcoming he informed the Sklareks that he would spend the estimated real value of the coat on charity. After meeting Pechstein, Böss decided that it would be a charitable act to buy another of his paintings. When the municipal corruption affair came to light in late 1929, and Böss’s relationship to the Sklareks came under scrutiny, one of the hotly debated points was whether or not buying a painting by Pechstein at such a low price really constituted a selfless act of charity. The defence argued that it was usual procedure to support struggling artists by purchases rather than monetary donations, that Böss had no personal interest in modern art and that he had been unaware of the real value of the Pechstein painting. The judge deemed that argument faulty. ‘A painting by the artist Pechstein, who has a reputation, is always an object of value, even if the accused does not know its value’, he declared in his judgement.235 In its appeal, the defence pointed out Pechstein’s ‘notorious plight’ and argued that ‘even paintings from respected artists may be almost worthless, especially if artists, even those with great names, have put too many paintings onto the market at a particular time. This is especially true of Pechstein.’236 Pechstein was asked to appear as a witness, and confirmed that he had experienced Böss’s action as ‘a good deed’, and that he had written to him to thank for his material and moral help. Although he did not comment on the value of his painting, he stated that he considered it impossible for Böss to sell it on the open market in view of current market conditions.237 Most of the other works which Pechstein managed to sell in 1929 and 1930 were watercolours, for which he received a couple of hundred Marks each. Often, the money took a long while to come through.238 He was lucky in receiving another major public commission, this time from the Art Commission of the City of Berlin, for eight two-panel stained-glass windows in a public swimming bath, the Stadtbad Mitte. The large building complex by the architect Heinrich Tessenow had a striking design; ceiling and walls of the pool were almost completely made of glass and steel, and served as an example of the new glass architecture which was promoted by

235 See quotation in letter Fischer to President of District Committee, 9 July 1930, in LAB, E Rep 200–24 NL Boess, no. 46, f. 36. 236 Ibid. 237 Witness statement by Pechstein, from Stolp, 10 September 1930, in LAB, E Rep 200–224 NL Boess, no. 47, ff. 192–194. 238 Ibid, ff. 193–194. See also letter Pechstein to Frank, 23 March 1932, in private collection.

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the architects of the avant-garde.239 Pechstein’s windows were installed in two small rooms with tiles and a basin in the centre, the so-called ‘Basin rooms of the Russian-Roman Bathing Complex’. He created two cycles of four windows each: The Four Seasons were designd for the men’s bath, while the cycle for the women’s bath was entitled The Fountain of Youth. Two of the windows of the Fountain of Youth cycle showed women with their babies, all of them boys with a striking similarity to Mäki, whom Pechstein had painted in various oils over the last years; in a similar vein, the window Summer in the Four Seasons cycle showed a couple and a naked boys, obviously Pechstein and Marta with Mäki.240 Actually, Pechstein’s colourful windows were at odds with the purist, Bauhaus-style aesthetic of the rest of the building, but city officials were very satisfied with his design.241 Prior to the war, there still existed a great stylistic difference between Pechstein’s naturalist stained-glass window designs and his Expressionist oil paintings. By 1929, this was no longer the case. His paintings and his stained-glass windows were all naturalist in conception, even if still dominated by strong colours. Karl Scheffler was one of the very few critics who disapproved of Pechstein’s artistic development, dismissing his latest paintings as ‘decorative’.242 Generally, however, reviewers preferred Pechstein’s more recent output to his earlier works. In February 1929, when the Berlin gallery Hartberg staged an exhibition of works created in 1928, the critical reaction was predominantly positive. ‘Pechstein appears almost as a painter of idyllic scenes’, one critic noted in view of the many landscapes and still lifes on display.243 Paintings like Field with Wetches/Evening no longer shocked contemporaries as Pechstein’s pre-war work had done. In the Vossische Zeitung Max Osborn declared that his painting had become ‘more mature’.244 Even Alfred Hugenberg’s right-wing tabloid Nachtausgabe praised the move towards naturalism, but disapproved of what it called the turn towards French colour and form treatment: ‘[I]t would be a pity if the

239 Martin Wörner et al. (ed.), Architekturführer Berlin (Berlin, 1994), 73. 240 For the commission, see note of 8 November 1928 and subsequent correspondence in APWGH. See also Aya Soika, ‘The Public Face of German Expressionism. A study of the Brücke artists’ interior designs’, unpublished PhD thesis (Cambridge, 2001), 224–228. 241 See note of 14 September 1929, in APWGH. 242 ‘Kunstausstellungen Berlin’, in Kunst und Künstler, no. 7, 1 April 1927, p.268; ‘Berliner Frühjahrs-Ausstellungen’, in Kunst und Künstler, no. 10, 1 July 1928; ‘Max Pechstein’, in Kunst und Künstler, no. 6, 1 March 1929, 244–245. 243 Franz Servaes, 29 February [1929], newspaper clipping in SMB-ZA, Pechstein documentation. 244 Max Osborn, ‘Neue Pechsteins. Ausstellung bei Hartberg’, in Vossische Zeitung, 12 February 1929.

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Fig. 4.16: Summer, 1929, stained glass window, Stadtbad Mitte, Berlin.

path towards village, stream, sun and sea which has been found with so much difficulty was illuminated by western effects.’245 Such a nationalist interpretation of art was by no means an exception by the late 1920s. February 1929 saw the first public rally of the folkishreactionary ‘Combat League for German Culture’, founded among others by leading National Socialists like Heinrich Himmler, Alfred Rosenberg and Gregor Strasser. Its members polemicized against the ‘bastardization and negrofication’ of modern art, a view put forward in the book Kunst und Rasse by the well-known architect Paul Schultze-Naumburg, in which he compared Expressionist portraits and paintings of the human body to photos of handicapped and disfigured people.246 Ironically, by the time that this book appeared, Pechstein’s recent portraits were held in a style completely unlike the one represented in Schultze-Naumburg’s book.247 This probably also accounts for his relative lack of concern about these developments. His long stays in Rowe over the summer where he never read 245 Dr. D., ‘Natur zwischen westlerischen Effekten’, in Berliner Illustrierte Nachtausgabe, 7 February 1929. 246 Jürgen Gimmel: Die politische Organisation kulturellen Ressentiments. Der „Kampfbund für deutsche Kultur“ und das bildungsbürgerliche Unbehagen an der Moderne (Münster, 1999); Paul Schultze-Naumburg, Kunst und Rasse (Munich, 1935), 106–115. 247 E.g. the portrait Dr. E. Blass of 1928, reproduced in Deutsche Kunst und Dekoration 66 (1930), 276.

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Fig. 4.17: Field with Wetches / Evening (1927/10), oil on canvas, 50.5 ×70.5 cm, private collection, Germany.

any newspapers contributed further to his care-free attitude. It was only when Pechstein returned to Berlin from Rowe in mid-October 1930 and found that the National Socialists had suddenly become the second-largest party in the Reichstag at the landslide elections in September, that he came face to face with Nazi cultural politics. Unlike his former Brücke colleague Ernst Ludwig Kirchner, who openly sympathized with many antisemitic ideas about art and race which he encountered in the Nazi Völkischer Beobachter, Pechstein was horrified.248 He was particularly appalled by Joseph Goebbels’s campaign in early December 1930 against the American film version of Erich Maria Remarque’s pacifist best-seller All Quiet on the Western Front. The film was screened in a cinema on Nollendorfplatz, just a few streets from Pechstein’s flat. The area saw repeated clashes between members of Goebbels’s SA and the police for several days, after the Nazis had successfully managed to sabotage 248 For a revealing statement of Kirchner’s warm reception of Nazi art ideology, see letter Kirchner to Hansgeorg Knoblauch, Wildboden, 29 December 1930, reprinted in Eberhard Kornfeld (ed.), Ernst Ludwig Kirchner. Briefwechsel mit einem jungen Ehepaar 1927– 1937. Elfriede Dümmler und Hansgeorg Knoblauch (Bern, 1989), 122–123.

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the screening on 6 December by throwing stink bombs, setting free mice, and intimidating other members of the audience. In mid-December, the film was officially banned, allegedly because it did harm to Germany’s reputation.249 The decision ignited universal condemnation amongst liberals, who published numerous protests in various German newspapers. Pechstein, too, joined the chorus. ‘One has to register the strongest protest against the hostility to culture by the Hitler party’, he wrote in a piece intended for the liberal Berliner Tageblatt. When seeing, like I did, young people causing a scandal on Berlin’s roads and squares, [and] hearing them shout on command, probably everyone who really feels German and loves his fatherland is moved by great pity for these misdirected youth, who have been robbed of their own knowledge and judgement by party-controlled training to [become] herd beasts.250

A few days later, Pechstein signed an appeal for the establishment of a ‘Fighting Front against Cultural Reaction’, along with other artists and writers like Kurt Weill, Alfred Döblin and Erwin Piscator.251 The political polarization of German society was also reflected among Pechstein’s friends. His old friends, the critic and writer Paul Fechter and the art historian Eduard Plietzsch were both firmly on the nationalist right; Ede’s wife Mica, the god-mother of Frank, was even a strong supporter of the National Socialists. Pechstein’s biographer Max Osborn, the Jewish art critic of the Ullstein publishing house, backed the left-liberals; George Grosz, although no longer a member of the KPD, still voted for the Communists. Pechstein himself sympathized with the Social Democrats. In summer 1928, he was commissioned by the SPD party executive to produce a portrait of Karl Marx, for a museum to be established in Marx’s birth house in Trier.252 He even considered joining the party after he had completed the painting. ‘I regret that I have absolutely no important connections, the only thing I noticed is that one has to be member of a [political] party,’ Pechstein wrote in November 1928 when advising his friend Gerbig on how to get a teaching position. ‘My own lack of party membership has so far not benefited me [in any way], and now I will still wait until 249 See Paul Werner (ed.), Die Skandalchronik des deutschen Films. Von 1900 bis 1945 (Frankfurt/Main, 1990), 177–188. 250 Manuscript for Berliner Tageblatt, dated 15 December 1930, copy in Günter Krüger papers, Berlin. 251 Kurt Winkler, Museum und Avantgarde. Ludwig Justis Zeitschrift ‘Museum der Gegenwart’ und die Musealisierung des Expressionismus (Opladen, 2002), 336; ‘Aufruf zu einer gemeinsamen Front im Kampf gegen die kulturelle Reaktion’, in Generalanzeiger für Dortmund, no. 353, 21 December 1930, 5. 252 The painting was exhibited in Berlin in November 1930, see ‘Ausschnitt aus dem MarxMuseum’, in Vorwärts, no. 576, 9 November 1930.

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my 50th [birthday] before doing something about it.’253 But he never did. Despite his engagement in cultural politics when in Berlin, Pechstein much preferred to avoid politics altogether if he could. Rowe was an ideal retreat in his eyes, as he explained to Gerbig at the end of 1930, ‘an oasis, nothing to be heard nor read of the disgusting political company which is currently spreading throughout Germany and corrupting youth.’254 In spring 1931, after a protracted illness, he felt it was high time to leave Germany, if only temporarily. ‘It is now the sixth year since I have been abroad the last time’, he wrote to Minnich. ‘So now I want to fulfil a desire, and travel to the south of France, though only for two months, to the Spanish border into the Basque region […].’255 Already in 1926, 1927 and 1929, Pechstein had wanted to travel to southern France, but had then been prevented by illness and lack of money.256 He now urgently needed two months in the sun ‘to get better’, he informed Gerbig. ‘Because I need some cheering up, it is a depressing feeling to see how everyone here is turning into an art enemy. More than ever I would like to be on the happy island of Palau and to forget Europe.’257 He was able to afford the trip because of a sales guarantee which he had received from the Kunsthalle in Basel for an exhibition in November.258 Mäki was sent to his grandparents in Leba, and in late May, Pechstein and Marta left for Paris. From early June, they stayed in Hendaye, a small town on the Atlantic coast near Biarritz, at the eastern edge of the Pyrenee mountains. They then continued via Marseille to the southern-most French village on the Mediterranean coast, right next to the Spanish border, Collioure. Pechstein had probably come across the name of that village in works by the French artists, André Derain and Henri Matisse, who created some of their most celebrated Fauve paintings there in 1905.259 He found a spectacular scenery: right behind Collioure rose the steep foothills of the Pyrenees, and ruins of ancient fortresses capped many of the immediately surrounding peaks. In his memoirs Pechstein enthused about this ‘wonderful working place’: ‘This 253 Letter Pechstein to Gerbig, 24 November 1928, in SMZ, 2002/56g/Au. 254 Letter Pechstein to Gerbig, 27 December 1930, in private collection; Wolfgang Knop (ed.), Adé 20. Jahrhundert: illustrierte Handschriften beleuchten Licht- und Schattenseiten; ausgewählte Beispiele aus einer privaten Schriftensammlung (Suhl, 2000), 65. 255 Letter Pechstein to Minnich, 12 May 1931, in AM, 1987/49.55. 256 See letters Minnich to Pauli, from Montreux, 27 October 1926, in Kunstmuseum Luzern; Pechstein to Minnich, 18 May 1927 and 27 December 1928, in AM, 1987/49.48 and 1987/49.54. 257 Letter Pechstein to Gerbig, 13 May 1931, in SMZ, no inv. no.. 258 See postcard Pechstein to Dr Kleinbeil, Hendaye, 5 June 1931, in SMZ, Museumsschriftwechsel. 259 See James D. Herbert, Fauve Painting. The Making of Cultural Politics (New Haven, 1992), 88–92.

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Fig. 4.18: Evening in the Pyrenees (1931/5), oil on canvas, 69.5 × 79.5 cm, unknown private collection.

summer I had the happy feeling of living in full harmony with sun, air, [and] people, like in Palau. My diaries again filled up with notes of [my] experiences. Once more, I had a rich harvest.’260 Pechstein returned to Germany in a much better mood than when he departed. He spent the rest of the summer once more in Leba and Rowe, and when he returned to Berlin at the beginning of autumn, he received news that the Berlin Secession intended to honour him with a big solo exhibition to celebrate his fiftieth birthday. Twenty years after the rejection of his paintings which had subsequently led to the foundation of the New Secession in 1910, the planned exhibition gave tribute to the fact that Pechstein was by now one of the most widely recognized artists of his generation. It also proved that despite his constant complaints about 260 Pechstein, Erinnerungen, 112.

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Berlin and the many months he spent away from the city, Pechstein was well-integrated into Berlin’s art community and had become an influential member of its various art institutions. Until 1931, he was the only of the former Brücke members to be a member of the Prussian Academy of Arts, where he was appointed to the exhibition committee in 1926, and where he took an active role in the on-going debate about necessary institutional reforms.261 He acted as President of the Free Secession for two years in the early 1920s.262 After the Free Secession had dissolved, he joined the Berlin Secession in 1928 and became a member of its executive committee and exhibition jury in 1929.263 Many of its other leading members were his friends, like Bruno Krauskopf, Willy Jaeckel, Rudolf Levy, the sculptor Edwin Scharff and – from 1930, probably suggested by Pechstein – George Grosz. Pechstein loyally supported the latter throughout his blasphemy trials between 1928 and 1931, and put forward his friend’s name for election to the Prussian Academy of Arts year after year.264 His relationship to his former Brücke colleagues, however, remained distanced. Probably unaware of Kirchner’s rantings against him in Davos, Pechstein nominated him for the Academy throughout the late 1920s. For a couple of years, he also proposed Schmidt-Rottluff, but then stopped doing so, probably because he was upset when Schmidt-Rottluff resigned from the Secession’s executive after his own election. Interestingly, Pechstein never once seems to have

261 Minutes of the exhibition committee, 12 February 1926, in PrAdK, 1254, f. 153; letter to Prussian Minister for Education and Culture, 2 April 1928, in PrAdK, 1314, f. 1121. 262 Cf. Karl Scheffler, ‘Max Pechsteins Bilder’, in Kunst und Künstler 20 (1922), no. 5 (1 Februar 1922), 158. 263 Cf. Katalog der 58. Ausstellung der Berliner Secession. Herbst-Ausstellung Malerei (Berlin, 1929), 2. 264 For Grosz’s trial, see Rosamunde Neugebauer, George Grosz. Macht und Ohnmacht satirischer Kunst am Beispiel der Graphikfolgen “Gott mit uns”, “Ecce Homo” und “Hintergrund” (Berlin, 1993), 148–171. In fact, Pechstein’s nominations for membership in the Prussian Academy are interesting. For 1928: Grosz, Scharff, Schmidt-Rottluff, Krauskopf; Kokoschka and Kirchner as external members (letter Pechstein, 28 December 1927, in PAdK, I/311, f. 4). For 1929: Grosz, Schmidt-Rottluff, Scharff, Belling, Kubin, Mendelsohn, Taut, Luckhardt, Mies van der Rohe; Kokoschka and Kirchner as external members (letter Pechstein, Oberhof, 6 January 1929, in PAdK, 1097, f. 267). For 1930: Grosz, Grossmann, Krauskopf, Levy, Kokoschka, Kirchner, Kleinschmidt, de Fiori, Scharff, Mendelsohn (letter Pechstein, 13 January 1930, in PAdK, 1098, f. 118). In 1931, the Prussian Minister for Education and Culture, Adolf Grimme, reacted to the election impasse created by the Academy’s traditionalists by appointing thirteen new members, among them many of Pechstein’s nominations (Kirchner, Schmidt-Rottluff, Mies van der Rohe, Taut, Mendelsohn, and Belling). See Hildegard Brenner, Ende einer bürgerlichen Kunst-Institution. Die politische Formierung der Preussischen Akademie der Künste ab 1933 (Stuttgart, 1972), 24, 122–123. Pechstein’s nominations for 1932: Grosz, Hoelzl, de Fiori, Klee, Levy, Beckmann, Grossmann, Krauskopf, Scheibe, Marks, Partikel, Dagner (letter Pechstein, 10 January 1932, in PrAdK, 1100, f. 144).

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Fig. 4.19: Max Pechsteins 50th birthday party, 31 December 1931, with son Frank, Max Osborn, Willy Jaeckel, Hans Purrmann, Alfred Flechtheim, George Grosz, Bruno Krauskopf and others. Unknown photographer. Pechstein archive, Hamburg.

promoted Heckel. Despite the fact that Heckel and Schmidt-Rottluff both lived in Berlin, there was almost no contact with his erstwhile friends. On 30th December, Pechstein hosted a big birthday bash at home. Despite the gloomy economic and political situation in Germany, it was an exuberant gathering. No one at this moment could know that most of the guests would leave the country over the next years to escape National Socialist persecution. Similarly, the public reception of Pechstein’s exhibition in the Berlin Secession which opened the next day gave no indication of what the immediate future held in store. ‘I was very moved to see that I have not only enemies but also friends, even among colleagues,’ Pechstein reported to Gerbig, ‘and most of all I was delighted by the human tone in which I was addressed by everyone, even by the press.’265 As evidence, he included in the letter an article from the right-wing Berliner Lokal-Anzeiger: ‘Even if [Pechstein’s] oeuvre contains some contradictions, the original personality of the painter, who today belongs to our best forces, always becomes 265 Letter Pechstein to Gerbig, 5 January 1932, in SMZ, no inv. no..

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evident in his personal style in a sympathetic way’, the critic concluded his review.266 It was a major exhibition, containing fifty oil paintings, and over a hundred watercolours and drawings. Despite the inclusion of a handful of earlier works, most of the paintings on display were creations of the last couple of years. The show was not meant to be a retrospective, as one critic explained: ‘Because of the great productivity of this artist, one would otherwise have had to clear the entire National Gallery, at least, to make space.’267 Only a small number of critics therefore mentioned Pechstein’s former membership in Brücke and the group’s contribution to the breakthrough of Expressionism in Germany. Despite the great stylistic change which Pechstein’s oeuvre had undergone over the last twenty years, almost no one felt that his paintings had lost their expressive power. ‘It would be valuable to compare his early works with the corresponding works of today, [to contrast] the boundless fullness with the controlled strength of [his] mature style’, suggested one reviewer who commended the fact that ‘the exaggerations of that “Expressionism” have vanished’.268 Pechstein’s only regret was that almost none of the works on display were sold. ‘However nice the public success of the exhibition was, the material [success] was small, indeed awful, therefore I am forced to extreme thriftiness’, he informed his son Frank.269 He was struggling to keep up with the rent, and for a while even thought that they would have to move out. Otto Kyser provided him with some distraction from his financial worries, by covering all costs of a two-week skiing trip in Switzerland to which he invited Pechstein along.270 But his lack of money became an increasingly existential problem. As an artist, he too suffered from the effects of the Great Depression which resulted in around six million unemployed in Germany in 1932. With the number of insolvencies exploding and income levels falling, Pechstein’s middle-class customers had more pressing concerns than art.271 As soon as Mäki’s school holidays began, the family left Berlin for the cheap life in Leba and Rowe. For several weeks, they were joined there by George Grosz’s wife Eva with her two sons. Grosz himself was in New York, exploring the possibility of moving to the United States

266 Willy Ganske, ‘Max Pechstein in der Sezession’, in Berliner Lokal-Anzeiger, 31 December 1931. 267 Undated newspaper clipping, ‘Schmetternde Farben. Pechstein-Ausstellung in der Sezession’, in SMB-ZA, Pechstein documentation. 268 Undated newspaper clipping, ‘Pechsteinausstellung in Berlin’, by Paul F. Schmidt, in SMB-ZA, Pechstein documentation. 269 Letter Pechstein to Frank, Berlin 28 February 1932, in private collection. 270 Ibid. 271 See also Pechstein’s comment ‘So who is buying art these days?’, in his letter to Frank, from Rowe, 12 July 1932, in private collection.

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permanently. His move was largely motivated by the continuing electoral successes of the National Socialists which Grosz had good reason to fear. At the Reichstag elections in July 1932, after a particularly violent and bloody election campaign, the Nazis received just under forty percent of the vote. Pechstein tried hard to ignore these events. He reported to Grosz two weeks after the Nazi electoral success: We are lucky to be here where we hear so little about developments in the Reich, although this happy situation has changed, since Ede [Plietzsch] arrived, who now always brings newspapers, and one peeks into them despite best intentions, and slowly one starts getting annoyed after all about this insanity in the country, and [about] how [people] happily start murdering each other. […] In any case, you are right to turn your back on Germany, it is a hopeless case […].272

He himself could not imagine leaving Germany despite recent developments, ‘because I simply love it, apart from these philistines and their mass stupidity’, he explained to his friend.273 ‘But when I row up the river in a small boat in the morning, with the mist surging, and the rising sun shining through it [and] evenutally dissolving it, then the whole thing goes very much to my heart […]. I could not easily do without all this […].274 Pechstein feared the further deterioration of his economic situation more than political developments. To Grosz, he sketched out his dream of achieving a kind of autarky: [F]or the time being I do not have any other idea but to give up Berlin, to create a small property somewhere, with a lake or river nearby, for fishing, and that thereby, with food and board looked after, the most pressing problems for the family would be resolved.275

He provided Grosz with a lengthy and enthusiastic description of his various fishing adventures and successes in and around Rowe. At the same time, it was clear that he would have to give up Rowe as a summer retreat because it had turned into ‘a real tourist destination’ as Pechstein complained in a letter to his friend Gerbig.276 Unfortunately, my own presence here has contributed to this. Back then, [people] in Stolp did not even know the name of the place, now there are four motorboats, and cars arrive also in sufficient numbers. […] On top of this, Ede is now

272 Letter Pechstein to Grosz, 14 August 1932, in Houghton Library (HL), Grosz papers, bMS Ger 206 (325). 273 Ibid. 274 Ibid. 275 Ibid. Cf. letter Pechstein to Gertrud, 10 October 1932, in SMZ, 60K 162o. 276 Letter Pechstein to Gerbig, 22 November 1932, in SMZ, 2002/56i/Au.

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going to let loose his literary outpouring and then the men of letters will [also] discover the village […].277

It was time to look around for a new location, ‘hopefully a place which is not yet known by anyone’, as Pechstein put it in his letter to Grosz.278 He was considering to follow an invitation to visit Yugoslavia in spring 1933, ‘life there is said to be very cheap, and at the same time one can get out for once, among other people. I currently have a collection of watercolours and drawings included in the annual exhibition of artists there’, he wrote to Gerbig in autumn 1932.279 He was touched by the wealth of positive feedback which he received on his contribution to the exhibition in Zagreb, something he still remembered fondly fifteen years later when writing his memoirs.280 Berlin denied him a similar level of appreciation, he felt. ‘Here, one simply no longer gets spoilt in that respect, on the contrary, it is awful how the dear colleagues behave towards each other, like dogs fighting for a bone.’281 This comment was not an entirely accurate describtion of the esteem in which Pechstein was held at this time. It also presented him as a slightly disdainful and passive observer of events. In reality, Pechstein himself took an active part in the artistic in-fighting which he regarded as ‘service in the interest of artists’.282 As one of the leading members of the exhibition jury of the Berlin Secession, he did not shy away from controversial decisions regarding the inclusion of works submitted by younger artists. He had little patience for abstract art. Many young and talented artists became increasingly shallow and empty in their work which often ‘descended into abstraction’, he told a young friend with artistic ambitions.283 ‘And why? […] because they have simply not learnt anything, other than clearing their throats and spitting, which they have copied [from others].’284 This was a view which he shared with many of the more traditional artists in Germany. Pechstein apparently never reflected on the fact that this was exactly the same kind of accusation which over twenty years earlier had been directed against himself and his Brücke colleagues. Now, in late 1932, not only was Pechstein part of the senior art establishment, several of his colleagues also thought he would make a good teacher for the next generation 277 278 279 280 281 282 283

Letter Pechstein to Grosz, 14 August 1932, in HL, Grosz papers. Ibid. Letter Pechstein to Gerbig, 22 November 1932, in SMZ, 2002/56i/Au. Pechstein, Erinnerungen, 113–114. Letter Pechstein to Gerbig, 22 November 1932, in SMZ, 2002/56i/Au. Ibid. Letter Pechstein to Robert Langstadt, 20 November 1932, in GNM, Pechstein papers, II C 2. 284 Pechstein to Robert Langstadt, 28 December 1932, in GNM, Pechstein papers, II C 2.

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of art students. The architect Wilhelm Kreis put Pechstein’s name forward for a Professorship at the Dresden Art Academy.285 In Berlin, Pechstein was in the running for the Prussian Academy of Arts’ Master Studio for Painting. It was a teaching position that came with a professorial title and an annual salary of 9,000 Reichsmark, as well as membership in the Academy’s governing body, the Senate.286 It was not unreasonable for Pechstein to expect that, with a little bit of luck, 1933 would see his elevation to one of Germany’s most prestigious teaching positions which would solve, at one stroke, all his financial difficulties. He could not know that the resentment caused by his own early works would soon catch up with him once more, acquiring a more threatening dimension than ever before.

285 Ron Manheim, ‘Max Pechstein – Maler der deutschen Landschaft. Ein Expressionist in der Kunstkritik des Dritten Reiches’, in Magdalena M. Moeller (ed.), Max Pechstein. Sein malerisches Werk (Munich, 1996), 124. Already in 1926, Pechstein had been nominated, but rejected by the Dresden Art Academy’s Senate, which chose Otto Dix instead. See Löffler, Dix, 78. 286 See minutes of Senate meeting, Section for Fine Arts, Berlin 30 October 1933, in PrAdK, 1118, f. 86. Cf. letter Amersdorffer to Prussian Minister for Education and Culture, 6 March 1934, in PrAdK, 1118, f. 39.

CHAPTER V

Life under Dictatorship 1933–1945 ‘I traveled to my beloved Pomeranian countryside, and buried my head in the sand like an ostrich, worked, fished, and every now and then went for a drink.’ (Pechstein to George Grosz, 24 April 1934)

At the end of 1932, Pechstein sent a New Year’s greeting card to a friend, with a drawing showing his son Mäki in an Indian warrior outfit. ‘The New Year is starting out on its war path’, he wrote and added the wish that ‘you, too, will hunt down a good number of luckless Whites in 1933.’1 It was meant as a joke, but as it turned out the words were bitterly prophetic. Within only a month, Hitler was in power and embarked on his long road towards war, and Pechstein turned out to be one of those ‘luckless whites’ who suffered under the National Socialist dictatorship. In January 1933, however, the extent to which the new Hitler government was to transform artistic life in Germany was yet unknown, and Pechstein had more pressing concerns than politics. He was particularly infuriated by the fact that the Prussian Academy of Arts had also shortlisted Erich Heckel and Karl Schmidt-Rottluff, his former Brücke colleagues, as candidates for its prestigious Master Studio for Painting.2 Pechstein desperately endeavoured to prevent that either of them would be chosen over him. In a letter to the Chairman of the Academy’s Fine Arts section, Philipp Franck, Pechstein complained bitterly about the ‘dismal’ behaviour of Heckel and SchmidtRottluff at the last exhibition held by Cassirer, at which they had allegedly acted as if ‘undisputed dictators of German Art’.3 He did not mince his words when describing what he thought of Heckel’s recent artistic output: 1 2 3

New Year’s greeting Pechstein to Plietzsch, 30 December 1932, in Christie’s auction catalogue, Amsterdam, 19 March 1985 (Sale F.J. Sandbergen Collection). See vote on whom to offer Master Studios of 21 November 1932, in PrAdK, 1226, f. 75–76. Other artists shortlisted were Hofer, Jaeckel, and Pfannschmidt. Letter Pechstein to Philipp Franck, 23 January 1933, copy in Günter Krüger papers, Berlin.

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If you have seen the exhibition, I expect you, too, as a painter, will have been surprised about the truly frightening decline in Heckel. Out of this emptiness grows no longer the fruit of artistic creativity, [and] this makes it even more surprising that he has managed it for such a long time to deceive the art world. It does not need any mention that an unknown artist would not have managed to pass any serious panel of judges with these works.4

According to Pechstein, Heckel had also repeatedly slandered the Academy. Pointing proudly at his own contributions to the Academy’s efforts, Pechstein concluded that he would consider it a ‘slap in the face’ to be ‘placed on the same artistic level’ with Heckel.5 Written only one week before Hitler was appointed Reich Chancellor, Pechstein’s protest is enlightening for several reasons. It demonstrates quite how fraught relations between the former Brücke colleagues had become by this stage. Pechstein was aware that his letter constituted the final nail in the coffin that was their friendship. In the past, he claimed he had often supported Heckel and Schmidt-Rottluff, but ‘I have ripped […] the final rest of loyalty […] out of my heart, and now [I] behave towards these gentlemen exactly as they have done to me for a long time.’6 More importantly, the letter demonstrates that Pechstein was more interested in the wholesome intricacies of institutional art politics than in the high politics of the time. For many contemporary observers, Germany in January 1933 was on the verge of civil war. ‘We feel we are sitting on a volcano’, the Expressionist sculptor Ernst Barlach wrote to a friend that same week, ‘storm signals everywhere’.7 Yet, unlike Barlach, Pechstein’s immediate political concerns remained remarkably myopic. Nevertheless, this petty artistic infighting was characteristic of the German art world at large, and was a crucial factor of continuity between the Weimar Republic and the Third Reich.8 If even 4 5 6 7 8

Ibid. Ibid. In the end, neither of the three former Brücke members were chosen; the studio was awarded to Pfannschmidt. See letter Prussian Ministry for Culture, Arts and Education to Prussian Academy of Arts, 22 February 1934, in PrAdK, 1118, f. 43. Letter Pechstein to Franck, 23 January 1933, copy in Günter Krüger papers, Berlin. Ernst Barlach to Hugo Sieker, 26 January 1933, quoted in Peter Paret, An Artist against the Third Reich. Ernst Barlach, 1933–1938 (Cambridge, 2003), 5. A particularly striking example of this infighting between proponents of the avant-garde are the vicious attacks by Max Liebermann, long-time President of the Prussian Academy of Arts, on Ludwig Justi, Director of the Berlin National Gallery, which display strong parallels with later National Socialist attacks on modern art more generally. See Hubertus Falkner von Sonnenburg/Peter-Klaus Schuster, ‘Nationalsozialistischer Bildersturm und Rettung der Moderne’, in Peter-Klaus Schuster (ed.), Die ‘Kunststadt’ München 1937. Nationalsozialismus und ‘Entartete Kunst’ (Munich, 1998), 24–25. Cf. Thomas W. Gaethgens, ‘Einführung’, in Thomas W. Gaethgens and Kurt Winkler (eds.), Ludwig Justi. Werden, Wirken, Wissen. Lebenserinnerungen aus fünf Jahrzehnten (Berlin, 2000), vol. 1, X–XIII.

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a fellow modernist like Pechstein considered that Heckel had ‘deceived’ the art world with his recent works, one can imagine the bitterness of his more conservative colleagues, for whom Expressionism as a whole had never been more than one great artistic fraud. Ever since the revolution of 1918, these traditionalists had felt neglected by critics, museum directors and art academies. Hitler’s rise to power in 1933 enabled decades of professional frustration to find their outlet.9 When Hitler became Chancellor, it was clear to everyone that the National Socialists would attempt to reshape German culture dramatically. The Nazi participation in the Thuringian state government in 1930 had already provided some examples of the cultural policies that were to come.10 As Minister of the Interior and Education, Wilhelm Frick, Hitler’s associate in the Munich putsch, had called in radical conservative advisors, such as Paul Schultze-Naumburg, author of the book Kunst und Rasse and leading member of the folkish-reactionary ‘Combat League for German Culture’, to help with an unprecedented assault on modernist culture. Their racial perception of culture had been embodied in the decree ‘Wider die Negerkultur für deutsches Volkstum’ which allowed the censoring of modern theatre and music with the explicit aim of reigning in ‘foreign racial influences’ in German culture. Modern art works which did not express a ‘Nordic-Germanic’ spirit had been removed from the Weimar museum, and Oskar Schlemmer’s elegantly abstracted wall paintings in the stairwell of the Staatliche Bauhochschule had been destroyed.11 Yet in 1933, the National Socialists did not enter government with a blueprint for cultural change. Of course, Hitler, who regarded himself as an artist both of quality and good judgement, had repeatedly expounded his views on modern art in the past.12 In his book, Mein Kampf, Hitler described the ‘spiritual degeneration’ that had taken root in art since 1900, embodied in the art works of Cubism and Dadaism, which Hitler labelled ‘morbid excrescences of insane and degenerate men’.13 Within Hitler’s biological-racist world 9

10 11 12 13

Alan E. Steinweis, ‘Weimar Culture and the Rise of National Socialism: The Kampfbund für deutsche Kultur’, in Central European History, 24, no.4 (1991), 404–405. More generally, see Jonathan Petropoulos, The Faustian Bargain. The Art World in Nazi Germany (London, 2000). For the following, see Günter Neliba, ‘Wilhelm Frick und Thüringen als Experimentierfeld für die nationalsozialistische Machtergreifung’, in Detlev Heiden, Gunther Mai (eds.), Nationalsozialismus in Thüringen (Weimar, 1995), 75–94. Neliba, ‘Frick und Thüringen’, 87–89; Paret, Artist against the Third Reich, 20. Thomas Mathieu, Kunstauffassungen und Kulturpolitik im Nationalsozialismus (1997, Saarbrücken), 18–62. See also Frederic Spotts, Hitler and the Power of Aesthetics (London, 2002), particularly chapters 1 and 2. Adolf Hitler, Mein Kampf. With an introduction by D. Cameron Watt. Translated by Ralph Manheim (London, [1969] 1998), 234–235.

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view, these forms of culture were ‘seeds which represent the beginnings of parasitic growths which must sooner or later be the ruin of our culture.’14 According to Hitler, Jews played a crucial role in this cultural decline. The Jew, Hitler proclaimed, ‘is and remains the typical parasite, a sponger who like a noxious bacillus keeps spreading.’15 Devoid of creativity and originality, the Jew did not just steal from the culture of others, ‘he contaminates art, literature, the theatre, makes mockery of natural feeling, overthrows all concepts of beauty and the sublime, of the noble and the good, and instead drags men down into the sphere of his own base nature.’16 Hitler blamed intellectuals for failing to reveal the bogus nature of modern art. They had been silenced by art critics, ‘apostles’ of this ‘Bolshevist art’, and their disastrous monopoly on art interpretation.17 ‘In order not to be considered lacking in artistic understanding, people stood for every mockery of art and ended up by becoming really uncertain in the judgment of good and bad.’18 In numerous speeches throughout the 1920s, Hitler had explained the development of modern art as part of a world-wide Jewish conspiracy. Through their economic muscle, Jews had come to dominate the art trade, and could thus expose audiences to ever novel art forms. Moreover, the artistic value of each art work was determined by art critics, who were equally under Jewish control and therefore uninterested in aesthetic but in profit maximisation. The Jewish strangle-hold on art trade, art criticism and the press and their promotion of international, Modernist, and ‘Bolshevist’ art served to explain the woeful economic conditions of truly German artists.19 Hitler’s solution, as presented in Mein Kampf, was unambiguous: ‘Theatre, art, literature, cinema, press, posters and window displays must be cleansed of all manifestations of our rotting world and put in the service of a moral, political and cultural ideal.’20 But this ideology failed to amount to a comprehensive policy, and as none was forthcoming in the months after January 1933, confusion reigned. Which artists were Modernists? What were the qualities that made a painting or sculpture unacceptable? And even if one agreed on a particularly unacceptable art work, how would one class the rest of that artist’s oeuvre? Pechstein’s friend, George Grosz, was under no illusions that he was high on the list of undesirable artists, and had left for the United States even

14 15 16 17 18 19 20

Ibid. Ibid., 277. Ibid., 296. Ibid., 238. Ibid., 239. Mathieu, Kunstauffassungen, 37. Hitler, Mein Kampf, 232.

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before Hitler became Reich Chancellor.21 But he was curious to find out about the art political consequences of the new regime. ‘Whom do they allow?’ he asked Pechstein in a letter from March 1933.22 In fact, no one really knew, and the lack of a centralized cultural policy resulted in a nationwide avalanche of local grass-roots activism directed against artistic modernism that very year. Frequently, it was resentful local artists who most relished the opportunity to antagonise their modernist colleagues. They usually took the initiative and urged regional Nazi party officials to dismiss both progressive museum curators and art professors.23 Among those banned from teaching were Otto Dix in Dresden, Paul Klee in Düsseldorf, and Karl Hofer in Berlin. In the spirit of Hitler’s Mein Kampf, local activists in numerous cities purged public art collections of modernist art works. These were subsequently displayed independently in exhibitions bombastically named ‘Chamber of Horrors’ or ‘Government Art from 1918 to 1933’ which aimed to convey the impression that this had been the official art of the Weimar Republic.24 Pechstein’s works were among those censored. In early April 1933 the Mannheim exhibition ‘Images of Cultural Bolshevism’ included one of his paintings and several of his graphics; in May, his painting Women at the seaside from 1911 was part of the Chemnitz show ‘Art which did not come from our Soul’; the Breslau exhibition ‘Art of the Spirit 1918–1933’ featured his Couple on Palau from 1917.25 In Dresden the exhibition ‘Degenerate Art’ which opened in September focused almost exclusively on Pechstein and his former Brücke colleagues, and went on to tour eight German cities between 1934 and 1936.26 Although there are no direct references to these events in Pechstein’s correspondence of spring 1933, he probably read about them in the Berlin 21 Petropoulos, Faustian Bargain, 217. 22 Letter Grosz to Pechstein, 15 March 1933, in George Grosz (ed. Herbert Knust), Briefe 1913–1959 (Reinbek/Hamburg, 1979), 166. 23 Many of the crucial activists in 1933 were artists, like Hans Bühler, Bettina FeistelRohmeder, Walter Gasch or Richard Müller. See Paul Ortwin Rave, Kunstdiktatur im Dritten Reich (Berlin, 1949, 1987), 48; Stephanie Barron (ed.), “Entartete Kunst”. Das Schicksal der Avantgarde im Nazi-Deutschland (Munich, 1992), 9; Hildegard Brenner, Die Kunstpolitik des Nationalsozialismus (Reinbek/Hamburg, 1963), 40; Joseph Wulf, Die Bildenden Künste im Dritten Reich. Eine Dokumentation (Gütersloh, 1963), 39, 51. 24 This is particularly obvious in the case of the exhibitions in Karlsruhe (‘Regierungskunst von 1918 bis 1933’), Stuttgart (‘Novembergeist im Dienste der Zersetzung’), and Breslau (‘Kunst der Geistesrichtung 1918–1933’). See Christoph Zuschlag, ‘“Es handelt sich um eine Schulungsausstellung”. Die Vorläufer und die Stationen der Ausstellung “Entartete Kunst’’’, in Barron (ed.), “Entartete Kunst”, 83–103. 25 The paitings exhibited were 1917/25, 1911/51, and 1917/58, see Aya Soika, Max Pechstein. Das Werkverzeichnis der Ölgemälde (Munich, 2011), vol. 2. 26 It was the crucial precursor for the 1937 ‘Degenerate Art’ exhibition in Munich: Zuschlag, ‘Vorläufer’, 85.

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press.27 He was certainly aware of the dramatic changes which took place around him, as evident in a letter to Grosz, in which he described the Nazi take-over of the Berlin art world. So our S.A. put an end to the gabbing in the Reich Association [for Art], [they] marched in victoriously, raised the flag, declared “those and those get elected”, and then asked very openly if anyone objected, he could speak up. Well, what shall I tell you, among these few hundred members no-one objected […]. You see, that’s how we are! Snappy, what?28

The same sense of impotence reigned in respect to events within the Prussian Academy of Arts. Two weeks after Hitler’s appointment as Chancellor, the writer Heinrich Mann and the artist Käthe Kollwitz, both prominent members of the Prussian Academy of Arts, were forced to resign their positions after signing an appeal for a united front of Communists and Social Democrats to resist National Socialism.29 Pechstein attended the general meeting at which their fate was discussed, but like most of the others present he did not dare to speak up in their defence.30 In the ensuing weeks, various members resigned in protest over the affair and the institution’s increasing politicisation, among them the writers Thomas Mann, Alfred Döblin and Ricarda Huch, as well as Max Liebermann, the famous Impressionist and the Academy’s Honorary President.31 In May, the Academy attempted to oust those artists who had been appointed in 1931 by a Social Democratic Minister of Culture, notably Kirchner, Schmidt-Rottluff, Nolde and Dix.32 ‘The reaction is romping around in the Academy’, Pechstein declared in a letter to Grosz.33 He also explained why he had decided not to leave the Academy. I am having a hellishly difficult time pushing anything through for our colleagues, and of course, never expect thanks for anything. It would be easy to quit, as some have done, to shirk responsibility, and then to beat one’s breast with conviction, and to bitch about those who put things back on the rails.34 27 See references to newspaper report about the iconoclasm in a letter by the Berlin-based artist Oskar Schlemmer to his colleague Willi Baumeister, 25 April 1933, in Andreas Hüneke (ed.), Oskar Schlemmer. Idealist der Form. Briefe, Tagebücher, Schriften 1912– 1943 (Leipzig, 1990), 273. 28 Letter Pechstein to Grosz, 28 March 1933, in HL, Grosz papers. 29 Hildegard Brenner, Ende einer bürgerlichen Kunst-Institution. Die politische Formierung der Preussischen Akademie der Künste ab 1933 (Stuttgart, 1972), 14–19, 27–55. Cf. Inge Jens, Dichter zwischen Rechts und Links (Munich, 1971), 181–191. 30 Minutes of 15 February 1933, reprinted in Brenner, Ende, 29–31. 31 Ibid., 60–66, 69. 32 Only Dix and Schmidt-Rottluff subsequently resigned: ibid., 122–126. 33 Letter Pechstein to Grosz, 10 May 1933, in Houghton Library (HL), Grosz papers, bMS Ger 206 (325). 34 Ibid.

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But it was in the Berlin Secession which Pechstein had rejoined in 1928 that the question of how to react to the new political situation confronted him most dramatically. In February 1933 he was elected to the Secession’s executive board, and he fought hard to maintain it as an exhibition forum, mindful of the fact that it was particularly vulnerable as it depended on state subsidies. At a board meeting on 10 March, he criticized that individual members were ambiguous in their attitude towards the Secession and demanded a discussion at a general meeting. At the same time he emphasized that (party) politics ought to be kept out of the association.35 One week later members of the executive discussed the various options open to them in terms of cooperating with the National Socialist government and the ‘Combat League for German Culture’. Over subsequent weeks, various Secession members who disagreed with this conformist course left the association. At a meeting on 25 April, Pechstein read out to his colleagues an official communication by the Secession’s executive to the new Hitler government in which the association promised to take an active role in the construction of the new Germany. ‘In line with its tradition […] it will continue to serve German art and the German people through the efforts of its best forces.’36 But some of the remaining members wanted to go much further than that. Emil van Hauth, who had joined the Secession in 1932, presented a memorandum in which he argued that in future no ‘Jewish or bolshevik-sympathizing’ artists should be allowed to be member of a German art association, and demanded that the Secession should be re-organized immediately in the spirit of the new National Socialist state. Otherwise the Secession’s existence was at stake, with future state support thrown into doubt. The subsequent debate was heated, but ultimately twenty-seven members present voted in favour of Hauth’s memorandum, while only two voted against it, with one abstention. It was a secret vote, so there is no record of how Pechstein cast his vote. But there can be little doubt that he was among those who thought that some sacrifices were justified to safeguard the institution. In a letter to Grosz from early May 1933 he gave vent to his frustration, complaining that many of his colleagues seemed to be oblivious of the need for state subsidies in view of the Secession’s accumulated debts, and did not seem to care that the Secession was the last remaining platform for young artists.

35

For this and the following, see Anke Matelowski, ‘Kunstgeschichte im Protokoll. Neue Aktenfunde zur Berliner Secession’, in Museumsjournal 12 (July 1998), no. 3, 42– 45, here 44. 36 Ibid. The original wording can be found in the minutes of the meeting of 4 April 1933, in Akademie der Künste, Berlin (AdK), Lovis Corinth Archiv, no. 59. We are very grateful to Anke Matelowski for drawing our attention to this document.

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Of course our dear members never consider things like this, only think, how can I exhibit the most and the best, at the end of the day one is no more than some kind of errand boy for the gentlemen, and all those who have been stripped of their teaching positions think that we are obliged to fight for them, like Hofer, Scharff, Weiss […].37

Pechstein considered his organizational efforts unappreciated: Well, I think I have put behind me a difficult piece of work, something which people are yet unable to acknowledge, to have preserved the grounds on which to fight against the reaction. Let us see, if the new and power-hungry people will succeed, if yes, then alright, I myself am glad for once to have no more to do with all of it, and intend to spend still this summer in peace […] in the Pomeranian countryside.38

In early May 1933, there was no knowing that the Nazi government would indeed ‘succeed’ not only in staying in power for the next twelve years, but also in re-organizing the German cultural realm along unprecedented lines. But Pechstein was clearly eager to keep a low profile in public, and not to antagonize the new rulers. His political activism during the Weimar Republic, although limited, had left him with a left-wing reputation that made him particularly vulnerable to attacks by local National Socialists who started hunting down ‘Marxists’ as soon as Hitler had gained power. The arts in no way escaped this grass-roots terrorism. In mid-February 1933, a group of SA men stormed the State Art School in Berlin, violently removed four allegedly ‘Jewish’ and ‘Marxist’ professors and attacked those students who came to their defence.39 Six weeks later, George Grosz wrote to Pechstein of one of his pupils in Berlin, Nathaniel Stein Wolf, a ‘completely apolitical’ American painter who had remarked that Germany would be better off without the Nazis and Communists. Reported by the room maids in his hotel, the Nazis picked him up and gave him a thorough trashing.40 If this kind of thing was already happening to someone who had no political background whatsoever, Grosz wondered, what would the Nazis do if they caught a ‘proper Commie-rascal and arsonist or well-poisoner who then wouldn’t even have the American Consul for protection?’ Grosz provided the answer to his own question: ‘Ohdearohdearohdear.’41 Pechstein, one of the founders of the November Group, the left-wing ‘Club 1926’, and member of the pacifist ‘League for Human Rights’ and the ‘Association of Friends of the New Russia’ was the archetypal ‘cultural Bol37 38 39 40 41

Letter Pechstein to Grosz, 10 May 1933, in HL, Grosz papers. Ibid. Wulf, Künste, 17–22. Letter Grosz to Pechstein, 15 March 1933, in Grosz, Briefe, 166. Ibid.

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shevik’ in Nazi eyes, and thus had all too good a reason to be afraid of such persecution. He was lucky, though, in that none of his works from previous years had stirred up much political antagonism, unlike Otto Dix’s painting ‘The Trench’ or Ernst Barlach’s war memorial in Magdeburg cathedral.42 He was certainly vigilant not to provoke the new regime to take action against him. Already in March 1933, he made several references to the beginning terror of the emerging police state in a letter to Grosz, indicating that he was afraid someone might open and read his mail: ‘And when you […] tell me, how you received my letter, I hope to be able to write to you more safely then. […] There is much more I could and would like to tell you, but which one is unable to write just like that.’43 If the National Socialists proved unable to introduce clear-cut aesthetic or political criteria in their assessment of modern art, there was one further element which played a major role in their art theory: race. Anti-Semitism was at the core of their ideology, and the persecution of Jews commenced immediately after Hitler’s appointment. In March 1933, Pechstein informed Grosz about the mistreatments of Jews in Germany that had been reported in the foreign press, in a passage drenched in irony. At the moment, we have to prove wrong and do away with the really fabricated lies about past mistreatments of Jews. Listen, Böff, seriously there is not a single true word in it. Alright, perhaps here or there – in the first joyful exuberance – someone has punched an Itzig on the nose. But until now everything has gone its peaceful course, [I] was already surprised at the peace, and started to become suspicious. Now we are in a pretty pickle, boy, in Bavaria there is no more proper people’s entertainment without such nice little beatings […]. From 1 April the boycott will come into force, and I think that the Jewish world press will then come to honour the truth.44

The fine arts were one of the first areas in which the Nazis endeavoured to strip Jews of their positions of influence. This, however, was more difficult than initially thought, because it was not always easy to tell just who was or was not a Jew. Hofer and Schlemmer, for example, were attacked by National Socialist students at Berlin’s Fine Art Academy for their alleged ‘destructive Liberalist-Marxist-Jewish spirit’, and accused of being of Jewish descent.45 Similar accusations were raised against other modernists, like

42 Dennnis Crockett, ‘The Most Famous Painting of the “Golden Twenties”? Otto Dix and the Trench Affair’, in Art Journal 51 (1992), 72–80. For Barlach, see Paret, Artist against the Third Reich, 44–49. 43 Letter Pechstein to Grosz, 28 March 1933, in HL, Grosz papers. 44 Ibid. 45 For events on 1 April 1933, see Hüneke (ed.), Schlemmer, 271–273, 388.

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Barlach and Feininger.46 The confusion afflicted the Prussian Academy of Arts, too. In order to comply with a new law which stipulated the purge of Jews from the civil service, the Academy commissioned the newly-found Office for Race Research to enquire into the racial background of those of its members with Jewish-sounding names, among them Max Pechstein.47 Racial guesswork on the basis of family names was actually quite common, and those with family names ending on ‘-stein’ were most frequently investigated.48 Pechstein experienced such accusations from as early as March 1933. ‘As you know, I am considered by a certain group as a Jew’, he wrote to his sister Gertrud in Zwickau, ‘and although I am laughing about this, it is now absolutely necessary that I get hold of proof of the contrary.’49 He asked that his son Frank, who was still living with his sister, put together documentary evidence of their ancestry.50 With the local church register they traced their family tree back to the sixteenth century, with no Jewish link whatsoever.51 This qualified Pechstein as a fully-fledged ‘Aryan’ in Nazi racial perspective, but it did not stop repeated denunciations from all kinds of sources claiming that he was Jewish. ‘I still get slaughtered, too […]’, he wrote to George Grosz in early May 1933.52 That same week, he complained to Fechter that he had so far failed to earn a single penny that year, and that therefore he and his family were forced to leave Berlin to stay with his mother-in-law in Leba over the summer. The underlying reason for his financial malaise was implied in the postscript, in jocular-Saxon dialect: ‘You know, I am now really no Jew, […] it is really a grotesque thing, with these denunciations by these rash people, so, now you can laugh like I do!’53 Denunciations were no laughing matter, however, and Pechstein probably hoped to receive public support from someone like Fechter whose cultural views were close enough to those of the National Socialists to carry weight. Pechstein needed this kind of support urgently, as he found out only a few days later. Just before his departure to Leba, he learnt that Emil 46 Paret, Artist against the Third Reich, 78–79; Mario-Andreas von Lüttichau, ‘“Wartesaal Berlin” – Die Jahre 1933 bis 1937’, in Roland März (ed.), Lyonel Feininger. Von Gelmeroda nach Manhattan. Retrospektive der Gemälde (Berlin, 1998), 337–345, here 343; Hüneke (ed.), Schlemmer, 275. 47 Brenner, Ende, 127–131. 48 See also Dietz Bering, The Stigma of Names. Antisemitism in German daily life, 1812–1933 (Ann Arbour, 1992). 49 Letter Pechstein to Gertrud, 19 March 1933, in SMZ, 60K/162p. 50 Ibid. 51 Letter Pechstein to Grosz, 28 March 1933, in HL, Grosz papers. 52 Letter Pechstein to Grosz, 10 May 1933, in HL, Grosz papers. Quoted in Rüxleben, ‘Lebensdaten’, 31–32. 53 Ibid.

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Nolde, his former Brücke colleague, had told a civil servant of the newly-created Reich Propaganda Ministry that Pechstein was a Jew.54 Nolde was obviously attempting to establish his right-wing credentials with the new regime. Immediately, Pechstein phoned him. The old Expressionist admitted the denunciation but refused to reveal the source of his information. Without legitimate sources, Nolde’s statement was libellous. So when Pechstein sent him a twenty-four hour ultimatum, Nolde revealed that he had been told by a Jewish friend of his wife. Pechstein replied again, pointing out that this was truly a grave matter, indeed his entire existence was at stake. A personal apology would be entirely insufficient: Nolde should inform the relevant civil servants of his mistake. Nolde refused to do so, and in an ‘impertinent’ letter stated that he was entirely disinterested in Pechstein’s livelihood.55 After receiving no reply to a final letter sent from Leba, Pechstein eventually decided to hand over the affair to a Berlin lawyer. But he shrank back from bringing Nolde to court, and in early October asked the Prussian Academy of Arts to intervene. The Academy had just received a statement from the ‘Expert for Race Research’ confirming that Pechstein was of Aryan origin, and it informed Nolde accordingly.56 In his memoirs, written in 1946, Pechstein described his experiences between 1933 and 1945 in less than three pages. It is therefore not surprising that his account of the events of 1933 is extremely short and considerably stylized. Nolde’s denunciation, for example, is not mentioned, probably because after 1945 it appeared more convenient not to break up the solidarity of the ‘victimized’ German modernists. Pechstein focussed instead on the general threat of National Socialism to culture and the arts, and on its psychological impact. In May 1933, when I was about to depart [for Leba]’, he writes in his memoirs, ‘the so-called “spontaneous people’s demonstrations” were just taking place. Paralyzed by the shouting and violence caused by the brown mob in the streets, I went into my studio, to take refuge from all of this in [my] work. But not only my body, my spirit too, failed me. An inexplicable hypersomnia kept me in its clutches; I was unable to draw a single line. It took the entire energy of my wife to drag me out of this state and to persuade me to leave north to Pomerania.57

54 See letter Pechstein to Kraus, 7 October 1933, in PrAdK 1104, f. 120: ‘Ein paar Tage vor meiner Abreise im Mai nach hier oben zur Arbeit wurde mir die Kunde, dass mich Nolde gegenüber einem Ministerialbeamten des Reichspropagandaministeriums als Juden bezeichnet habe.’ 55 Ibid. 56 Gercke (Sachverständiger für Rassenforschung) to Prussian Academy of Arts, 22 September 1933, in PrAdK, 750, f. 58; and letter Kraus to Nolde, 17 October 1933, in PrAdK, 1104, f. 118. 57 Max Pechstein (ed. Leopold Reidemeister), Erinnerungen (Wiesbaden, 1960), 114.

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The situation in spring 1933 in Berlin was certainly depressing for him, but the nervous breakdown mentioned in his memoirs did not feature anywhere in Pechstein’s correspondence of the time. Even if it did occur, it was unlikely to have been caused by the anti-Jewish demonstrations of early April as he claimed in his post-war account. Rather, his letters of late April and early May 1933 dealt primarily with art political developments, personal attacks, and pressures on him to join the Combat League for German Culture.58 ‘Although I have now got used to a lot,’ he wrote to a friend later that year, ‘I realize how much one is torn away from one’s work when one is forced, again and again, to defend oneself against these stupid attacks. Like swarms of angry hornets these esteemed colleagues ambush me.’59 Leaving Berlin for Pomerania was also a way of removing himself from the line of fire of his art political opponents. Unfortunately, Pechstein’s plan to get away from all this trouble by escaping to his summer retreat in Leba proved futile. Even in the Pomeranian province, his alleged Jewishness kept haunting him. When in late summer 1933 the Reich Propaganda Ministry organized an exhibition of works by artists working in Pomerania, the curator in charge, one Professor Staritz, vetoed Pechstein’s participation on the grounds that he was ‘Jewish’.60 Pechstein contacted Staritz directly and, like in Nolde’s case, asked him to disclose his source in order not to appear libellous. Pechstein also outlined his family’s history, playing up to stereotypes of the German Middle Ages: My ancestors: a house of very honourable blacksmiths and armourers, as evident in the church registers in Trünzig upon Saale reaching back to the sixteenth century […]. Ancestral smithy still exists in Trünzig, which went to the oldest son according to ancient inheritance law. […] My name, Pechstein, describes the thirteenth state of coal in the Ore Mountains, and is pretty self-explanatory when seen in connection with my ancestors’ occupation.61

He claimed he was carrying this name with legitimate pride and felt obliged, ‘not least for my sons’, to protect it from ‘slander’62. He sent a follow-up three days later. He had just received distressing news from America: the College Art Association had prematurely called off the travelling exhibition of his works through the major US cities and museums. ‘It is unbearable’, Pechstein complained, ‘that one is boycotted abroad as a 58

E.g. letter Pechstein to Julius Langstadt, 27 April 1933, in GNM, Pechstein papers, II C 1; letter Pechstein to Grosz, 10 May 1933, in HL, Grosz papers. 59 Letter Pechstein to Robert Langstadt, 27 September 1933, in Deutsches Kunstarchiv im Germanischen Nationalmuseum Nürnberg, Pechstein papers, II C 2. 60 See letter Pechstein to Kraus, 7 October 1933, in PrAdK 1104, f. 119. 61 Handwritten copy of this letter, Pechstein to Staritz, 27 September 1933, in PrAdK 1104, f. 122. 62 Ibid.

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German, and in one’s own country […] as an alleged Jew.’63 Staritz’s reply showed the extent to which aesthetic and racial criteria had fused by this stage. ‘As an old folkish fighter I encountered your name as that of a Jewish artist in Germany in 1912’, Staritz wrote, adding that he probably had read so in some folkish publication.64 His – mistaken – ‘objective statement’ had not been meant as a personal insult, Staritz explained: if given proof of Pechstein’s Aryan descent he would naturally change his views immediately. To avoid similar misconceptions, Staritz suggested Pechstein should deposit the relevant documentation with the Reich Propaganda Ministry and the Ministry for Science, Art and People’s Education.65 The conciliatory nature of the letter only fuelled Pechstein’s indignation further. In the first two letters, he had still concluded with a ‘German greeting’, the right-wing equivalent of the traditional ‘Yours sincerely’.66 Only when he received Staritz’s attempt at an apology, Pechstein dropped his conformist style, aped some of Staritz’s awkward sentences, and wrote in a considerably more challenging tone. Documentation of his ancestry was available at the archive of the Combat League for German Culture since May, Pechstein wrote, which Staritz could have accessed if he had cared to do so before indulging in ‘insulting slander’.67 Staritz should retract his statements in front of the relevant people and authorities, and arrange for confirming evidence to be sent to Pechstein. However, Pechstein was apparently not optimistic that this would happen. The following day he wrote to the Prussian Academy of Arts to complain about both Nolde and Staritz. He asked the Deputy President to intervene personally with the Education Minister to undo the ‘injustice’ once and for all.68 Apart from being an ‘insult’, Staritz’s claim that he was a Jew caused him ‘grave economic damage’.69 There is no indication in any of Pechstein’s letters prior to 1933 that he did indeed consider it an ‘insult’ to be mistaken as a Jew. In fact, in one of his later letters to a friend, he spelt out his feelings about the new distinction between Jews and Aryans:

63

Handwritten copy of this letter, Pechstein to Staritz, 30 September 1933, in PrAdK 1104, f. 123. 64 Handwritten copy of this letter, Staritz to Pechstein, 29 September 1933, in PrAdK 1104, f. 124. 65 Ibid. 66 ‘Mit deutschem Gruß’ rather than ‘Mit freundlichen Grüßen’. 67 Handwritten copy of this letter, Pechstein to Staritz, 6 October 1933, in PrAdK 1104, f. 125. 68 Letter Pechstein to Kraus, 7 October 1933, in PrAdK 1104, f. 120. 69 Ibid. See also his acknowledgement of Kraus’ letter to Nolde, ‘[…] schliesslich will ich ja weiter nichts, wie arbeiten können, und für die Meinen zu sorgen’: letter Pechstein to Kraus, 25 October 1933, in PrAdK 1104, f. 115.

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Were I [a Jew], I also would not mind, for me the decisive thing is the human being as such, and I will not be robbed of my Jewish friends, whom I have recognized as reliable and kind, in contrast to the thoroughly Aryan art dealer who so unscrupulously deceived me […].70

Compared to his Brücke colleague Ernst Ludwig Kirchner, there is a notable absence of anti-Semitism in his writings.71 But in his dealings with Staritz, Pechstein, like so many other Germans, was trying to adapt to the new rules of the regime. Already in March 1933, he told Grosz in a letter that one was now ‘subject to the authorities who wield power over us.’ 72 At that stage, he still commented sarcastically on how people were changing their tunes to please the National Socialists. This was true, for example, of the formerly left-wing sculptor Rudolf Belling: ‘he is performing the most fantastic leaps, like a salmon he is trying again and again to overcome the weir to climb the heights, but until now in vain’; Belling was also among the ‘goodly number of nice little scoundrels’ which Pechstein now encountered in the Berlin Secession.73 However, for Pechstein, too, the pressure to conform increased continuously. In late April, he wrote to his friend, the Nuremberg businessman Julius Langstadt, that he was depressed and having sleepless nights ‘because they are forcing me with all their might to take a step, which I have seen coming for a while but had hoped to be able to avoid […].’74 The step that Pechstein was expected to take was joining the National Socialist cultural association, the Combat League for German Culture, which aimed to become the representative body for all German artists in 1933.75 But Pechstein was extremely reluctant to take the plunge, as he explained to Grosz: ‘For some time now I have been pressurized by people to join the Combat League, but I cannot yet make up my mind and am having difficult times, [I] hope to delay the entire thing at least until autumn.’76 It is not entirely clear what Pechstein’s ultimate course of action actually was, though the fact that the Combat League was in possession 70

Letter Pechstein to Minnich, 13 November 1934, in Stiftung Historische Museen Hamburg, Altonaer Museum für Kunst und Kulturgeschichte, Hamburg (AM), 1987/49.56. 71 As an example of Kirchner’s anti-Semitism, see letter Kirchner to Hansgeorg Knoblauch, 29 December 1930, in Kornfeld, Eberhard (ed.): Ernst Ludwig Kirchner. Briefwechsel mit einem jungen Ehepaar 1927–1937. Elfriede Dümmler und Hansgeorg Knoblauch (Bern, 1989), 123. 72 Letter Pechstein to Grosz, 28 March 1933, in HL, Grosz papers. 73 Ibid. 74 Letter Pechstein to Julius Langstadt, 27 April 1933, in Deutsches Kunstarchiv im Germanischen Nationalmuseum Nürnberg, Pechstein papers, II C 1. 75 Between January and October 1933, membership rose from 6,000 to 38,000: Reinhard Bollmus, Das Amt Rosenberg und seine Gegner: Studien zum Machtkampf im nationalsozialistischen Herrschaftssystem (Stuttgart, 1970), 29. 76 Letter Pechstein to Grosz, 10 May 1933, in HL, Grosz papers.

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of documentation of his Aryan descent since mid-May suggests that he did attempt to join that spring.77 If that was the case, it did not mean that Pechstein had changed his views of the artistic merits of that organization. ‘Small bigwigs have already departed again, but instead old fogeys have reemerged on the scene, aided by the Combat League for German Culture, and they are eagerly trying to satisfy the philistine’s longing for Gartenlaube art’, Pechstein scoffed in a letter to Grosz in December 1933.78 The Combat League for German Culture stood for the antithesis of modernist art in Germany, and thus the idea that Pechstein seriously considered joining it appears bizarre at first sight. But in spring and summer 1933 it was still unclear just what exactly qualified as politically unacceptable art, and some artists, like Kandinsky, suggested one should join the Combat League in an attempt to influence the aesthetic direction of the new regime.79 Indeed, there were indications that modern art could be compatible with National Socialism. One of the most reputable institutions of modern art, the Berlin Secession, was allowed to continue existing after its declaration of conformity. The list of artists included in its spring exhibition reads like a Who’s-Who of Germany’s best-known modernists: Klee, Kirchner, Feininger, Schlemmer, Hofer and Pechstein, among others. The show was heavily contested, ‘it is still unclear who will eventually prevail, the Combat League or the better part’, Schlemmer reported to a friend, but ‘at least [it is] still possible’.80 To pre-empt possible criticism, the exhibition catalogue adopted a new rhetoric, highlighting the extent to which modern art conformed to the spirit of the new political leadership. Its nationalist tone, however, only helped to infuriate the art critic of the Nazi party organ, the Völkischer Beobachter: One believes to be victim of a self-delusion when reading that “elemental Germanness is revealed” in the works of Hofer, Pechstein, Klee, Nay etc. […] Would you believe it! These artists, who have consciously destroyed the value of forms in the German art tradition, who have been proved to consider everything national as a confinement for their international, cosmopolitan spirit, these Expressionists, Cubists and Abstractionists now talk of the scenic conditionality and 77 See Pechstein to Staritz, 6 October 1933, in PrAdK 1104, f. 125. However, even if he did apply, it is unlikely he was admitted: Nolde’s application, for example, was rejected although he was by then a member of the Nazi party. See Hildegard Brenner, ‘Art in the Political Power Struggle, 1933–34’, in Hajo Holborn (ed.), Republic to Reich. The Making of the Nazi Revolution (New York, 1972), 395–432, here 402. 78 Letter Pechstein to Grosz, 22 December 1933, in HL, Grosz papers. The family weekly Gartenlaube (‘Garden Pavillion’) had the reputation of catering to the taste and sentiment of the German petit bourgeoisie. 79 See Christoph Zuschlag, “Entartete Kunst”. Ausstellungsstrategien in Nazi Deutschland (Worms, 1995), 45–49. 80 Letter Schlemmer to Willi Baumeister, 12 June 1933, in Hüneke (ed.), Schlemmer, 275.

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down-to-earth nature of their art [landschaftlicher Bedingtheit und Bodenständigkeit ihrer Kunst], and […] of “the mission of their art to serve an ideal which incorporates the entire Volk”.81

But the dismissive view of the Völkischer Beobachter was not uncontested. Other art critics tried to incorporate Expressionism into a more open and progressive nationalist aesthetics. To counter claims that all modern art was automatically international and non-German, they emphasized the specific ‘Germanness’ implicit in Expressionism. To them, Expressionism was a valuable and ‘clear reflection of the real spirit of the country and the new century’, and the Brücke artists and others were described as ‘carriers of the national revolution’.82 Such sentiments could even be found in Goebbels’s tabloid, Angriff.83 The art critic Paul Ferdinand Schmidt who already in 1911 had described Pechstein’s art as a typically German style now tried to establish Pechstein as a painter of the German countryside, praising his strength, originality and a strong feeling for nature.84 Ironically, the most spirited defence of Expressionist art which followed this line of argument came from the National Socialist Students Union in Berlin, the same organization which in early May 1933 had arranged the infamous burning of books by modern authors.85 Otto Andreas Schreiber, a young artist and Deputy Leader of the NS Student Union’s Berlin branch, proclaimed that the Expressionists were truly ‘national’ artists giving expression to a ‘Nordic’ spirit.86 At various public meetings he condemned the blacklisting of artists and the provincial excesses of the Combat League for German Culture, which he called an ‘organization of cantankerous daubers’. According to Schreiber, the systematic defamation of Expressionist artists was a ‘crime 81

Robert Scholz, in Völkischer Beobachter, 20 June 1933, quoted in Hüneke (ed.), Schlemmer, 389, ftn. 118. 82 Bruno Werner, ‘Der Aufstieg der Kunst’, in Deutsche Allgemeine Zeitung, 12 May 1933, in Wulf, Künste, 79. 83 Rave, Kunstdiktatur, 57. 84 P. F. Schmidt, ‘Über die Expressionisten’, in Die Rheinlande, no.12, December 1911, 427–428; Paul F. Schmidt, ‘Pechstein, der Maler nordostdeutscher Meeresküste’, in Ostdeutsche Monatshefte, no.1, April 1933, 48–52. Cf. Ron Manheim, ‘Max Pechstein – Maler der deutschen Landschaft. Ein Expressionist in der Kunstkritik des Dritten Reiches’, in Magdalena M. Moeller (ed.), Max Pechstein. Sein malerisches Werk (Munich, 1996), 123–128. 85 Anselm Faus, ‘Die Hochschulen und der “undeutsche Geist”. Die Bücherverbrennung am 10. Mai 1933 und ihre Vorgeschichte’, in “Das war ein Vorspiel nur…” Bücherverbrennung Deutschland 1933: Voraussetzung und Folgen (Berlin, 1983), 31–50. 86 For this and the following, see Brenner, ‘Art in the Political Power Struggle’, 400–408. For Otto Andreas Schreiber, see Dieter Scholz, ‘Otto Andreas Schreiber, die ‘Kunst der Nation’ und die Fabrikausstellungen’, in Eugen Blume, Dieter Scholz (eds.), Überbrückt. Ästhetische Moderne und Nationalsozialismus. Kunsthistoriker und Künstler, 1925–1937 (Cologne, 1999), 92–108.

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against German culture’. In late June, the NS Student Union organized a mass rally under the slogan ‘Youth Fights for German Art’. In the overcrowded main auditorium of Berlin’s Humboldt University speakers criticized the current attacks on ‘young revolutionary art’ and warned against the restoration of a ‘Greek-Roman-Wilhelmine academicism’ as planned by ‘suburban painters pretending to be National Socialists’.87 They also announced an exhibition called ‘Thirty German Artists’ to be held in the Gallery Ferdinand Möller, featuring among others Nolde, Barlach, Heckel and Schmidt-Rottluff, though not apparently Pechstein.88 This very public rejection by a National Socialist organization of the folkish faction’s claim to leadership in the arts encouraged others to follow suit. Some days later, Alois Schardt, the new interim Director of the National Gallery and a passionate advocate of Expressionism, gave a public lecture entitled ‘What is German Art?’ in which he praised Barlach, Feininger, Nolde and Marc.89 In charge of the reorganization of the Kronprinzenpalais collection, Schardt tried to turn the museum into a quasisacral institution, not least by painting the walls in silver. He had some of the more controversial paintings removed, but the top floor galleries continued to exhibit paintings by the Brücke, Blaue Reiter and other Expressionists.90 Karl Hofer, one of the dismissed Berlin art professors, published an article in the Deutsche Allgemeine Zeitung arguing against the glorification of kitsch mass art and the narrow-minded condemnation of modern art; in August, Paul Fechter and the art historians Wilhelm Pinder and Max Sauerlandt published articles in defence of ‘German Expressionism’.91 Rumours circulated suggesting that top Nazi officials, too, were in favour of Expressionism. The Education Minister Rust was said to have privately proclaimed Nolde to be the ‘greatest living German painter’. In a speech, Goebbels had declared that Expressionism conveyed the profundity of the German soul; Goebbels had even hung several Nolde originals from the 87 See the reports in Berliner Tageblatt, no.304, 1 July 1933: ‘Bekenntnis zur modernen Kunst’ and Deutsche Allgemeine Zeitung, no.273, 1 July 1933: ‘Jugend kämpft für deutsche Kunst’. 88 Brenner, Kunstpolitik, 70, lists Pechstein, too; but he is not included among the 32 artists mentioned in the review by the Berliner Tageblatt, no. 308, 4 July 1933: ‘30 deutsche Künstler’. 89 Berliner Tageblatt, no. 320, 11 July 1933: ‘Was ist deutsche Kunst?’ Cf. Rave, Kunstdiktatur, 61–62. 90 Rave, Kunstdiktatur, 61. For the fate of the National Gallery in 1933, see Annegret Janda (ed.), Das Schicksal einer Sammlung. Aufbau und Zerstörung der Neuen Abteilung der Nationalgalerie im ehemaligen Kronprinzen-Palais Unter den Linden 1918–1945 (Berlin, 1988), 59–66. 91 Deutsche Allgemeine Zeitung, 13 July 1933: ‘Der Kampf um die Kunst’, reprinted in Andreas Hüneke (ed.), Karl Hofer. Malerei hat eine Zukunft. Briefe, Aufsätze, Reden. Mit 48 Abbildungen (Leipzig, 1991), 193–195, 395.

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National Gallery in his home.92 But the optimism of late spring and early summer soon vanished. In a series of rallies and newspaper editorials, the National Socialist chief ideologue, Alfred Rosenberg, clamped down on the proponents of ‘folkish Expressionism’, proclaiming them to be political rebels. The exhibition in the Möller gallery was initially prevented from opening, and when it eventually did, it was closed only three days later by the Interior Minister, Wilhelm Frick. Schreiber and another leading functionary were expelled from the NS Student Union, and when the exhibition was permitted to reopen about a week later, it was not longer sponsored by the Nazi student organization.93 Schardt was sacked from his position at the National Gallery.94 When Hitler visited Goebbels’s new home and saw the Nolde works, he ordered them to be removed immediately.95 In September, at the Party Rally in Nuremberg, Hitler made it very clear that just like Rosenberg he considered the works of a modern artist as ‘the artistic stammering of a […] charlatan’.96 It was impossible, he declared, that such people could suddenly learn to change and create something better: they were worthless and would remain worthless. His conclusion rang the death-knell to any attempt at selling Expressionism as an inherently German art form: ‘The National Socialist movement and government must not permit […] such incompetents and charlatans suddenly to change sides and enlist under the banner of the new state as if nothing had happened […].’97 Pechstein’s mood in late 1933 was sombre. He had to leave Leba prematurely, as his brother Walter had fallen seriously ill, with an old war wound flaring up again. He died shortly after.98 Many of Pechstein’s friends had by now emigrated, and he felt increasingly lonely: Now, last Saturday, friend Prof. Freundlich, you know him, the tall one, is gone, too, he received a Chair in Istanbul. Friend Finkelstein is currently in England and will move over completely in the New Year. I am feeling more and more dreadful, independent from the attacks which I have to suffer personally […].99 92 93 94 95 96 97 98

Spotts, Hitler, 155; Brenner, ‘Art in the Power Political Struggle’, 403–404, 419. Ibid., 405–407; Wulf, Künste, 50–51. Brenner, ‘Art in the Political Power Struggle’, 408; Janda (ed.), Schicksal einer Sammlung, 66. Albert Speer, Inside the Third Reich (London, 1970), 27. See Berliner Lokal-Anzeiger, 2 September 1933, reprinted in Wulf, Künste, 64–67, here 67. Ibid., 67. Letter Pechstein to Gerbig, 24 October 1933, in SMZ, 2005/19/Au; letter Pechstein to Julius Langstadt, 2 November 1933, in Deutsches Kunstarchiv im Germanischen Nationalmuseum Nürnberg, Pechstein papers, II C 1; for the death, see letter Pechstein to Gertrud, 4 December 1933, in SMZ, 60 K 162 g. 99 Letter Pechstein to Langstadt, 2 November 1933, in Deutsches Kunstarchiv im Germanischen Nationalmuseum Nürnberg, Pechstein papers, II C 1. For Erwin Finlay Freundlich, an astronomer and physicist, and a collaborator of Albert Einstein, see H. von Klüber,

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In Dresden and Breslau, so-called ‘shame exhibitions’ ridiculing modern art had just opened, including works by Pechstein. Not even his relatives understood his plight, he complained to his sister: [They] have no idea what it means that my paintings are now removed from museums, I do not know what to do against it, and can already foresee when I have nothing left. Still, I do not give up the struggle for existence […].100

To his old friend Gerbig, he complained about the continuing denunciations of his Jewishness. ‘Off and on I hear by coincidence about the ever repeated spreading of this false claim, but I am simply powerless, when I cut off one head of this Hydra, ten new ones grow back.’101 In his desperation, he even went to the Reich Propaganda Ministry, where he was told to find additional documentary evidence for his Aryan ancestry.102 It was to no avail. He was now an outsider, he wrote to Grosz in late December, ‘as a Cultural Bolshevik and as a controversial alleged Jew’.103 He had hardly earned any money that year, and despite the greatest efforts he was unable to find more work. His attempt at getting away from the oppressive atmosphere in Berlin by leasing a small country house with a lake, park, fields and pasture in Pomerania had also come to nothing, as the owner suddenly benefited from the Nazi government’s subsidies to the agricultural sector, and no longer needed the extra money. There were other changes, too. Frank, Pechstein’s first son, who in spring had passed his final school examinations, moved in with his father in Berlin, to study law.104 By autumn 1933, Frank had become a candidate for the SA, something about which Pechstein had surprisingly little to say: ‘he is continuously out, there is nothing one can do, he has to struggle through, and I am glad for him, that despite all he does not lose his sense of humour.’105 Remarkably, in his letters to his sister Gertrud who had raised Frank almost single-handedly there was no open criticism of the fact that his son was about to join a Nazi organization. ‘Actually, the uniform suits him,’ Pechstein wrote, ‘but everything costs money.’106 A month later, he described Frank as ‘ever the decent chap he has always been, even if he is now no longer coming to his senses or returning home, at night-time he

100 101 102 103 104 105 106

‘Erwin Finlay Freundlich’, in Astronomische Nachrichten (1965), vol. 288, 281–284, here 283. Letter Pechstein to Gertrud, 4 December 1933, in SMZ, 60 K 162 g. Letter Pechstein to Gerbig, 24 October 1933, in SMZ, 2005/19/Au. Letter Pechstein to Gertrud, 20 November 1933, in SMZ, 60K 162r. Letter Pechstein to Grosz, 22 December 1933, in HL, Grosz papers. Rüxleben, ‘Lebensdaten’, 32; letter Pechstein to Frank, 6 March 1933, in private collection. Letter Pechstein to Gertrud, 4 December 1933, in SMZ, 60 K 162 g. Letter Pechstein to Gertrud, 20 November 1933, in SMZ, 60K 162r.

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returns home always after midnight from his duties […].’107 Pechstein’s youngest son, Mäki, was apparently inspired by his half-brother’s activities and wanted to join the Hitler Youth, but his father did not allow him to do so. ‘[N]ow he is fighting them out of anger’, Pechstein wrote to Grosz, ‘claiming that they are not doing it properly. […] I will […] not let him enter […] until he eventually has to [join].’108 Pechstein also reported on the latest art political developments, and the confrontation between certain members of Goebbels’s Propaganda Ministry and the old guards like Frick and Schultze-Naumburg, who had succeeded in sacking Schardt from the National Gallery. After a prolonged period of closure, the Kronprinzenpalais collection had reopened, and despite a certain amount of purging continued to exhibit selected Expressionist paintings. ‘Touching, this small bravery in miniature format,’ Pechstein commented, ‘he [i.e. the new Director, Eberhard Hanfstaengl] has brought together such a nicely average show of German art that I am really worried, each painted nude has been thrown out, funnily enough only sculptors are still allowed to create human figures without trousers or skirts. One of my smallest paintings is hanging coyly in a corner, so I do not need to feign apparent death as advised by Ede [Plietzsch].’109 The fact that paintings by Pechstein and other Expressionists continued to be on public display was a source of great irritation to some of the hard-line National Socialists, especially Alfred Rosenberg. In January 1934, Rosenberg was eventually awarded his long-sought Party appointment, giving him responsibility for the supervision of National Socialist ideology.110 In his inaugural speech, which was broadcast on all German radio stations, he expressed his claim on influence in the arts through an attack on Expressionism. These ‘artists’ in inverted commas, he proclaimed, lacked an inner concept of beauty; their depictions of ‘bodily atrophy’ [körperliche Verkümmerungen] and of ‘idiocy’ were clear evidence of a deep-rooted disease of the soul.111 Even today, Rosenberg complained, galleries contained 107 Letter Pechstein to Grosz, 22 December 1933, in HL, Grosz papers. 108 Ibid. 109 Ibid. Eduard Plietzsch was an art historian and the only Nazi among Pechstein’s close friends: letters Pechstein to Grosz, 10 May 1933 and 22 December 1933, in HL, Grosz papers; also letter Grosz to Rudolf and Annot Jacobi, 13 July 1937, in Grosz, Briefe, 263. During the war, Plietzsch was part of art looting organization Mühlmann in the occuptied Netherlands securing Dutch Old Masters for Hermann Göring’s art collection, see Petropoulos, Faustian Bargain, 30, 32. 110 Jonathan Petropoulos, ‘A Guide through the Visual Arts Administration of the Third Reich’, in Glenn R. Cuomo (ed.), National Socialist Cultural Policy (New York, 1995), 121–153, here 124. 111 Speech of 22 February 1934, in Dokumente der Deutschen Politik (Berlin, 1939), vol. 2, 269–283, here 278. For the broadcast, see Thilo von Trotha (ed.), Gestaltung der Idee. Reden und Aufsätze von 1933–1935 (Munich, 1936), 23.

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no longer representations of German man, German countryside and German soul, but a cabinet of abnormities of spirit, soul and body. Pechstein was enraged. Along with other artists and sculptors he had been described ‘harmful’ by ‘this A. Rosenberg’, he informed George Grosz.112 He now decided not to put up with this kind of insult any longer. He wrote a letter to the Party authorities, complaining about the injustice done to him. After three months, he eventually received a reply, telling him that Rosenberg had been right, and that ‘I had to vanish as a symbol of the past regime. Well, upon this I wrote back sharply-worded, and now [all] is quiet,’ he told Grosz in autumn 1934.113 Although Pechstein continued to fight back, he suffered severely from the new uncertainty and his dramatic loss of status. ‘Now every random guy believes he can drag one through the mud’, he complained to his friend Gerbig.114 Even fellow artists in Berlin were no longer a source of support. ‘You can imagine’, he wrote to Grosz in April 1934, ‘how our beloved colleagues now reveal themselves with delight as the bastards that they are.’115 But what really troubled him most was his lack of income. He was now a member of the Reich Culture Chamber, set up by the National Socialists in September 1933 in order to exercise control over the cultural realm. A decree ordered that membership was required of all those who participated in the ‘creation, reproduction, intellectual or technical processing, dissemination, preservation, and sale of cultural goods’.116 Although membership meant that Pechstein was now officially allowed to work as an artist, it did neither guarantee an income, nor did it constitute the official approval of his art. He had just been boycotted at an exhibition in Hanover just like the previous autumn at that organized by the Reich Propaganda Ministry in Pomerania. Official commissions were out of reach and, in any case, poorly paid.117 Pechstein made some money by designing newspaper advertisements, but soon that, too, was forbidden except to members of the specialist Association of Commercial Graphic Artists. ‘Of course, the economic situation is bad’, Pechstein informed his Swiss patron Minnich in 112 ‘Early in the year this A. Rosenberg had insulted me, too, together with other painters and sculptors, as harmful. I refused to put up with it, […].’ Letter Pechstein to Grosz, 13 November 1934, in HL, Grosz papers. 113 Ibid. 114 Letter Pechstein to Gerbig, 1 April 1934, in SMZ, 2002/56j/Au. 115 For this and the following, see letter Pechstein to Grosz, 24 April 1934, in HL, Grosz papers. 116 In the Visual Arts this meant that not only painters and graphic artists had to sign up, but also architects, sculptors, designers, copyists, as well as art and antique dealers: Alan E. Steinweis, Art, Ideology and Economics in Nazi Germany. The Reich Chambers of Music, Theatre, and the Visual Arts (Chapel Hill, 1993), 4, 44–45. 117 Letter Pechstein to Grosz, 24 April 1934, in HL, Grosz papers.

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late 1934.118 The family now had to live from his savings, as people stopped buying Pechstein’s art works. He managed to sell some watercolours at an exhibition of his works in his home-town of Zwickau, but made only little money.119 Last year, in 1933, his total earnings had amounted to no more than 1,140 Marks, he wrote to Grosz, ‘this year I have indeed managed to increase turn-over by 7 Mk thus 1,147 Marks. You see,’ he concluded with somewhat black humour, ‘that the times are getting better.’120 However, humour could not hide the fact that the economic situation of the family was deeply worrying; Pechstein’s total earnings amounted to only half of the annual income of an average worker at this time.121 The mixture of financial hardship and increasing pressure to conform did not leave Pechstein unaffected. In order to demonstrate his willingness to be part of the Nazi Volksgemeinschaft he joined the Nazi Air Sports Association as well as the Nationalsozialistische Volkswohlfahrt (NSV) at some point in 1934.122 With 17 million members, the NSV was the main national welfare organization, and many Germans who felt under pressure to demonstrate allegiance to the new regime but did not want to become party members chose to join the NSV, or other Nazi organizations perceived to be less overtly political.123 More troubling evidence of Pechstein’s conformity has survived in the form of a lithograph showing four blacksmiths grouped around an anvil, hammering away at a piece of red-hot iron underneath a big swastika and the words ‘Strength through Joy’. The image’s caption reads ‘The symbol of work’.124 It is not clear when exactly this work was created. It may have originated as part of a competition by the Nazi trade union, the Deutsche Arbeitsfront (DAF) for ‘architects, poets, musicians, painters’ which Pechstein mentioned in a letter to Grosz in 118 Letter Pechstein to Minnich, 13 November 1934, in AM, 1987/49.56. 119 Letter Pechstein to Dr Asche, 2 May 1934, in SMZ, Museumsschriftwechsel. 120 Letter Pechstein to Grosz, 13 November 1934, in HL, Grosz papers. The same amounts are also given in letter Pechstein to Minnich, 13 November 1934, in AM, 1987/49.56. 121 See Statistisches Jahrbuch für das Deutsche Reich 52 (Berlin, 1933), 325. For Pechstein’s worries about his economic situation, see also the letter to his sister Gertrud, 28 December 1934, in SMZ, 60 K 162 u. 122 See letter Pechstein to Prussian Academy of Arts, 12 July 1937, in Brenner, Ende, 147. 123 See Herwart Vorländer, Nationalsozialistische Volkswohlfahrt: Darstellung und Dokumentation einer nationalsozialistischen Organisation (Boppard am Rhein, 1988), 121. 124 See Bildarchiv Preussischer Kulturbesitz, inv. no. 30032391. The caption could refer to either swastika or the hammers wielded by the blacksmiths: in a speech in 1925, Hitler had called the swastika the ‘symbol of work’; in 1934, he announced that ‘The hammer is becoming once again the symbol of the German worker […]’, see Othmar Plöckinger, Geschichte eines Buches: Adolf Hitlers “Mein Kampf ” 1922–1945 (Munich, 2006), 70, and Max Domarus, Hitler: Reden und Proklamationen, 1932–1945: kommentiert von einem deutschen Zeitgenossen (Wiesbaden, 1963), vol. 1, 380.

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Fig. 5.1: Das Symbol der Arbeit, 1934, lithograph, measures unknown. Photograph: bpk, Staatliche Museen zu Berlin.

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April 1934. ‘For all of them together there are [only] 5,000 Marks in prizes available. Basta!’, Pechstein reported to his friend. We are meant to produce a colour design for a mural (mosaic or fresco etc), size 2 metres by 2.50 metres, at least two months work, cost for material alone 100 Mk. 1 April deadline. At the end of March almost 2,000 designs had already been submitted, and just a single one receives a prize of 1,000 Mk!125

Perhaps Pechstein’s design was part of a joint submission with an architect friend to the concurrent competition for a ‘Houses of Work’ which the DAF organized in early 1934 and which attracted nearly a thousand entries, among them modernists like Bruno Taut and Walter Gropius.126 If it was a competition entry it seems to have impressed the organizers: the fact that the attribution to Pechstein is printed in block letters suggests that it was deemed worthy of publication in a journal at the time. The work’s subject matter had clearly been influenced by Pechstein’s forced engagement with his family’s history.127 Stylistically, there was little to distinguish it from Pechstein’s depictions of rural life around Leba throughout the 1920s and early 1930s. However, without knowledge of the exact context of the image’s origins it is difficult to interpret it adequately. But it certainly did not signify a proper ideological commitment to the Nazi regime, as evident in the anti-Nazi sentiments expressed in his letters to Grosz. In the same letter in which Pechstein mentioned the DAF competition, for example, he also described his experience of Berlin’s high society event in early 1934, the Press Ball. De told Grosz with characteristic wit: 125 Letter Pechstein to Grosz, 24 April 1934, in HL, Grosz papers. Deadline and total prize money match the competition ‘Haus der deutschen Arbeit’ organized by the DAF, see advertisement in Bauwelt 24 (1933), no.52, 1418. Unfortunately, we were unable to find any other evidence for such a general competition organized by the DAF. There is, however, evidence that the Nazi leisure organization ‘Strength through Joy’ which formed part of the DAF organized a competition for artistic works dealing in symbolic or monumental form with the topics “Arbeit” zum Aufbau des Staates and Familie als Keimzelle des Staates. A selection of 685 submissions for this competition were displayed in an exhibition in Ulm in February 1935, see Hildegard Sander (ed.), Ulmer Bilderchronik (Ulm, 1988), 103. 126 For the DAF competition Häuser der Arbeit in 1934, see Hans-Georg Soeffner, Dirk Tänzler, Figurative Politik: zur Performanz der Macht in der modernen Gesellschaft (Opladen, 2002), 156; Rainer Stommer, Die inszenierte Volksgemeinschaft: die “Thing-Bewegung” im Dritten Reich (Marburg, 1985), 243–246. 127 It was not the only work on that subject matter. In another letter, from early 1937, Pechstein mentioned that he was currently working on a ‘bigger work: smithy’, see letter Pechstein to the Director of the Zwickau Kreismuseum, Dr von Arps-Anbert, 6 February 1937, in SMZ, Museumsschriftwechsel. If ever completed this work has apparently not survived; and we consider it unlikely that that work would have been reproduced in a journal at a time when Pechstein was defamed as a ‘degenerate artist’ in the 1937 Munich exhibition.

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[…] it was a small uniform do with glittering toys. There was the one and other Germania in hair shirt heaving through the de-Jewified rooms [entjüdelten Räume]. Off and on, the dresses were so tight that some of the females looked like nice rubber toy animals, and then, the diadems! […] Danse macabre! The only funny impression was left by Josef [Goebbels], keep smiling! who was surrounded by swarms of autograph hunters.128

Already in April 1934 Pechstein was looking forward to leaving Berlin for another extended stay in Pomerania. He would have liked to have gone back to Rowe, as in 1932, but it was cheaper for the family to stay with Marta’s parents in Leba.129 Pechstein’s only worry about Leba was that Schmidt-Rottluff would disturb the tranquillity of his summer refuge, as he had done previously. ‘He did once keep crossing my path in Nidden’, Pechstein complained to Grosz, ‘and now he is doing the same in Leba, at least he appeared there, greeting me maliciously, last summer.’130 Relations between the two former Brücke colleagues had apparently not improved in the meantime. As it happened, Schmidt-Rottluff turned up in Leba again in 1934, and he continued to do so throughout the 1930s.131 Despite that, Pechstein spent a blissful summer, moving between Leba and the more isolated Koser Lake nearby. In his post-war memoirs, he dated his discovery of the Koser Lake to 1933, and linked it to the political developments of that year. I did not feel safe in the small fishing village [Leba], neither, from the brown spies who were snooping around everywhere, and hence I went further into the countryside, and hid away like a wounded animal in a small hut at the wonderfully big Koser Lake, where I could now pull myself together, far away from everything.132

In none of his letters of the time did Pechstein mention snooping Nazi informers in Leba. But then he also never commented on the fact that the 128 Letter Pechstein to Grosz, 24 April 1934, in HL, Grosz papers. The original reads: ‘eine kleine Uniformangelegenheit mit glitzerndem Spielzeug. Manche Germania im härenen Gewande wuchtete durch die entjüdelten Räume. Hin und wieder saßen die Kleider sehr stramm, manche weiblichen Wesen sahen aus wie die netten Gummitiere, na, und Diademe! Grossartig auch der olle gute Duttmann im schlichten Stahlhelmrock mit all den zum Halse heraus hängenden Geglitzer von Wilhelms Gnaden, ein eigenartig gerupfter Marabu. Wir setzten uns, und liessen Alles an uns vorbeipassieren. Danse macabre! Den einzig lustigen Eindruck machte Josef, keep smiling! den Rudel von Autogrammjägern umlagerten.’ 129 See letter Pechstein to Gerbig, 1 April 1934, in SMZ, 2002/56j/Au; and letter Pechstein to Grosz, 24 April 1934, in HL, Grosz papers. 130 Ibid. 131 Erika von Hornstein, So blau ist der Himmel. Meine Erinnerungen an Karl Schmidt-Rottluff und Carl Hofer (Berlin, 1999), 21, 26, 31, 42. 132 Pechstein, Erinnerungen, 114.

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region around Leba had provided the National Socialists with one of the highest rates of electoral support anywhere in Germany, around sixty per cent at the last parliamentary elections in March 1933.133 A letter to his son Frank from July 1933 suggests that it was neither the National Socialist presence in Leba, nor that of Schmidt-Rottluff, which drove Pechstein to the Koser Lake. Instead, it was the arrival of the holidaymaking crowds which Pechstein attempted to avoid.134 It was the continuation of his romantic search for a place of arcadian isolation, where he could live and work in harmony with nature largely untouched by civilization. It was like 1909, when he had sought out the remote Nidden, or in 1914, when he had ventured into the South Pacific. During the high season of summer 1934, he spent four weeks outside of Leba, ‘all alone in a hunting hut, cooked for myself, saw nobody […]’, he enthused in a letter to Grosz. A piece of unspoilt nature, in which only animals have their rights. At nighttime I heard them, when falling asleep in my straw hut, saw foxes, badgers, wild boars, the buck startled, but stood still at the unusual sight of a human. A jungle in which the axe has not sounded yet. Of course many preying birds, too, cranes, and also a pair of black swans, which flew over me every morning and evening. For that, I gladly tolerated the army of mosquitoes and their bites. My beard grew, and I looked like a donkey with thin grey hair, otherwise [like] a red-skin.135

The Koser Lake, too, fulfilled all of Pechstein’s escapist expectations. The lake was more than an hour away from the village, surrounded all around by a forest, with the exception of one small meadow. I fished from the lake my daily food, and apart from that so much that I could barter with the peasants in the village to get fat and potatoes, salt and bread. I was completely alone, without any kind of company. My son [Mäki], too, had stayed behind in my quarters in Leba. […] I began to work. In the earliest hours of the morning, before sunrise I was already on the lake with my boat, sketched the sunrise, and would then fish.136

In this account of his time at the Koser Lake from his memoirs, Pechstein brushed over the fact that while he was relishing his arcadian seclusion in the middle of Mother Nature, his son Mäki had been taken seriously ill, bed-ridden with pneumonia and pleurisy for over six weeks.137 It was Pech133 Jürgen Falter, Thomas Lindenberger, Siegfried Schumann (eds.), Wahlen und Abstimmungen in der Weimarer Republik. Materialien zum Wahlverhalten 1919–1933 (Munich, 1986), 75. 134 Letter Pechstein to Frank, 1 July 1933, in private collection. 135 Letter Pechstein to Grosz, 13 November 1934, in HL, Grosz papers. 136 Pechstein, Erinnerungen, 114–115. 137 Letter Pechstein to Grosz, 13 November 1934, in HL, Grosz papers. For his son’s illness, see also letter Pechstein to Gertrud, 3 July 1934, in SMZ, 60K/162r.

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stein’s wife, Marta, who single-handedly cared for him. Also, as evident from his letter to Grosz of that year, Pechstein’s summer life was not half as remote from civilization as he made out in his memoirs. He had needed the permission of the owner of the lake for fishing, and spent his time on its banks with two acquaintances from the nearby town of Stolp. The lake’s owner even had a small cottage built for them to provide comfort and cover from rain. In any case, Pechstein enjoyed himself enormously, dividing his time between fishing and painting. His letter to Grosz showed him in high spirits, thoroughly pleased with his summer’s achievements: Despite the fact that I did not spent much time fishing this summer, in total up to 20 days, I managed to fish 69 trouts […], 45 pikes […], 34 Bass […], the other fish I don’t even count. Then I worked on about forty watercolours, among them some big ones, about 60x70 [cm], more than twenty large drawings and about ten paintings. […] In short, I am entirely fulfilled by this summer, and far from Berlin.138

He stayed until very late autumn, only returning after the first snow had fallen.139 Back in Berlin, misery caught up with him again. Increasingly desperate, he sent a letter to Dr Minnich, his Swiss patron. He apologized for the long silence, ‘but I needed time to come to terms with everything. Especially with the fact that I have lost many of my friends here, with whom I can now communicate only in writing.’140 Many of his colleagues had emigrated to the United States and they urged him to do the same, he wrote. ‘[B]ut I cannot tear myself from the Pomeranian countryside and its simple folks, to stay and work up there at the water and in the forests is like a fountain of youth for me […].’141 His inability to leave behind the beauty of the North German countryside was a recurrent theme in many of his letters to Grosz, too. ‘Yes! This is the Germany which I love fanatically, and that is why I could cry,’ he ended a section describing his experience of nature in Pomerania.142 Pechstein found the idea of emigration difficult to envisage, he confessed to his friend in December 1933, ‘you know […] 138 Ibid. Schmidt-Rottluff, too, enjoyed his summer in Leba: ‘[…] it was a wonderful summer, & Berlin was far away from us.’ Letter Schmidt-Rottluff to Hornstein, 28 October 1934, in Hornstein, Erinnerungen, 23. 139 Pechstein, Erinnerungen, 115; see also letter Pechstein to Grosz, 13 November 1934, in HL, Grosz papers. 140 Letter Pechstein to Minnich, 13 November 1934, in AM, 1987/49.56. 141 Ibid. 142 Letter Pechstein to Grosz, 10 May 1933, in HL, Grosz papers. ‘Fanatic’ was a superlative regularly used by Nazi propaganda. For the steady corruption of the German language by ‘Nazi speak’ see Victor Klemperer, The Language of the Third Reich. A Philologist’s Notebook (London, 2000), particularly 57–61.

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I am – damn it! – too attached to this country.’143 Both the Pomeranian countryside and his family provided him with a refuge from the unpleasant realities of the Nazi dictatorship. This retreat into privacy is particularly evident in a letter written to a friend just after Christmas 1934: Christmas has passed once more, [and] as always we have spent it quietly at home, and […] I am sitting in the studio, [I] have spread around me all the letters which I need to answer, and with the buzzing stove I have – after a long time – once more the happy feeling of being my own master. These few quiet, withdrawn days are my most precious present, an oasis in the current desert of uncivilization.144

Even in these precious hours of private happiness, though, there were bitter reminders of what he had lost. Most of the Christmas greetings from friends carried foreign post stamps, ‘most of my friends are far away, one is prone to becoming a little wistful’, Pechstein commented on his increasing sense of isolation.145 In his memoirs, written in 1946, Pechstein stated that he received two teaching offers from abroad after 1933, one from the Art Academy in Istanbul, the other from Mexico, and that both times the Nazis prevented his acceptance.146 Unfortunately, no evidence of these offers has survived, but both are plausible. Istanbul University came to offer temporary positions to nearly 200 German scholars (most of them Jewish), among them friends and acquaintes of Pechstein like the physicist Freundlich, the architect Bruno Taut, and the sculpturer Rudolf Belling.147 Mexico, too, actively wooed German emigrants. The last director of the Bauhaus, the architect Hannes Mayer, was invited by the Mexican President Lázaro Cárdenas to head the newly-found Institute for Urbanism and City-Planning at the Polytechnical University in Mexico-City in 1939.148 In early 1947, after completion of his memoirs, Pechstein described the approach of the Mexican government to the art historian Paul Westheim, who had himself emigrated to Mexico in 1941. In his letter, Pechstein mentioned that he had been invited to the 143 Letter Pechstein to Grosz, 22 December 1933, in HL, Grosz papers. For his unwillingness to leave behind the Pomeranian countryside, see also letter to Grosz, 13 November 1934, in HL, Grosz papers. 144 Letter Pechstein to Robert Langstadt, 26 December 1934, in Deutsches Kunstarchiv im Germanischen Nationalmuseum Nürnberg, Pechstein papers, II C 2. 145 Ibid. 146 Pechstein, Erinnerungen, 115. Pechstein uses the name Constantinople here. 147 Burcu Dogramaci, Kulturtransfer und nationale Identität: deutschsprachige Architekten, Stadtplaner und Bildhauer in der Türkei nach 1927 (Berlin, 2008). 148 Karoline Noack, ‘Die “Werkstatt der populären Grafik” in Mexiko – die Bauhaus reist nach Amerika’, in Sonja Neef (ed.), An Bord der Bauhaus: Zur Heimatlosigkeit der Moderne (Bielefeld, 2009), 91–113, here 92.

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Mexican embassy in Berlin and been presented with photos, and recalled his hope that the country would come to serve as a replacement for the lost paradise of Palau, ‘but these brown swines would not let me go’.149 In another letter from January 1947 he mentioned a Berufung (i.e. call to a professorial chair) from Mexico and stated that ‘the damned Nazis would not let me go, they threatened to lay hands on my family’.150 It is worth noting that both these testimonies of having wanted to leave Germany were addressed at friends and colleagues who had themselves had to emigrate. Pechstein may well have played to his audience here, and simply wanted to emphasize his own suffering under the Nazis. The letters which he wrote around 1933 and 1934 make it clear that Pechstein did not seriously consider emigration, and that he wished for no more than simply being left in peace by the new regime. He also hoped that eventually his work would be recognized even by the National Socialists. ‘It is true that one’s work, and therefore one’s economic existence, is suspended in mid-air,’ he wrote to his old friend Gerbig, ‘but I still have, at least at the moment, the hope that the spirit will once more prevail.’151 The official art policy was still in some disarray, ‘a great confusion, caused by the ambitions of three leaders to occupy one and the same ministerial chair.’152 He was full of contempt about a recent exhibition, entitled ‘The Selection’, which the art critic of the Völkischer Beobachter had organized in the venue of the former Secession. The exhibition, opened by Rosenberg with a ‘pompous speech […] enriched with the usual bitching’, was probably the first, according to Pechstein, to be organized by an art critic who then had it reviewed in his own paper.153 But at this stage, there were still other players, too, like Otto Schreiber, the organizer of the 1933 pro-Expressionist show ‘Thirty German Artists’. Schreiber was now in charge of the newly found art magazine, Kunst der Nation, in which he promoted his concept of ‘Nordic Expressionism’ specifically and modern art more generally. However, Pechstein was under the impression that Schreiber ‘hated’ him, though he claimed he did not know why. 149 Letter Pechstein to Paul Westheim, 2 February 1947, in Akademie der Künste (AdK), Berlin, Archiv Bildende Kunst: Paul Westheim Archiv, 98, unpaginated. The original reads ‘jedoch liessen mich diese braunen Schweine nicht los.’ 150 Letter Pechstein to Rudolf and Annot Jacobi, 25 January 1947, in AdK, Archiv Bildende Kunst: Annot Archiv, 23, unpaginated. The original reads: ‘die verfluchten Nazis liessen mich nicht gehen, wollten Hand an meine Familie legen.’ 151 Letter Pechstein to Gerbig, 14 November 1934, in SMZ, 2005/20/Au. 152 Ibid. Though not named here, Pechstein was probably refering to the conflict between the NS party ideologue, Alfred Rosenberg, the Minister of Education minister, Bernhard Rust, and the Minister for Propaganda, Joseph Goebbels, who all claimed responsibility in the area of culture and the fine arts. 153 Ibid.

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Perhaps because he is influenced by my former Brücke colleagues, who over time have developed into my enemies, I do not know if I have already told you that Nolde did not hesitate to denounce me as an alleged Jew. Perhaps that is his thanks for the fact […] that I pushed through the exhibition [of his works] in the Academy, against the resistance of all the others.154

Nolde’s ingratitude was symptomatic, Pechstein claimed. A considerable number of those younger artists who were now ‘stoning’ him he had once ‘pushed through’, for example Radziwill ‘who is now causing havoc in Düsseldorf.’155 Pechstein struggled to understand why he should suddenly deserve such kind of treatment. He complained to Gerbig: I have now been maltreated generously enough, slandered, denounced as a Jew, […] the Reich executive of the NSDAP has even given me in writing that I am considered a symbol of the past regime, and therefore have to vanish.156

This final accusation he found particularly galling, as ‘I have never been a beneficiary of any one party or [political] system, and never intend to be!’157 Although he was officially considered ‘a symbol of the past regime’, Pechstein’s paintings did not simply vanish from public view. In fact, works by Pechstein continued to be on show throughout the 1930s. Until its closure in late 1936, the National Gallery’s modern art section in the Kronprinzenpalais exhibited many Expressionist paintings on its top floor, among them Pechstein’s Horse Market in Moritzburg from 1910 which had been bought in 1928.158 In spring 1934, his more recent works were displayed in two shows in Berlin. At the Prussian Academy of Arts’ Spring Exhibition in April and May, he participated with three works, one of which – An Early Summer Day of 1930 – was even reproduced in the exhibition catalogue.159 Simultaneously, the Gallery von der Heyde devoted a solo exhibition to Pechstein, showing over forty of the works produced during his

154 Ibid. 155 Ibid. For Radziwill, see James Van Dyke, Franz Radziwill and the Contradictions of German Art History, 1919–1945 (Ann Arbor, 2010). 156 Ibid. 157 Letter Pechstein to Minnich, 13 November 1934, in AM, 1987/49.56. 158 Acquisition date of Horse Market in National Galerie (ed.), Verzeichnis der Gemälde und Bildwerke im Kronprinzenpalais (Berlin, 1933), no. 1645. The other Pechstein painting on display was River Scene from 1923: Janda (ed.), Schicksal einer Sammlung, 74. See 1923/19, in Aya Soika, Max Pechstein. Das Werkverzeichnis der Ölgemälde (Munich, 2010), vol. 2, 306. 159 See 1930/9, in Soika, Werkverzeichnis, vol. 2, 417. See also press reviews quoted in Manheim, ‘Maler’, 125–126.

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Fig. 5.2: Trawlers for repair (1933/7), oil on canvas, 80 × 100 cm, private collection.

stay in Leba over the previous summer.160 The exhibition predominantly showed seaside and countryside scenes, like the oil painting Trawlers for Repair of 1933. Like the other works in the exhibition, this painting was held in a realistic style, carefully composed, the use of expressive colours controlled and subdued. There was little in the works on display to remind viewers of the broad-brushed energy characteristic of Pechstein’s Brücke years. Still, Pechstein’s now-tainted reputation meant that the exhibition was ignored by the daily press in Berlin aware of the official disdain of Expressionism. Only the provincial Magdeburger Zeitung commented on it and polemicized against the unjustified depiction of Pechstein ‘as a typical representative of an un-German art of decay’: anyone who had followed the artist’s development over the years, the critic argued, could recognize that Pechstein was ‘a German through and through’.161 160 The exhibition ran from 8 to 30 April 1934. For the works on display see the list of exhibitions in Soika, Werkverzeichnis, vol. 2, 85. See also Manheim, ‘Maler’, 125. 161 Ernst von Niebelschütz, ‘Berliner Kunstchronik’, in Magdeburger Zeitung, 27 April 1934, quoted in Manheim, ‘Maler’, 125.

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The resonance among visitors must have been similarly positive because the Gallery von der Heyde organized another Pechstein solo exhibition in Berlin two years later, in 1936, this time showing over forty watercolours and drawings.162 Again, the works on display had all been produced during Pechstein’s stays in Pomerania over the previous summers. This time, the Deutsche Allgemeine Zeitung in Berlin published a long review full of praise. ‘Perhaps nobody is better qualified than Max Pechstein to help an audience towards a healthy, intensive viewing experience – ’, the article began, but added a crucial caveat, ‘at least in such form, which he has proven in his creations of the last few years.’163 The critic applauded Pechstein’s ‘enviable freshness and animal joy about nature’, found his works ‘thrilling’, and argued that he had an important role to play to combat today’s paucity in artistic understanding: ‘The works of recent times are “close to the people” [“volkstümlich” ] in the best meaning of the word and could therefore contribute significantly to a more intensive artistic education of seeing.’164 The review concluded with an apologetic defence of Pechstein. Pechstein, the critic pointed out, had obviously ‘overcome the tropical and ‘the Bengal colouring’ of his South Sea epoch’; he had become ‘more simple than ever, and more expressive, and what once had been experiment and impatient seeking should now no longer be held against him.’ Another review, by Pechstein’s old friend Paul Fechter, was equally positive and endeavoured to promote him as a painter of the German East, a topic which chimed with right-wing and Nazi dreams of territorial expansion: The duty to wrest pictures from the East is much more difficult than that in the West […]. Pechstein accepts the struggle with the problems of colour of the pure world of the East – in many of these pictures with forceful and pure success.165

These attempts to re-establish Pechstein as the painter of the East German countryside were in vain. Most Germans who encountered Pechstein’s art in the 1930s did so under the label ‘degenerate’. The Heyde exhibitions in Berlin attracted only a few visitors, whilst tens of thousands of spectators went to the travelling exhibition of the Dresden show ‘Degenerate Art’, which between 1934 and 1936 toured eight German cities.166 Even when it 162 29 March–22 April 1936, printed list of watercolours in Günter Krüger papers, Berlin. 163 W. Fiedler, ‘Der Weg zu sich selbst. Max Pechstein in der Galerie v. d. Heyde’, in Deutsche Allgemeine Zeitung, 9 April 1936. 164 Ibid. 165 Paul Fechter, ‘Malerei des Ostens. Aquarelle Pechsteins bei von der Heyde’, in Deutsche Zukunft, 5 April 1936. 166 In Hagen, Nuremberg and Dortmund alone, the show attracted nearly 50,000 visitors: Zuschlag, ‘Vorläufer’, 101–102. The Dresden travelling exhibition was the crucial precursor to the large ‘Degenerate Art’ show in Munich in 1937, see below.

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sometimes seemed as if there was a place for Pechstein’s pre–1933 works in official Germany, the illusion was soon destroyed. In 1935, a commission appointed by the Reich Propaganda Ministry chose works by Pechstein, Heckel, Schmidt-Rottluff and Nolde as part of an exhibition ‘Berlin Art’ held at the New State Gallery in Munich. But when the paintings arrived in Munich, the Bavarian Interior Minister intervened and censored the exhibition.167 In March 1935, the Gestapo raided the Berlin auction house Max Perl just prior to a big sale of contemporary art, and confiscated sixty works. The press release described these as ‘pornography’ by ‘prominent artists of the passed [political] system’.168 Among them was Pechstein’s oil painting Fisherman’s Family of 1922, which the Gestapo handed over to the National Gallery for safe-keeping. In summer 1936, the Nazi regime temporarily relaxed cultural control for the duration of the Olympic Games in Germany, in order to give foreign visitors a false impression of tolerance. The Berlin gallery Ferdinand Möller used the opportunity to organize the show ‘Thirty German Painters’, which included works by Barlach, Feininger and Schmidt-Rottluff.169 The German Artists’ Association attempted something similar by staging a large exhibition entitled ‘German Art in the Olympia Year 1936’ in the rooms of the Hamburg Art Society. It was an impressive show, including works by Pechstein and the other Brücke artists, as well as numerous other modernists.170 But while the authorities had reluctantly tolerated the Berlin show, they clamped down on the Hamburg exhibition: ten days after its opening it was forcibly closed, the German Artists’ Association was eliminated, and the Hamburg Art Society was expelled from the Reich Culture Chamber.171 Just what was permissible and what was not was not always easy to tell. Even in the Pomeranian province, where Pechstein was known and much appreciated as a painter of the local landscape, the question of his official artistic status continued to haunt him. In May 1936, some of Pechstein’s paintings were included in the ‘East Pomeranian Art Exhibition’ in the small town of Stolp, near Leba. This greatly incensed one Adelheid von Livonius, a self-proclaimed ‘ancestral researcher’ and obviously a great believer in Nazi racial ideology. She sent a letter to the head of the Reich

167 Manheim, ‘Maler’, 126; Wulf, Künste, 343. 168 Wulf, Künste, 342–343; Janda (ed.), Schicksal einer Sammlung, 69. 169 See Eberhard Roters, Galerie Ferdinand Möller: die Geschichte einer Galerie für Moderne Kunst in Deutschland 1917–1956 (Berlin, 1984), 123–141. 170 Among them Barlach, Beckmann, Dix, Feininger, Hofer, Jawlensky, Rohlfs and Schlemmer, Hüneke (ed.), Schlemmer, 393. Cf. Volker Detlef Heydorn, Maler in Hamburg, 1886–1945 (Hamburg, 1974), 174. 171 Zuschlag, Ausstellungsstrategien, 50.

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Culture Chamber, Hans Hinkel, condemning Pechstein’s inclusion in the exhibition. Von Livonius complained: Pechstein, the staunch Communist is after all a definite cultural bolshevik of the November Republic, and he and his paintings were already denounced in Schultze-Naumburg’s [book] Fight for Art as deterrent examples […]. But word seems not yet to have spread to the NS Cultural Community in Stolp. In Berlin, the ‘boom’ for Pechstein and his likes is finally terminated, and now […] his yellow or purple figures with monstrous heads and elephantiasis are being praised as racially conscious and species-specific [arteigen] for the German East! […] Perhaps you are able to tell these gentlemen in Stolp in no uncertain terms if in the Third Reich one should display Jewish or Jewish-influenced scrawlings or German art.172

Hinkel agreed that Pechstein was a ‘cultural bolshevik’ and instructed his officials to reprimand the functionaries in Stolp ‘who are apparently still considering Pechstein’s paintings as “German Art”.’173 But the organizers in Stolp refused to accept that they had done anything wrong. They accused Frau von Livonius of slander and argued that Pechstein was still a member of the Reich Culture Chamber, and that therefore they had every right to exhibit his work.174 They were supported in this argument by the President of the Reich Chamber of Fine Arts.175 Letters were exchanged throughout the remainder of the year, but it was not until November that the conflict was resolved. Although Frau von Livonius was right in her condemnation of Pechstein’s early works, the Reich Chamber declared, Pechstein had become one of its members on the basis of recent ‘impeccable’ works, and the exhibition organizers had therefore acted correctly.176 For Pechstein, the lack of clarity in Nazi aesthetic policy was a mixed blessing. While it allowed him to continue to exhibit his recent works, the official condemnation of ‘modern art’ led to a climate of anxiety in which private collectors refrained from buying from certain artists. ‘Unfortunately, my economic situation at the moment is the worst imaginable,’ Pechstein informed his father at the end of 1935, ‘because the defamation continues, and therefore my sales have shrunk to such an extent that I can no longer afford the expenditure for everyday life, and can [already] foresee when my savings will have been used up.’177 In 1935, he earned a 172 Letter von Livonius to Hinkel, 16 May 1936, in BArch, ex-BDC files, Pechstein file, f. 538–539. 173 Ibid, letter Hinkel to Walter Stang, 22 May 1936, f. 536. 174 Ibid, letter Straube to Reich Chamber of Fine Arts, 23 June 1936, f. 564. 175 Ibid, letter Griebert to Regional Leader of Reich Chamber of Fine Arts in Pomerania, 29 July 1936, f. 600. 176 Ibid, letter Straube to NS Kulturgemeinde Ortsverband Stolp, 4 November 1936, f. 524. 177 Letter Pechstein to his father, 21 November 1935, in SMZ, 60 K 162 w.

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meagre 646 Marks from sales, just over half of what he had made in the previous two years.178 The following year, he was unfortunate in that even his few works sold at the exhibition at the Gallery von der Heyde earned him nothing. ‘I do not even get the few pennies from the sales of this spring,’ he complained to his sister.179 ‘The art dealer simply does not get in touch, and always pretends not to be there when I try to speak to him. Truly wonderful.’180 The financial pressure was such that he wrote to the Reich Chamber of Fine Arts, to secure a reduction of his monthly membership fee, from 5 Marks down to 2.30 Marks.181 Every penny counted, and thus when in 1936 Pechstein missed the deadline for supplying the annual Zwickau exhibition with works, he deplored the lost sales opportunity. ‘I regret very much that I thus lose the possibility of selling, because at the moment I could – to be frank – use the means for continuing to work very well. Pity!’182 The family managed to survive by spending a large part of the year with Marta’s parents in Leba, from early June until the end of October.183 At the end of 1936, his letters sound increasingly desperate: My God, why should it be that according to the will of others I am no longer allowed to secure my existence, and thereby that of my dependants, through the work of my hands? These continuous defamations discourage any well-disposed buyers to acquire something from me, and I am racking my brain over what else I could do, to get hold of the necessary money, my savings dwindle incredibly quickly.184

By early 1937 he had almost given up sending his works to exhibitions in an attempt to save unnecessary expenditure; ‘why should I throw money out of the window?’ he explained to his sister.185 Von der Heyde had still not paid him, apparently because of problems of solvency.186 Their poverty was such that Pechstein nearly kept Marta from visiting her ill mother in Leba over Easter.187 Yet when his sister Gertrud who looked after their father in Zwickau suggested that she could get clothes from the Winterhilfs178 179 180 181 182 183 184 185 186 187

Ibid. Letter Pechstein to Gertrud, 11 November 1936, in SMZ, 60K y 2 (1). Ibid. Letters Reich Chamber of Fine Arts to Pechstein, 21 July 1936 and 6 August 1936, in BArch, ex-BDC files, Pechstein file, ff. 596, 582. Letter Pechstein to Dr Asche, 5 June 1936, in SMZ, Museumsschriftwechsel. See location given in letter Pechstein to Dr Asche, 5 June 1936, and in his letter to Gertrud, 21 November 1936, in SMZ, 60K 162 z. Letter Pechstein to Gertrud, 21 November 1936, in SMZ, 60K 162 z. Letter Pechstein to his father and Gertrud, 24 March 1937, in SMZ, 60K 162 aa. ‘[…] leider zahlt auch v.d. Heide [sic] nicht, der Mittelstand geht so langsam vor die Hunde.’ Ibid. Ibid. Apparently, Marta’s mother died at some point later that year, see Marta’s postscript in Pechstein’s letter to Gertrud, July 1938, in SMZ 60K 162 b.

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werk, the Nazi charity organization, Pechstein was strictly against such a step: ‘Marta will look around and certainly find something for Father, because I do not want you to wear these things (of the Third Reich). It is a pity, but we should try not to kowtow!’188 Pechstein was not only troubled by his lack of income, but also increasingly by his health. In early 1936, he suffered from pneumonia for nearly two months; ‘it started with difficulty in breathing and strong stablike pain on the right side, then after three weeks took over on the left, too, affecting also the heart,’ he described his ordeal to Gerbig.189 ‘For quite some time I lay unconscious, partly from fever, partly because of the morphine.’190 Apart from his pneumonia, he also suffered from a heart embolism. The serious illness considerably weakened him. ‘I long so much for my work, but for the time being I am still quite shaky, not only on the legs, but also my brain is still refusing to tolerate more lengthy demands.’191 It took Pechstein all summer to recover, and his stay in Pomerania was much less productive than usual.192 In autumn, when the family left Leba for Berlin, he was suffering from a severe bronchitis, and complained about ‘stubborn coughing attacks and pains in the chest’ to his sister.193 By late November, the bronchitis had got no better, which he blamed on Berlin, where ‘one has to breathe in too much dirt.’194 The heart was still troubling him, too.195 This was not the end of his grievances. ‘Even more annoying is the fact that I need glasses for working at close distance, and I still cannot get used to them,’ he complained.196 Apart from his financial difficulties and his health problems, he also had to deal with the increasing radicalization of Nazi racial and art policies. Upon his return from Leba in autumn 1936, he had to engage with a ‘huge amount of trouble’.197 The Reich Culture Chamber requested ever more detailed documentary evidence for the Aryan descent of its members. Even after Pechstein had submitted a whole bundle of documents, the Chamber kept insisting on very specific information, and demanded 188 Letter Pechstein to his father, 2 January 1936, in SMZ, 60 K 162 x. The original reads: ‘Martha wird nachsehen, und für Vater sicher noch etwas finden, denn ich will nicht, dass Ihr mit diesen Sachen (des 3. Reiches) geht! Es ist ein Jammer, aber wir wollen doch versuchen nicht zu Kreuze zu kriechen!’ 189 Letter Pechstein to Gerbig, 3 April 1936, in SMZ, 2002/56k/Au. 190 Ibid. 191 Ibid. 192 Letter Pechstein to Dr von Arps-Anbert, 6 February 1937, in SMZ, 2011/12/Au. 193 Letter Pechstein to Gertrud, 11 November 1936, in SMZ, 60K y2(1). 194 Letter Pechstein to Gertrud, 21 November 1936, in SMZ, 60K 162 z. 195 Ibid. See also the reference to his illness of 1936 in his letter to Gerbig, 27 January 1944, in SMZ, 2002/56p/Au. 196 Letter Pechstein to Gertrud, 21 November 1936, in SMZ, 60K 162 z. 197 Letter Pechstein to Gertrud, 11 November 1936, in SMZ, 60K y2(1).

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his own, his father’s, and his grandfather’s certificate of christening.198 His sister Gertrud sent him the relevant documents, for which he was very grateful, though he suspected it would not be the end of the denunciations: [N]ow these gentlemen will finally have to believe me that I am not Jewish. However, there remains a tricky point, Grandfather Richter from Breitenbrunn is an illegitimate child, father unknown, as his mother claimed to have been raped on the forest road. I do not care, but it will suit those gentlemen.199

He also suffered from ‘a serious defamation’ in the influential Nazi weekly, Schwarze Korps to which he had to respond, as he explained to Gertrud, ‘because all these accusations prevent the [future] progress of Frank and Little Mackie.’200 The Nazi paper had published a vigorous attack on avant-garde artists, and had highlighted Pechstein as one of its main political opponents and an artistic failure: ‘For us he is […] one of the instigators of the red art revolt, the founder of that November Group which polluted exhibitions with its garbage.’201 The very public dismissal of his art deeply upset Pechstein, and he suffered from the increasingly oppressive atmosphere. In early 1937, he was able to get away from Berlin for a fortnight. His friends, the painter Otto Kyser and the architect Max Taut paid him a two-week holiday in Davos, Switzerland, which he thoroughly enjoyed. He wrote to his sister. Finally my chest is clear. […] I benefited greatly from the clean air, [and] I also met and spoke to happy and content people, which improved my spirits a lot. After all, these continuous denunciations and condemnations take away all energy.202

He could not know at this stage that the attacks were only the early chapters in the radicalization of the persecution of modern art, which later that year was to culminate in the large-scale ‘Degenerate Art’ exhibition in Munich. The first indications that 1937 would not be a year like any other came in spring, with the publication of Wolfgang Willrich’s book, The Cleansing of the Temple of Art.203 Willrich was himself a traditional painter and deeply resentful of avant-garde art which he denigrated most viciously 198 Ibid. See also letters Reich Chamber of Fine Arts to Pechstein, 28 September 1936 and 15 October 1936, letter Pechstein to Reich Chamber, 20 October 1936, and reply of 27 October 1936, in BArch, ex-BDC files, Pechstein file, ff. 584, 586, 568, 590. 199 Letter Pechstein to Gertrud, 21 November 1936, in SMZ, 60K 162 z. 200 Letter Pechstein to Gertrud, 11 November 1936, in SMZ, 60K y2 (1). 201 Das Schwarze Korps, no.40, 1 October 1936: ‘Die Gegenseite hatte das Wort – und wir antworten!’, 6. 202 Letter Pechstein to Gertrud, 24 March 1937, in SMZ, 60K 162aa. 203 Schuster, ‘München – das Verhängnis einer Kunststadt’, in Schuster (ed.), ‘Kunststadt’ München, 12–36, here 31.

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in his book. Shortly after its publication, the Ministry for Propaganda approached Willrich and asked him to gather material for an exhibition in which the art from before 1933 was to be compared unfavourably with art of the present day.204 Willrich accepted, particularly keen to expose artists like Schmidt-Rottluff, Nolde and Pechstein, which he considered the leaders of the ‘cultural bolshevik system’.205 This developed into a major exhibition project, and on 30 June 1937, Goebbels ordered Adolf Ziegler, the President of the Chamber of Fine Arts within the Reich Culture Chambers to prepare a massive exhibition under the title ‘Degenerate Art’.206 Already in May, Nazi officials began to target Pechstein as a representative of modernism. At the Prussian Academy of Arts’ Spring Exhibition the Reich Education Ministry heavily criticized the fact that Pechstein was still member of the Academy’s Exhibition Selection Committee.207 At first, Alexander Amersdorffer, the Academy’s Secretary, did his best to defend Pechstein against the attacks. In a letter to the Reich Education Ministry he pointed to Pechstein’s solo exhibition of 1924, which had featured ‘some quite good works’.208 That exhibition had shown, according to Amersdorffer, ‘that there is in Pechstein definitively an academic trait, and that it was only under the influence of his stay in the South Sea that he had become a bit wild.’209 In various meetings with Ministry officials, Amersdorffer argued that Pechstein was not exerting a decisive influence on the composition of the Academy’s exhibitions, and that indeed he had voluntarily declined to submit his own works for the recent Spring Exhibition.210 The Ministry, however, insisted that Pechstein’s name be removed from the list of Selection Committee members named in the exhibition material.211 Eventually, Amersdorffer gave in, hoping this would prevent future attacks.212 But the anti-modernist movement had already gathered too much momentum. In the first week of July, a commission including Ziegler and Willrich toured German museums to select artworks for display at the ‘Degenerate Art’ exhibition in Munich, which was to open within the next three weeks. The exhibition organizers realized that a good many of the 204 See Willrich’s report of 30 April 1937, reprinted in Wulf, Künste, 351–354; Lüttichau, ‘Die Ausstellung “Entartete Kunst”, München 1937’, 95–96. 205 Wulf, Künste, 353. 206 Lüttichau, ‘Die Ausstellung “Entartete Kunst”, München 1937’, 92. 207 See letter Amersdorffer, the Academy’s Secretary, to Schwarz, 19 May 1937, quoted in Brenner, Ende, 142. 208 Ibid. 209 Ibid. 210 Letter Amersdorffer to Arthur Kampf, 14 June 1937, in Brenner, Ende, 143. 211 Letter von Staa to President of the Prussian Academy of Arts, 2 June 1937, in PrAdK, file 1105, f. 22, and quoted in Brenner, Ende, 142. 212 Letter Amersdorffer to Kampf, 14 June 1937, in Brenner, Ende, 143.

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Fig. 5.3: Collage from Wolfgang Willrich’s book Cleansing of the Temple of Art with Pechstein’s Sitting Girl (1910/27), Munich 1937, fig. 6, private collection.

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artists whom they wanted to expose through their show were still members of Germany’s most prestigious art institution, the Prussian Academy of Arts, and lobbied for their removal. As a consequence, the Reich Education Ministry ordered the Academy to expel nine members, among them Mies van der Rohe, Barlach, Nolde, Kirchner and Pechstein.213 The letter of the Academy asking him for his resignation – in his ‘own interest’ – reached Pechstein in Leba. It came as a complete surprise, and he tried his best to argue against the pending expulsion. He wrote back: Why I should be looking after my own interest by refusing an honour which I have received in the past […] I do not understand. I am not aware of any dishonourable wrong-doing on my part which would justify the withdrawal of my membership. Neither personally nor politically. I and my wife are proven Full-Aryans, my eldest son is in the SA, my youngest son already in his second year of the Youth Folk, and apart from that I am myself since 1934 a member of the NSV and of the NS Air Sports Association.214 In 1915, after Japanese captivity I worked my way back, coming from America via England to Europe, as a coal stoker, from then on [I] stood at the front in the West, was in the most advanced trenches as an infantryman, and later trained as an observer. After the collapse [I] made myself available to fight against Spartacus. I was never a member of any political party! I would never have believed that I would receive the fatherland’s gratitude in such a form! 215

After thus trying to demonstrate his own nationalism and his compatibility with the new regime, Pechstein then refused to resign, again adopting a line of argument which he thought would appeal to the National Socialist Weltanschauung: The pride in my ancestors, an old house of blacksmiths and armourers, prevents me from taking a step with which I would deny myself a part of my honour. As I am also a member of the Reich Culture Chamber, I do not even know what economic consequences such a resignation would entail, because after all I am and remain responsible for looking after my own and my family’s existence. I therefore await the official notification, stating the reasons which force you to expel me as a member of the Academy.216

213 See Amersdorffer note of 8 and 10 July 1937, in Brenner, Ende, 143–144. 214 The Jungvolk was the junior division of the Hitler Youth. The NSV (Nationalsozialistische Volkswohlfahrt) was the main national welfare organization, and had some 17 million members. Some Germans who felt under pressure to demonstrate allegiance to the new regime but did not want to become party members chose to join the NSV, the second-largest Nazi organization, instead. 215 Letter Pechstein to Prussian Academy of Arts, 12 July 1937, in Brenner, Ende, 147. 216 Letter Pechstein to Prussian Academy of Arts, 12 July 1937, in Brenner, Ende, 147.

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Fig. 5.4: Illustrated letter to Mica Plietzsch with Mäki in Hitler Youth uniform, 19 February 1937, private collection.

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The ‘Degenerate Art’ exhibition in Munich opened on 19 July 1937, with Pechstein still a member of the Prussian Academy of Arts.217 In his opening speech, Ziegler, the President of the Reich Chamber of Fine Arts, explained that the pictures on display were just a fraction of those bought in the past by museums with tax-payers’ money and exhibited as if art: ‘You see around us these monstrous products of lunacy, of impudence, of inability, and of degeneracy. All that this show presents evokes in us shock and disgust.’218 Press photos showed the left part of Pechstein’s Palau triptych from 1917, Couple on Palau, taken out of a museum in Breslau, on the wall behind Ziegler. In total, nine rooms were filled with art works produced mainly by German modernists since the turn of the century. The exhibition organizers had done their best to present the works in a demeaning way: the walls had been plastered with paintings, with little space between them, apparently without order, and sometimes without a frame. Some paintings had captions underneath, stating how many thousand marks museums had paid for them, without the visitor being told that these had been acquired during the hyper-inflation of the early 1920s. Various derogatory headings and commentaries added to the sense of chaos and improvisation. Pechstein’s Fisherman’s Family of 1922, which had been confiscated by the Gestapo in 1936, hangs in a section with the title ‘German Peasants – as seen in Yiddish’.219 Underneath it, the curators had stuck a paper to the wall, with a quote from Walther Heymann’s Pechstein biography of 1916 that described Pechstein as ‘the Giotto of our time’. It was meant to ridicule the Expressionist’s style, which was so at odds with the wider public’s expectation of naturalist depictions of nature. On the same wall, the section ‘Mocking the German Woman’ included Pechstein’s portrait of his first wife Lotte, of 1911, which had previously hung in Berlin’s National Gallery. On the opposite side of the room, Pechstein’s Couple on Palau formed part of a section carrying the slogan ‘The Negroe becomes […] the racial ideal of a degenerate art’. Of the over 500 works on display in the exhibition, a total of fifteen were by Pechstein. In the meantime, the Prussian Academy of Arts had asked Arthur Kampf, a colleague of Pechstein, to help convince him to resign voluntarily from the Academy. Again, Pechstein refused to accept that he was unworthy of the Academy’s membership. ‘For me the cancellation of my membership […]is not an expulsion! but the finishing-off of myself,’ he explained to

217 Mario-Andreas von Lüttichau, ‘“Deutsche Kunst” und “Entartete Kunst”: Die Münchener Ausstellungen 1937’, in Schuster (ed.), Kunststadt München, 83–118; and Lüttichau, ‘Die Ausstellung “Entartete Kunst”, München 1937. Eine Rekonstruktion’, in Barron (ed.), “Entartete Kunst”, 45–82. 218 Quoted in Lüttichau, ‘Die Ausstellung “Entartete Kunst”, München 1937’, 45. 219 Ibid, 56.

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Fig. 5.5: Adolf Ziegler at the opening of the “Degenerate Art” exhibition. Behind him the exhibition wall with Pechstein’s Couple (1917/58).

Kampf.220 He also condemned the choice of people who had been selected to become new members, like the Nazi sculptor, Thorak, ‘who was married to a Volljüdin (Jewish woman), fathered a child with her, then immediately after the coup divorced her, disowning wife and child!’ Compared to this kind of dishonourable behaviour, Pechstein felt completely innocent of any wrong-doing. He even thought that his inclusion in the ‘Degenerate Art’ exhibition was based on something of a misunderstanding. [T]hat one of my works is being shown in Munich […] concerns me little, as it is a work from Palau, a former German colony in the South Sea which the Japanese seized! If one day, German demands for German colonies have been granted, it will be allowed once more, yes, perhaps even desired, that there are artists who like me, out of pure idealism, without any state support, under their own steam and at their own risk, seek out these realms, and try to paint these. Not from a

220 Letter Pechstein to Kampf, 22 July 1937, in Brenner, Ende, 149.

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Fig. 5.6: Pechstein’s painting Fishermen (1922/59), on display in the “Degenerate Art” exhibition in Munich 1937, under the heading: “German peasants – as seen in Yiddish”.

European standpoint, because it is after all not in Europe, or in Germany, where colonies are located! 221

The Prussian Academy forwarded this letter to the Reich Education Ministry, noting that Pechstein could not be persuaded in any way to declare his resignation himself.222 Two weeks later, the Education Minister, Bernhard Rust, issued a decree expelling Pechstein from the Academy.223 The fact that Pechstein thought that only one of his paintings had been included in the ‘Degenerate Art’ exhibition shows how little information trickled through to his summer retreat in Pomerania. At the end of August, his family returned to Berlin, because Mäki had to go back to school. Pechstein stayed on, living in his small hut at the Koser Lake, and yet again relished the isolation. ‘For the last fourteen days I have been living on my own in the hut, know nothing of events and am missing nothing either, unless tobacco is finished, or rum […],’ he wrote to his friend, the art historian

221 Ibid. 222 Letter Amersdorffer to Schwarz, 26 July 1937, in Brenner, Ende, 149. 223 Letter Rust to President of Prussian Academy of Arts, 6 September 1937, in Brenner, Ende, 150.

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Eduard Plietzsch.224 He stayed there alone until mid-October, and then returned to Berlin.225 It was only now that he came to appreciate the full public impact of the official persecution of modernist art. The ‘Degenerate Art’ exhibition in Munich had become a major crowd-puller, and when it closed at the end of November 1937, over two million visitors had seen the show.226 The National Socialists had succeeded in politicizing modern art. He wrote to a friend: My heart aches when I remember that I once had to think solely about my art, [when] I was not forced to scrutinize my life along political lines, and I long for a time, when art and culture will be allowed once more to live according to their own rules.227

‘Here in Berlin, the spitefulness by which one is surrounded ever so often, and particularly now, paralyses one’s enthusiasm.’ The lack of friends, health problems and financial worries also contributed to his misery.228 The inclusion of Pechstein in the high-profile ‘Degenerate Art’ exhibition and his removal from the Prussian Academy meant that he was now largely seen as a forbidden artist, and art dealers shied away from exhibiting his works. He did, however, remain a member of the Reich Chamber of Fine Arts and was therefore at least theoretically allowed to exhibit and sell his works. It was through the Reich Chamber that he vented his grievances in early 1938. My attempts to exhibit and sell my works are being met with refusal by art dealers,’ he complained, ‘who explain this with reference to a decree by the Reich Chamber of Fine Arts. As I am still a member […], I politely request a personal meeting, or a written explanation of what I am allowed to do to support myself and my family with the labour of my hands.229

He was given the reply that there existed no such decree banning him, but that indeed the Gallery von der Heyde had been advised to avoid a solo exhibition of his works, whilst there were no objections to the occasional 224 Letter Pechstein to Plietzsch, September 1937, in Stiftung Historische Museen Hamburg, Altonaer Museum für Kunst und Kulturgeschichte, Hamburg (AM), 1964/425. 225 See letter Pechstein to Robert Langstadt, 3 October 1937, in Deutsches Kunstarchiv im Germanischen Nationalmuseum Nürnberg, Pechstein papers, II C 2. 226 Zuschlag, ‘Vorläufer’, 104. 227 Copy of letter Pechstein to Dr Fritz Schneider, 27 November 1937, in Zentralarchiv der Staatlichen Museen Berlin, Preußischer Kulturbesitz, Pechstein file. 228 See letter Pechstein to Robert Langstadt, 9 December 1937, in Deutsches Kunstarchiv im Germanischen Nationalmuseum Nürnberg, Pechstein papers, II C 2; letter Pechstein to Gerbig, 30 December 1937, in SMZ, 2002/56l/Au. 229 Letter Pechstein to Berlin Regional Leader of Reich Chamber of Fine Arts, 28 January 1938, in BArch, ex-BDC files, Pechstein file, f. 530.

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inclusion of some of his smaller paintings, as long as they were approved in advance by the Reich Chamber of Fine Arts.230 Pechstein felt he had reached a dead end. ‘My situation is very rotten,’ he complained to Gerbig in April 1938, ‘I have still not received the permission by the [Reich Chamber of Fine Art’s] Regional Leader for the planned exhibition, so I do not know what on earth I should do, if it continues like this, I will be forced to emigrate. Mind you, the thought is dreadful.’231 That same spring, the ‘Degenerate Art’ exhibition began its propagandistic tour around Germany in Berlin, and attracted another half a million spectators.232 It seemed unlikely that the Reich Culture Chamber would allow Pechstein to exhibit his works in Berlin, when at the same time elsewhere in the city his work was presented as a symbol of a decadent by-gone era. The atmosphere created by the ‘Degenerate Art’ exhibition meant that even art dealers who knew they were allowed to exhibit individual pieces of work by Pechstein refrained from doing so for fear of recriminations.233 Pechstein’s financial situation thus became more and more desperate. He even considered it worth boycotting the monthly membership fee for the Reich Culture Chamber of 2.30 Marks. Not surprisingly, he was soon reprimanded and threatened with a penalty should he continue to fail paying his dues. ‘It is exactly this institution which prevents me from exhibiting and thereby from selling, in this freest country of the world,’ he complained to his sister in summer 1938.234 Pechstein’s sarcastic reference to the regime’s propagandistic slogan of Germany as the ‘freest country of the world’ is one of only a few rare references to political developments in his letters of 1938. It is surprising that there were not more of these, because 1938 was a year which saw the Nazi regime’s increasing radicalization and preparation for war, with momentous events such as the Anschluss, the invasion of Austria, the crisis over Czechoslovakia, the Munich Agreement and the occupation and integration of significant parts of Bohemia into the German Reich.235 Partly, Pechstein’s silence can be explained by lack of information, especially during his extended summer stay at the Koser Lake in the Pomeranian countryside, where he eagerly sought isolation. Living alone in his hut, not 230 231 232 233

Ibid, the draft reply is handwritten on Pechstein’s letter. Letter Pechstein to Gerbig, 1 April 1938, in SMZ, 2005/22/Au. Zuschlag, ‘Vorläufer’, 104. See the comment in the letter Lederer to President of Reich Chamber of Fine Arts, 31 January 1939, explaining the non-realization of an exhibition including works by Pechstein in the gallery von der Heyde in March 1938 with the gallerist’s ‘nachträglich entstandener Bedenken’, in BArch, ex-BDC files, Pechstein file, f. 560. 234 Letter Pechstein to Gertrud, 24 June 1938, in SMZ, 60K 162c. 235 Jeremy Noakes, G. Pridham (eds.), Nazism 1919–1945. Volume 3: Foreign Policy, War and Racial Extermination (Exeter, 1995), 699–724.

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reading anything, and hardly seeing anyone, he was able to close out the wider world, as he told his friend Gerbig: ‘Thus I avoided all the distress of the then pending threat of war […].’236 Moreover, Pechstein was not overly interested in politics in general. Politics were only mentioned in his correspondence when they affected him more or less directly. The anti-Jewish pogrom of 9 November 1938, the so-called ‘Reichskristallnacht’, was a case in point. It happened just at the time when paintings by Pechstein were being shown in an exhibition in New York. For some time, he had tried to send works over to the United States and Great Britain to make some money.237 After the arson attacks on synagogues and the destruction of Jewish property throughout Germany, Pechstein was worried that he would suffer from the subsequent anti-German backlash abroad. ‘I have currently an exhibition in New York,’ he wrote to his sister, ‘though nothing has been sold yet, and hopefully it will not get boycotted as a countermeasure to the smashing of shop-windows here.’238 This was not an unjustified concern. Already in 1933 anti-Jewish measures in Germany had led to the premature cancellation of a travelling exhibition of Pechstein’s works in the United States. His comment on ‘the smashing of shop-windows’ was not the only reference to the persecution of Jews in this period. At the end of 1938, he commented in a letter to his friend Gerbig that the past year had ‘towards its end brought some shameful events for us Germans, and

236 Letter Pechstein to Gerbig, 29 December 1938, in private collection, quoted in Wolfgang Knop, Adé 20. Jahrhundert: illustrierte Handschriften beleuchten Licht- und Schattenseiten; ausgewählte Beispiele aus einer privaten Schriftensammlung (Suhl, 2000), 75. 237 See letter Pechstein to Frank, 8 June 1936, in private collection; and letter Pechstein to Gertrud, 11 November 1936, in SMZ, 60K 162aa. In his memoirs Pechstein stated that he was grateful to the Director of the Carnegie Institute in Pittsburgh, Homer SaintGaudens, who after 1933 managed to get works of Pechstein out of Germany which were then exhibited (at the Carnegie Institute’s Annual ‘International Art’ exhibitions) ‘and found buyers’, and that he was able ‘through all those years to safeguard my own and my family’s existence through [art] sales abroad’, see Pechstein, Erinnerungen, 115. However, only for one of the paintings exhibited at Pittsburg – Calla (Soika 1931/2), exhibited at the Carnegie Institute in 1933 – there is documentation of a subsequent art sale (to the Toledo Museum of Art, Toledo, Ohio, in 1934). Those works exhibited in 1935 (Soika 1930/23), 1936 (Soika 1933/10) and 1939 (Soika 1928/8) are lost, and it is more likely that they were returned to the artist and destroyed in the course of the Second World War than that they were sold in the USA where they would have been likely to reappear in the subsequent seven decades. Those works exhibited in 1937 (Soika 1927/1) and 1938 (Soika 1937/2) were returned to him after the exhibition and survived the war. Pechstein did, however, manage to ship watercolours over to the USA to Karl Lilienfeld, owner of the gallery van Diemen in New York, who sold some of them. In 1941, with the US entry into the war, 38 remaining watercolours were confiscated as ‘enemy property’ and auctioned in March 1947, see letter Pechstein to Mrs Dieterle, 30 October 1948, copy in SMB-ZA, Pechstein documentation. 238 Letter Pechstein to Gertrud, 21 November 1938, in SMZ, 60K 162af.

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it is increasingly difficult to keep one’s nerves.’239 But this was just in the way of introductory remarks. The same letter went on to described what Pechstein considered his greatest worries at that moment: ‘Much more important for me would be to achieve a revocation of the ban on exhibitions by the Reich Chamber of Fine Arts. Because my works are piling up, and without exhibiting I will not find a new circle of art lovers to replace the one that partly emigrated, and partly passed away.’240 Plagued by the inability to sell his works and the resulting lack of money, Pechstein’s foremost concern remained his own financial situation. All his letters from this time revolved around this one issue. There were important family developments, too, which preoccupied Pechstein in 1938. During his summer stay in Leba news reached him from his sister Gertrud that his father, aged 81, had died. Pechstein mourned the loss, and his reply to Gertrud revealed both great affection and respect for his father. Pechstein wrote: He was a man who always thought of himself only after having looked after everyone else first, and who never shied from trouble and renunciation in order to care for his family […]. Truly, one can grant him totally and completely the honorary title which [nowadays] is so often used as a cliché: he was a worker! 241

Now that Gertrud no longer needed to look after their father, Pechstein offered her to move in with his family in Berlin, but she preferred to stay in Zwickau. Over the following months, Pechstein and his sister corresponded regularly, primarily because she needed his support in the ensuing inheritance dispute between herself and several of her nephews and nieces over the house in which she was living. Pechstein was only too happy to help ‘shut up the hungry pack of Walter’s off-springs’.242 He deplored the fact that he could not provide Gertrud with greater financial assistance, to help her renovate the house in Zwickau. He was not alone in failing to make money, he informed her in November 1938, ‘I am now hearing from all colleagues – at least from those who do not receive commissions from the [Nazi] Party or the Reichswehr – the same complaint, that no-one is buying.’243 While Pechstein was genuinely supportive of his sister Gertrud, his relationship with his son Frank soured towards the end of the year. Frank, 239 Letter Pechstein to Gerbig, 29 December 1938, in private collection. 240 Ibid. 241 The original reads: ‘ihm kann man dem so oft phrasenhaft gebrauchten Ehrentitel: er war ein Arbeiter! voll und ganz zugestehn.’ Letter Pechstein to Gertrud, July 1938, in SMZ, 60K 162b. 242 Letter Pechstein to Gertrud, 7 November 1938, in SMZ, 60K 162 ab. 243 Ibid.

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who in 1937 had started a job in the German military, had started going out with a girl called Ulla in summer 1938, of whom his father disapproved.244 In summer 1938, Ulla became pregnant, and a marriage was hastily arranged. This resulted in a considerable degree of acrimonious dispute between father and son, and in the seven months after the wedding Frank chose not to visit his father’s family.245 In March 1939, however, his grandson Alexander was born, which soothed relations to some extent. In a letter to his friend Gerbig in which he announced that he had become grandfather, Pechstein made no references to the past dispute, and preferred to emphasize instead his duties as head of an ever increasing family. ‘Of course, it is not easy for him [Frank], and now rather than buying myself a new suit I have to help him out with money.’246 But in his letters to Gertrud, it becomes clear that his disapproval of Frank’s new wife had only intensified by the additional financial burden. In one letter listing all his recent trouble, Pechstein complained particularly about her chronic ill-health. In addition, there was the story with Frank’s wife, who is ill, and will probably remain ill forever, she had to go into hospital, and the child was put into a clinic, of course Marta had to jump into the breach, and I [had to help out] with money, just like when they moved Marta had to do all the work together with Frank. I had to tell Frank that I consider it outrageous that he married a woman who had always been ill. The least one can expect of young people is that they are healthy, otherwise they should not marry, especially after being on one’s high horse, and then only manage to live off the support of others, who are lumbered themselves with enough worries of their own.247

There are echoes in this passage of National Socialist propaganda on eugenics and racial health, something that came out even stronger in a letter in late December 1939, in which Pechstein told Gertrud of Frank’s and his wife’s visit on Christmas Day. My God, of course one pities them, and now there is no use crying over spilled milk. To make matters worse, the small one seems to have inherited her bad blood, because they tell us that he needs to be operated on tonsillitis.248

244 For the new job, and a reference to the military, see letter Pechstein to Gertrud, 24 March 1937, in SMZ, 60K 162aa. 245 See letters Pechstein to Gertrud, 6 March 1939 and 8 May 1939, in SMZ, 60K 162ad and 60K 162ae. 246 Letter Pechstein to Gerbig, 12 June 1939, in SMZ, 2002/56m/Au. 247 Letter Pechstein to Gertrud, 22 December 1939, in SMZ, 60K 162 ag. 248 Letter Pechstein to Gertrud, 26 December 1939, in SMZ, 60K 162ah.

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This obsession with health, however, did not last long, and little Alexander soon conquered his heart. In following years Pechstein would boast about his ‘cheerful grandchild’ who was giving him ‘great pleasure’.249 Ironically, Pechstein’s own health problems contributed to his bad mood in this period. An inflammation of the middle ear plagued him in winter 1938/39.250 In early March 1939, he was able to return to his studio, and enjoyed the therapeutic effects of working. ‘[A]s long as I am working in the studio, I forget all trouble and worries […]. Gradually one is getting used to everything,’ he wrote to his sister, ‘but when one is not healthy, one’s nerves fail easily, and one gets impatient with oneself and one’s surroundings.’251 Psychologically, he also continued to suffer from the label ‘degenerate’ which the touring exhibition of the Munich show spread throughout Germany. In early 1939, it opened in Stettin, and received wide coverage in the provincial Pomeranian press, much to Pechstein’s chagrin.252 He wrote to a friend in Rome: You are probably aware that because of the ‘Degenerate Art’ exhibition which over the last two years has toured all major provincial towns in Germany I have lost all standing, which after all is linked to one’s feeling of self-respect. It was particularly bitter for me to see that […] in Pomerania, where I work, even the simple peasants and fishermen were impressed by the evil things they could read about us in the newspapers. […] I did not care so much about the various acquaintances here in Berlin who would look away when we happened to meet, or that some esteemed colleagues were smirking gleefully, as I did about the people up in Pomerania whose simple soul had [thus] been shaken.253

But compared with the previous two years, it looked as if 1939 would see a considerable improvement. In spring, a new patron, one Dr. Fritz Schneider, invited Pechstein to spend a week in the Harz Mountains where he produced several watercolours.254 More importantly, Pechstein’s insistent pleas for permission for an exhibition finally yielded the desired result: after double-checking with the President of the Reich Chamber of Fine Arts, Heinz Lederer, the Regional Leader of the Chamber’s Berlin branch 249 Letter Pechstein to Gerbig, 6 January 1941, in SMZ, 2002/56n/Au; letter Pechstein to Gerbig, 27 January 1944, in SMZ, 2002/56p/Au. 250 Letter Pechstein to Eduard Plietzsch, 31 December 1938, copy in Günter Krüger papers, Berlin. 251 Letter Pechstein to Gertrud, 6 March 1939, in SMZ, 60K 162ad. 252 E.g. Stettiner General-Anzeiger/Ostsee-Zeitung, no.11, 11 January 1939: ‘Blick in eine Giftküche’, Pommersche Zeitung, 15 January 1939: ‘In 4 Tagen über 6000 Besucher in der “Entarteten Kunst”’, reproduced in Zuschlag, Ausstellungsstrategien, figures 92 and 93. . 253 Letter Pechstein to friend in Rome, probably late May 1939, quoted in Rüxleben, ‘Lebensdaten’, 36. 254 Letter Pechstein to Gertrud, 8 May 1939, in SMZ, 60K 162ae.

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gave the go-ahead for a solo exhibition of Pechstein’s works.255 ‘Please keep your fingers crossed,’ Pechstein asked his sister, ‘that everything goes fine, because in this more or less strained atmosphere [even] a small incident can suffice, and one has again attracted the pack’s attention.’256 The ‘strained atmosphere’ Pechstein was referring to was caused by foreign political developments. German troops had just invaded Czechoslovakia, and Nazi demands on Poland heightened the possibility that war would soon break out.257 The fact that Pechstein had managed to convince the Reich Culture Chamber to allow an exhibition was quite a feat in its own right. After all, the ‘Degenerate Art’ exhibition was still touring Germany, and Pechstein was the first of the defamed artists who was officially permitted to exhibit again. However, he was not allowed to choose the works for display himself. The Regional Leader of the Reich Chamber of Fine Arts, who carried the responsibility for the exhibition, visited Pechstein on three occasions, to select works ‘along the lines of what was possible’, as he told Pechstein.258 Pechstein did not actually see the selection until after the exhibition’s opening in mid May 1939.259 A total of some 70 paintings, watercolours and drawings were displayed in the Gallery von der Heyde in Berlin, where Pechstein had last exhibited in 1936. The works mostly stemmed from Pechstein’s summer stays in Pomerania over the previous few years, though the oldest painting, Summer Evening, was from as early as 1927.260 They were all countryside scenes or still lifes, like the painting Autumn at the Lake from 1937, lacking depictions of human figures.261 It was a big exhibition, and triggered rave reviews amongst those critics who had not really approved of the ‘Degenerate Art’ campaign against modern art. The conservative Deutsche Allgemeine Zeitung praised Pechstein’s ‘rich fantasy of colour’, and his friend Paul Fechter described the works as ‘the most mature and richest that Pechstein has yet produced’ in the journal

255 Letter Pechstein to Berlin Regional Leader of Reich Chamber of Fine Arts, 23 January 1938, letter Lederer to Lebrecht, 31 January 1939, letter Lebrecht to Lederer, 9 February 1939, in BArch, ex-BDC files, Pechstein file, f. 522, 560, 634. 256 Letter Pechstein to Gertrud, 8 May 1939, in SMZ, 60K 162ae. 257 See Ian Kershaw, Hitler. 1936–1945. Nemesis (London, 2000), 168–180. 258 Letter Pechstein to Gerbig, 12 June 1939, in SMZ, 2002/56m/Au. See also the marginal note on a telephone conversation with Pechstein, letter Lebrecht to Lederer, 9 February 1939, in BArch, ex-BDC files, Pechstein file, f. 634. 259 Letter Pechstein to friend in Rome, undated (ca. May 1939), quoted in Rüxleben, ‘Lebensdaten’, 36. 260 H. Pattenhausen, ‘Kraft der Farben. Max Pechstein Ausstellung in der Galerie von der Heyde’, in Deutsche Allgemeine Zeitung, 17 May 1939. 261 See the list of exhibitions in Soika, Werkverzeichnis, vol. 2, 89. Only the sketches included several representations of Pomeranian fishermen, woodcutters, and peasants.

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Fig. 5.7: Autumn at the Lake (1937/2), oil on canvas, 80 × 103.5 cm, private collection.

Deutsche Zukunft.262 Other critics used the exhibition to criticize more or less directly the decline in artistic creativity which the Third Reich had triggered. Not generally known for its support of modern art, even the right-wing daily, the Berliner Börsen-Zeitung, heaped praise on the exhibition, calling it ‘the victory of artistic substance over today’s aberration of an increasingly trivial trend [in art].’263 Pechstein relished the praise of these critics, and repeatedly expressed his relief about what he considered to be his successful artistic rehabilitation after the shaming through the ‘Degenerate Art’ exhibition. I am sending you two reviews […],’ he wrote to Gerbig, ‘as you will read, they are positive, and the same was true of other press commentaries, only the [NS] party organs pass over the exhibition in silence, just as the other newspapers do

262 H. Pattenhausen, ‘Kraft der Farben. Max Pechstein Ausstellung in der Galerie von der Heyde’, in Deutsche Allgemeine Zeitung, 17 May 1939, and Paul Fechter, ‘Max Pechstein’, in Deutsche Zukunft, no. 24, 11 June 1939. 263 Otto Pieper, ‘Jürgen Klein und Max Pechstein. In der Galerie von der Heyde’, in Berliner Börsenzeitung, 24 May 1939, quoted in Manheim, ‘Maler’, 126–127.

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not mention the [previous] defamation. Well, that is alright by me, as long as I can finally breathe some air again.264

It was not just the critics’ acclaim that Pechstein enjoyed. ‘Visitor numbers were very good, and the works were warmly received, especially by the young, you will be able to imagine that the old party painters were not enthusiastic, after they thought to have buried me for good.’265 Pechstein also took great pride in the fact that he was the first of the so-called ‘degenerate’ artists to re-enter the public sphere. ‘That I was the first to break through the wall and was allowed to exhibit again was a matter of personal courage,’ he told a friend, ‘in that I continuously [emphasized] my right to work, and that by that [work] I had to support myself and my family!’266 In reality, Pechstein had been able to exhibit not so much because of his continuous courageous resistance, but because of his emphasis on his conformity with the regime’s aesthetic policy. In his letter to the Reich Chamber of Fine Arts, which finally won over the functionaries there, he had distanced himself quite explicitly from his earlier paintings. ‘In 1936 I had my last exhibition which was received favourably in the German press, also in Völkischer Beobachter,’ he pointed out.267 ‘It should not be overlooked that I have long since overcome the things from my youthful ‘Storm and Stress’ period, and already since 1923 my development has shown a marked transformation, which the gentlemen Hansen and Willrich [responsible for the ‘Degenerate Art’ exhibition] have unfairly chosen not to acknowledge […].’268 The Berlin Regional Leader of the Reich Chamber of Fine Arts agreed with this sentiment, commenting on this letter that to his knowledge ‘the recent works by Pechstein provide no reasons for fundamental reservations.’269 Pechstein was of course justified in pointing to a change in his style in the early 1920s; the art critic in the Deutsche Allgemeine Zeitung, too, commented on the fact that there was fundamentally little difference between the paintings on display in the exhibition, despite the extensive period they spanned, from 1927 to 1939.270 By allowing Pechstein to exhibit again in 1939, the Reich Chamber’s art functionaries acknowledged 264 Letter Pechstein to Gerbig, 12 June 1939, in SMZ, 2002/56m/Au. 265 Ibid. 266 Letter Pechstein to friend in Rome, undated but probably late May 1939, quoted in Rüxleben, ‘Lebensdaten’, 36. 267 Letter Pechstein to Regional Leader of Reich Chamber of Fine Arts in Berlin, 23 January 1939, in BArch, ex-BDC, Pechstein file, f. 522. We were unable to find the review which Pechstein mentions. 268 Ibid. 269 Letter Lederer to Lebrecht, 31 January 1939, in BArch, ex-BDC files, Pechstein file, f. 560. 270 H. Pattenhausen, ‘Kraft der Farben’, in Deutsche Allgemeine Zeitung, 17 May 1939.

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the fact that ever since the early 1920s, Pechstein’s style had become increasingly conventional, to an extent that made his post-Expressionist output palatable even to the National Socialist regime. One visitor of the exhibition – the art historian Guido Dinkraeve, an admirer of Kirchner’s works – was actually quite appalled by what he saw. ‘[I]ncredible kitsch in form, [and] especially in colour, as well as thematically – it is therefore not surprising that these things were allowed; they accord exactly to the taste of the day – Hintertreppensentimentalitäten [i.e. dime novel sentimentalities]’, he wrote in a letter to the collector Carl Hagemann.271 In fact, Pechstein was able to sell several works at the exhibition, so that he could afford a family holiday in Nidden in East Prussia, his prewar summer retreat which he had not been able to visit for the last twenty years. Pechstein found Nidden much changed compared to the time of his first visit. It had now turned into a holiday resort, teeming with tourists. Pechstein abhorred the masses, and started painting at 3 in the morning to avoid the pestering crowds.272 Yet again he relished the spectacular scenery of the Curonian Spit. He was blissfully unaware of the black clouds forming on the horizon; his letters contain no reference to the increasing foreign political tensions and the general expectation of a military conflict with Poland. It was pure coincidence that he was not caught by the outbreak of war in East Prussia. The family were on their way back from Nidden, on the ferry to Stettin, when German troops invaded Poland, thereby starting the Second World War.273 At 58, Pechstein was too old to be drafted into the army. His son Frank was lucky not to be called up until after the Polish campaign, and even then he was not immediately sent to the front, but spent all of 1940 as a military instructor in a Brandenburg garrison.274 In autumn 1939, the war was noticeable in Berlin primarily through the increasing amount of time Marta now had to spend queuing for things, and the difficulties in getting anything repaired.275 Pechstein’s real problem, however, was not the war but his dealer von der Heyde, who like in 1936 was refusing to pay him the outstanding money. He told Gertrud: I had and still have a lot of trouble with my so-called art-dealer, who neither returned my works nor handed over the money for those sold, […] so that I was forced to take a lawyer, then finally came the admission by this person that he 271 Letter Guido Dinkgraeve to Carl Hagemann, June 1939, in Hans Delfs, Mario-Andreas von Lüttichau, Roland Scotti (eds.), Kirchner, Schmidt-Rottluff, Nolde, Nay…, Briefe an den Sammler und Mäzen Carl Hagemann (Ostfildern, 2004), 820. 272 Letter Pechstein to Frank, 29 July 1939, in private collection. 273 Rüxleben, ‘Lebensdaten’, 37. 274 Letter Pechstein to Gerbig, 6 January 1941, in SMZ, 2002/56n/Au. 275 Letter Pechstein to Gertrud, 22 December 1939, in SMZ, 60K 162 ag.

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Fig. 5.8: Morgen bei Purwin (1939/6), oil on canvas, 70 × 80.5 cm, private collection, Germany.

had sold everything apart from one piece, I therefore still had to receive 1,400 M., but that he could not pay me the money. This fraudulent scoundrel has simply embezzled it […].276

Two months later, Pechstein stated the amount of money he was still owed by von der Heyde even at 2,000 Marks.277 In March 1940 Pechstein sued his former art dealer, but even after his conviction at that trial von der Heyde was unable, or simply refused to, pay. For Pechstein this was a serious blow as further sale income was not forthcoming. ‘[I]t is now hopeless for living artists to sell anything, unless they are [officially] well-liked,’ he

276 Ibid. 277 Letter Pechstein to Gerbig, 22 January 1940, in private collection (transcript in SMZ, no inv. no.).

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explained in a letter to Frank in May 1940.278 He started to produce and sell jewellery instead. He told his friend Gerbig: In Nidden I found wonderful stones which I had cut and polished and then worked into silver, rings, bracelets, cuff-links, necklaces, pendants, etc, and then gold-plated the objects and I am [now] selling the one or other occasionally, I have given the works to a jeweller to sell.279

He had always enjoyed handicraft work, and he was now benefiting from this ‘little hobby’, as he called it.280 When he started out on this new line of trade, he still had to go to a friend who was a goldsmith to be able to work. But soon, Pechstein considered this new business profitable enough to acquire himself the necessary tools and materials, and set up his own small goldsmith’s workshop above his studio. He enjoyed the new challenge, not least because it provided him with much-needed income. The only downside was that the fine work was straining his eye-sight, especially in winter when he had to use artificial light, so that he could now no longer work without his glasses.281 The winter of 1939/40 was bitterly cold, and led to a serious coal shortage throughout Germany, from which Pechstein also suffered. After returning from a one-week skiing holiday in the Riesengebirge he found the family home without water, ‘everything frozen, [I] broke through the walls in the kitchen and studio to thaw the pipes, to no avail, because the ones in front of the house in the earth are frozen [too]. And hardly any or no coal! Well, it really is a great joy, this war!’282 He concluded this letter expressing his wish for a ‘more peaceful world, with delivery from all the evil which has been oppressing us for years.’283 The cold winter was followed by an extremely hot spring and summer, which Pechstein again spent in Leba and at the Koser Lake.284 There, in his seclusion, Pechstein heard of the spectacular successes of the German Wehrmacht on the western front, and could not help but be impressed. ‘On and off I learn in my recluse of the gigantic current events and can then go back to my work with my mind set at ease,’ he wrote to his friend, the art historian Eduard Plietzsch, ‘how

278 Letter Pechstein to Frank, 1 May 1940, in private collection. 279 Letter Pechstein to Gerbig, 22 January 1940, in private collection (transcript in SMZ, no inv. no.). 280 Ibid. 281 Letter Pechstein to Gerbig, 6 January 1941, in SMZ, 2002/56n/Au. 282 Letter Pechstein to Gerbig, 22 January 1940, in SMZ, in private collection (transcript in SMZ, no inv. no.). 283 Ibid. 284 See letters Pechstein to Plietzsch, undated (probably early June 1940), and 24 June 1940, in AM, 1964/423, and 1964/448.

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different compared to the world war [I] experienced.’285 This letter was written only two days after the official French capitulation in Compiègne, and throughout Germany even opponents to the regime found it difficult to remain aloof from the jubilant victory mood.286 Half a year later, this short-lived enthusiasm had once again been replaced by a sincere hope for peace, as evident in Pechstein’s New Year greeting card to Plietzsch.287 Just before Christmas 1940, he visited Frank at his garrison in Brandenburg. After more than a year’s service, Pechstein complained to Gerbig, ‘he has still had no holiday, and when I visited him […], I got bloody mad about the lousy barracks, he is an instructor in the light artillery, on horses, so even stable duties, apart from all the other infantry fuss.’288 In Berlin, the first Allied air raids were affecting the Pechsteins, too. Mäki’s school was hit prior to the Christmas holiday, and even after three weeks teaching could not resume because damages had not been repaired. ‘Really, my dear, I have had more than enough of these “baths of steel”’, Pechstein concluded his review of the year 1940.289 There was another incident in 1940, an intimidating encounter with the Nazi police state, which Pechstein chose not to communicate to Gerbig, possibly for fear of someone opening his post. It was triggered by the publication of an article on Pechstein, stretching over four pages and with numerous reproductions of Pechstein’s works, in Germany’s leading illustrated magazine, Das Magazin, in July 1940.290 It was a short treatment of Pechstein’s life from his early years in Zwickau and Dresden (including his involvement in Brücke), with mentions of his pre-war trips to Rome, Paris, Nidden, Monterosso al Mare and Palau and his participation in the war. ‘In his art he has followed the organic path towards maturity’, the article concluded, ‘a path from boisterous, violent origins towards calm, confident consolidation.’291 The works reproduced – like In the Fishing Harbour, an oil of 1933, or a detail of Pechstein’s stained glass window in the Stadtbad Mitte, of 1929 – were described as ‘evidence that his works have become

285 Letter Pechstein to Plietzsch, 24 June 1940, in AM, 1964/448. 286 Ian Kershaw, The ‘Hitler Myth’. Image and Reality in the Third Reich (Oxford, 2001 [1987]), 155. 287 It reads: ‘Let us collect the dew which is dripping from the palm of peace, and let it flow for the blessing of mankind. Hopefully 1941.’ Postcard Pechstein to Plietzsch, 31 December 1940, in AM 1963/300; reproduced in Christian Vogel, “Mein lieber Ede…” Künstlerpost von Max Pechstein and Eduard Plietzsch (Hamburg, 1996), 37 288 Letter Pechstein to Gerbig, 6 January 1941, in SMZ, 2002/56n/Au. 289 Ibid. 290 ‘Max Pechstein. Ein Lebensbild’, in Das Magazin (Berlin), no. 191 (July 1940), 17–19, 55. 291 Ibid, 55.

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shining representations of a blessed maturity of life’.292 For those in charge of managing Germany’s public opinion, the article was a red rag. Allowing Pechstein to exhibit again in Berlin was one thing: the limited public attracted by the von der Heyde show in 1939 did not seriously concern Nazi authorities. But providing Pechstein with a platform in the German mass media at a time when the ‘Degenerate Art’ travelling exhibition was still touring through Germany spurred Heinrich Himmler’s secret police, the Sicherheitsdienst, into action. In a letter to the Reich Culture Chamber from October 1940 it described Pechstein as ‘one of the worst representatives of decadent art [‘Verfallskunst’]’ and started investigations.293 The Gestapo interrogated Pechstein twice, but the artist could faithfully report that he had not been involved in the selection of art works for reproduction which had been made by the responsible editors of the magazine.294 Consequently Goebbels’s Propaganda Ministry instructed editors that Pechstein’s name was not to be mentioned in the German press again.295 For a while, the Reich Chamber of Fine Arts did not take any action to clarify Pechstein’s position. But in March 1941, Pechstein wrote to the Berlin branch requesting ration cards for a whole range of painting supplies, and this request triggered frantic activities among Nazi art functionaries.296 The Berlin branch forwarded his letter to Ziegler, the President of the Reich Chamber, commenting enigmatically that they considered ‘Pechstein’s artistic achievement as known’.297 This caused Ziegler, one of the organizers of the ‘Degenerate Art’ exhibition, to order Pechstein to submit his entire artistic output of the year 1940 for inspection, as a matter of urgency, within the next five days.298 Apart from that, Ziegler instructed the Berlin branch to provide him with Pechstein’s political record as soon 292 Ibid. 293 See RdbK note, 12 March 1942, in BArch, ex-BDC files, Pechstein file, f. 518. 294 Ibid. In the CV written in April 1949, submitted to to the Magistrate of Greater Berlin, Pechstein recorded two interrogations by the Gestapo, see LAB, B Rep 080, no. 78, 5. In his memoirs he recalled being interrogated by the Gestapo about his works exhibited abroad, see Pechstein, Erinnerungen, 112. Although no date is given, it is likely that this was at the occasion of the Magazin incident, as participation in exhibitions abroad would only really have become a security issue after the beginning of war. 295 See RdbK note, of 12 March 1942, which states: ‘Laut Schreiben “Hauptreferat Zeitschriften” vom 12.5.19141 Aktenz. DP 4054/9.9.40/102–22.4 wird mitgeteilt, daß Maßnahmen getroffen sind, die Wiederholung ausschließen’, in BArch, ex-BDC files, Pechstein file, f. 518–519. No articles were published at the occasion of Pechstein’s sixtieth birthday in December 1941. 296 See letter von Ikier to Pechstein, 6 March 1941, in BArch, ex-BDC files, Pechstein file, f. 638, 556. 297 Letter von Ikier to President of Reich Chamber of Fine Arts, 6 March 1941, in BArch, ex-BDC files, Pechstein file, f. 640. 298 Letter President of Reich Chamber of Fine Arts to Pechstein, 6 March 1941, in BArch, ex-BDC files, Pechstein file, f. 532.

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as possible.299 He also requested information on Pechstein from Himmler’s security police apparatus, to find out whether there was reason to consider Pechstein’s expulsion from the Reich Chamber. His letter concluded with the plea for careful and speedy examination of this case, ‘because it is an existential issue for the person concerned’.300 Luckily for Pechstein, his paintings from 1940 gave Ziegler no grounds for further complaints, and the Security Police was unable to come up with anything new. Pechstein was issued the relevant coupons.301 The political record that Ziegler had requested only arrived in July 1941, and the responsible Nazi party official in Berlin claimed he could not guarantee Pechstein’s political reliability. Pechstein was described as a former ‘Spartacist leader’ and ‘anti-war polemicist’ who had taken no steps after 1933 to show positive commitment to the new regime. The report also claimed that Pechstein’s wife was a ‘second-degree Jewish half-breed’.302 At this point in time, getting accused of being Jewish could have had serious consequences. But the extensive documentary evidence which Pechstein had had to submit to the Reich Chamber for his own and Marta’s ancestors in 1936 provided them with sufficient protection against such false accusations.303 In fact, having survived the Reich Chamber’s scrutiny in 1941, Pechstein was treated very correctly by this institution for the rest of the war. All his many requests for ration cards for painting material were granted speedily.304 As late as spring 1944, when Pechstein needed special permission to transport his bike on the train from Berlin to Leba, the Reich Chamber granted him his demand, to allow Pechstein ‘to pursue his profession as a countryside painter’ as the permit stated.305 But while Pechstein was allowed to continue painting, he sorely lacked a clientele. He complained to Gerbig in early 1941:

299 Letter President of Reich Chamber of Fine Arts to Berlin branch, 6 March 1941, in BArch, ex-BDC files, Pechstein file, f. 670. 300 Letter President of Reich Chamber of Fine Arts to Reichssicherheitshauptamt, 7 March 1941, in BArch, ex-BDC files, Pechstein file, f. 644. 301 Letter President of Reich Chamber of Fine Arts to Pechstein, 25 March 1941, and reference to positive reception of Pechstein’s paintings in RdbK note, 12 March 1942, in BArch, ex-BDC files, Pechstein file, f. 642, 518. 302 Letter NSDAP Gauleitung, 25 July 1941, in BArch, ex-BDC files, Pechstein file, f. 520. 303 See the ‘Abstammungsnachweis’ Max Pechstein & Marta Pechstein, and letter President of Reich Chamber of Fine Arts to Gauleitung NSDAP Berlin, 27 August 1941, in BArch, ex-BDC files, Pechstein file, f. 574–5, 577–8, 528. 304 See correspondence in BArch, ex-BDC files, Pechstein file, f. 540–554, 648–654, 660– 666. 305 See Pechstein request of 2 April 1944, and permit of 2 May 1944, in BArch, ex-BDC files, Pechstein file, f. 540, 542.

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It is a scandal that the high-income newly rich have no inner relationship to art; twice well-meaning acquaintances brought to me such sad spirits, hoping to help me thus, hoping to [make me] succeed in selling something. But it is a disgrace to even show one’s works to such people, and to be forced to suffer their stupid-arrogant-high-income behaviour. Of course nothing came off it! Kitsch is all the rage [now]! Still, I am not so sad about it, because it would have been a terrible thought: to know that works which I created out of the inner depths of my heart are owned by these small people, who would probably – I think even certainly – writhe in agony to invent excuses in front of their acquaintances to explain why they have bought such a picture.306

Only a small circle of customers existed ‘who choose with love, do not bargain, since I ask them anyway, what were you thinking of in terms of price, and we then part company in high spirits. I, because I know that the work is in good hands, he, because he is happy with his acquisition and then even writes me a thank-you letter. That way I do not make more than about 200–300 M. [but] I am satisfied when we thus muddle through.’307 As usual, Pechstein spent the summer of 1941 in Pomerania. He was very reluctant to leave again for Berlin at the end of August, but Marta insisted she did not want to be on her own in the city which suffered increasingly from air raids.308 In autumn, he received news that his son Frank had been seriously injured during the invasion of the Soviet Union. ‘Mid-October, after the breakthrough he got wounded behind Wjassna [Wjasma], broke his lower arm, and the bullet exploded in his biceps, [he] lay down for a long time with high fever, the wound continued to fester and release splinters,’ Pechstein wrote.309 He was very weakened from dysentery, feet too had been ruined by marching, no food, [just] raw swedes [dug] out of the earth […]. It took a good six weeks before he got from Russia to a military hospital, where they removed his first bandages, which were as full of lice as Frank in his entirety […].310

Frank was lucky that his right arm did not have to be amputated, but it remained crippled. Despite this injury he was not discharged from the army, but qualified as ‘usable on the home front’, and spent most of the rest of the war working for the OKH, the German Supreme Command of the Army, taking short hands with his left hand.311 Knowing that Frank did 306 307 308 309

Letter Pechstein to Gerbig, 6 January 1941, in SMZ, 2002/56n/Au. Ibid. Letter Pechstein to Graf Luckner, 21 August 1941, in private collection. Letter Pechstein to Gerbig, 13 January 1942, in private collection, quoted in Knop, Adé 20. Jahrhundert, 77. 310 Ibid. 311 ‘GVH’, i.e. ‘Garnisonsverwendungswürdig Heimat’, see letter Pechstein to Gerbig, 9 January 1943, in SMZ, 2002/56o/Au.

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not have to return to the Eastern Front came as a great relief to Pechstein, who was acutely aware of the horrors of the genocidal war that was being waged in the East. In January 1942, only a few months after the Germans had started to engage in mass-shootings of Jews, Pechstein commented on events in the East in a way that suggests he had heard about the beginnings of the so-called ‘Final Solution’: […] each day I have to think about the horrifying events in the East, and have to force, with great difficulty, my thoughts on my work, in order not to burst with anger. Lies over lies one is supposed to stomach, and that although I have heard really […] a lot of true things […] from people whom I trust. The Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse are thundering over the earth! The insanity of murder, annihilation, destruction, is reigning supreme […].312

Pechstein concluded his letter steeped in pessimism: ‘I cannot believe that we will ever be free again.’313 Although there is no explicit mention of the mass murder of Jews here, it is most likely that Pechstein was referring to it here. One of his close friends, Margarethe ‘Ma’ Heilmann (the Jewish wife of his deceased friend, Hans ‘Pa’ Heilmann, the former editor of Licht und Schatten) was deported to Theresienstadt, probably in early 1942, and Pechstein stayed in contact with her daughter, Hansi Heilmann, throughout the war and afterwards.314 Knowledge of the atrocities of war did not prevent Pechstein from experiencing moments of private happiness. After Christmas, he, Marta and Mäki escaped the war-time scarcity of Berlin by travelling to Pomerania, staying with a friend who owned an estate near Leba who wined and dined them in style. They spent New Year’s night there as well, and celebrated Pechstein’s sixtieth birthday by going on a ‘wonderful sleigh ride, with lovely jingling bells, in the most marvellous moonlight, glittering snow, and to make this fairy-tale perfect, the coach-driver stood at the back [clad] in thick bear fur, […] and the sleigh was painted red with a straw wickerwork […].’315 Pechstein relished this and similar moments of isolation, which allowed him to avoid facing up to the grim realities of war-time Nazi Germany. In the past he had been able to find relaxation in his leisure time. He complained to Gerbig in early 1943:

312 Letter Pechstein to Gerbig, 13 January 1942, quoted in Knop, Adé 20. Jahrhundert, 77. 313 Ibid. 314 Letter Pechstein to Frank, from Berlin, 1 May 1940; letter Pechstein to Frank, 22 December 1941; and letter Pechstein to Hansi Heilmann, from Leba, 6 November 1944, all in private collection. ‘Ma’ Heilmann survived Theresienstadt, see postcard Pechstein to Hansi Heilmann, post-stamped 22 March 1947, in private collection. 315 Ibid.

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Today it is particularly in one’s spare time that one is burdened and tortured by current events. One cannot completely free oneself from everything, and so one sacrifices these hours partly to useless conversations, or to individual brooding. The only antidote [is] complete loneliness in God’s free nature, like I experienced these last summers up in Pomerania in a small fishing hut at a lake in the forests. Where I only needed to open my mouth to drink, eat and smoke. [Where] I heard of nothing, read nothing, [where] nobody could annoy me or I would annoy anyone, always living in the same rhythm of work! 316

In Berlin, Pechstein hung up some of his old works with Italian scenes in his flat, primarily to boost his morale: Here, in this prison of stone, one is going to the dogs! [Just] seeing the sun rise and set, should I walk these miserable streets and sniff at the people in their greyness? Damn it, dear friend, among them the puffed up riff-raff, still with big bellies, fatty backs of the neck, in brown or grey, partly clanking spurs, partly stumbling skeletons, [and] in between [these] our clueless youths! 317

After the defeat at Stalingrad in the winter of 1942/43, the Nazi regime intensified its war efforts in a desperate attempt to turn the tide. As part of the general mobilization of all economic resources, Pechstein’s wife Marta was conscripted and had to start working as an assembly worker in an armaments factory in Berlin in April 1943. Pechstein himself was also called up, and had to serve in a civilian air defence unit.318 They were thus unable to leave Berlin over the summer for the first time in twenty years. This was unfortunate for them not just because of Pechstein’s dislike of the city, but also because 1943 saw the escalation of Allied air raids on German cities.319 After the destruction of large parts of Hamburg in July 1943, the British Air Marshall Arthur Harris declared Berlin the new main target in mid-November. The air raids in late November were the heaviest on the city so far, and resulted in nearly 4,000 casualties and several hundred thousand homeless in less than a week. The Pechsteins were lucky. Despite serious damages to the back of their house, only the studio was destroyed, and they themselves remained unharmed. A month later, Pechstein provided his friend Gerbig with a vivid account of his recent experiences: For four weeks we have been living without electricity, [and] gas, we have water since a few days from a ruin in the middle of an expanse of rubble, which the two attacks of 22 and 23 [November] brought us. A slightly premature Christmas present, but thus we now no longer need another. Everything was there, hur316 Letter Pechstein to Gerbig, 9 January 1943, in SMZ, 2002/56o/Au. 317 Ibid. 318 Letter Pechstein to Wilhelm Saldern, 12 January 1944, copy in private collection; and Rüxleben, ‘Lebensdaten’, 38. 319 Jörg Friedrich, Der Brand. Deutschland im Bombenkrieg 1940–1945 (Berlin, 2002).

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ricanes of flames, crashing, splintering bombs, rain of ash and sparks with lack of oxygen. […] [I] was on my feet for thirteen hours during the bombardment extinguishing incendiary bombs, at half past nine in the morning I was brought to an eye specialist because I could not see anything anymore. [I] managed to prevent a fire in the studio house, but could not stop the high-explosive bomb. But we are still alive, and this in itself is already a miracle! 320

In a later letter, he provided an even more colourful account of what he called the past ‘thunderstorm of bombs’: ‘In those two nights and days, when the sun, clouded by billows of ash and smoke, [stood] like a dull dead moon over the destroyed districts, […] a city completely went under […].’321 Walking through the streets of Berlin, Pechstein encountered scenes of death and destruction. Everywhere it was still smouldering out of the basements and the stench of dead bodies hovered over the rabble in the streets. Here and there water was still dropping from pipes. At the corner of Nettelbeckstrasse there was a great crater, and from there a lake stretched, from Nollendorfplatz a long way down further than Lützow Platz […]. Impassable and deathly, because cables were still feeding electricity into it.322

For some weeks before Christmas, the Pechsteins shared their two remaining rooms and the kitchen with ten people who had lost their homes.323 Once these had been put up elsewhere, they started clearing up the rubble in their flat. This proved too much for Marta and she came down with a serious flu. After two days, an inspector sent by her armaments factory came knocking on their door to find out why she was no longer coming to work.324 Like Marta, both of Pechstein’s sons had been recruited into the war effort. Mäki, age 16, had started out as a helper at an anti-aircraft gun unit in early 1943, and was then drafted into the Labour Service. Pechstein, who was afraid that Mäki would have to join the Waffen SS on the Eastern Front afterwards, convinced his reluctant son to volunteer for the Navy. As intended, Mäki was thus able to benefit from long instruction courses, and served only a limited amount of time aboard a destroyer in the Baltic Sea.325 Frank, with his crippled arm, had to undergo a second medical, after the introduction of new medical classifications. ‘They categorized him as ‘fit for combat service within limits’’, Pechstein raged in a letter to 320 Letter Pechstein to Gerbig, 22 December 1943, in SMZ, 2005/23/Au. 321 Letter Pechstein to Jacobi, 1 November 1946, in AdK, Archiv Bildende Kunst: Annot Archiv, 23, unpaginated. 322 Ibid. 323 Letter Pechstein to Ochsenbein, January 1944, quoted in Rüxleben, ‘Lebensdaten’, 38. 324 Letter Pechstein to Gerbig, 27 January 1944, in SMZ, 2002/56p/Au. 325 Letter Pechstein to Jacobi, 1 November 1946, in AdK, Archiv Bildende Kunst: Annot Archiv, 23, unpaginated.

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Gerbig, ‘this means he will have to go back to the front before long, despite his smashed right arm which is and will remain unusable […]. Heil!’326 Despite the war, Pechstein tried hard to continue producing art. He went to great lengths to replace his destroyed studio by repairing the damages to one of the small rooms to the front of the house. He was very bitter about the fact that as an artist he received no help in this enterprise: ‘No sight of the [official] building troops. We are after all so unimportant! Paintings [are] trivial, art and culture is [expressed in] film!’327 Once he had set up an improvised studio, he began to repair the damage to the paintings he had managed to save. ‘[I] have glued up the holes caused by bomb- and glass-splinters with canvas, and intend to paint them over. In one case I counted a total of 35 holes, so it is quite a laborious process,’ he reported to Gerbig in January 1944.328 It turned out to be a never-ending process because of the continuing disruptions caused by air raids. ‘One could cry, I simply do not get round to working anymore,’ he complained to another friend a few weeks later.329 The moment I have finished repairing the damage, and have put new paint on the palette, [the raids] start again, and every time I have to deal with greater destruction than before. Now I have nailed everything up in a makeshift way using my last material, apart from the doors [the explosions] blew in all the windowframes. […] Well, it was hell once again.330

Interestingly, Pechstein thought that the Allied air raids were not achieving their aim of breaking civilian morale. ‘Yes we know that they will be trying to break us again and again, but they will not succeed’, he wrote to a Swiss friend early in 1944. Now we have turned damn recalcitrant, and the time will certainly come when the Furor Teutonicus will break loose. The opposite has happened from what those on the other side had hoped to achieve with this terror, after all we are not like Negroes who come kowtowing once their kraal has been destroyed! 331

In this passage Pechstein was clearly echoing the language of Nazi propaganda. He was also aware that letters sent abroad were particularly likely to be controlled by censors. In fact, despite the defiant stance displayed in this letter, Pechstein became increasingly concerned about the threat of physical destruction to the art works stored in his house. Already in 326 327 328 329 330 331

Letter Pechstein to Gerbig, 27 January 1944, in SMZ, 2002/56p/Au. Ibid. Ibid. Letter Pechstein to Zickel, 7 February 1944, in AM, 1975/9.2. Ibid. Letter Pechstein to Dr August Ochsenbein, 13 January 1944, in private collection.

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summer 1943, he managed to send his entire collection of drawings, over 3,000 pieces, to Schloss Moritzburg, near Dresden, for safe storage.332 His paintings caused him greater problems. ‘I have been waiting in vain for a car which a friend promised, so that I could take away at least the most important of my paintings,’ he wrote to a friend in February 1944.333 ‘[…] Today I left the house for the first time in a week, and found the house of this friend on Kurfürstendamm destroyed by an air mine. No idea whether it got him too […].’334 A few days later Pechstein learned that the friend in question – the Expressionist Willy Jaeckel whose works had also been included in the ‘Degenerate Art’ exhibition – had been killed during the air raid.335 The incident helped convince him that he and Marta would be better off if they left Berlin. ‘I am now absolutely determined to move to a different location once I have been able to sort out my affairs here as far as is possible’, he wrote in a letter from February 1944, ‘somewhere where I get round to doing my own work, because otherwise I too start losing my courage. After all I am a painter!’336 He soon left for Leba, but had to return to Berlin repeatedly to repair the damages to their flat caused by air raids. Also, it took some time before he managed, with the help of friendly doctors, to achieve Marta’s dismissal from her work in the armament factory.337 During these early months of 1944, he eventually succeeded in shifting all of his remaining oils and watercolours into safe storage in the countryside south of Berlin.338 Finally, in early July 1944, Pechstein and 332 Letter Pechstein to Ernst Heinrich Prinz von Sachsen, 9 June 1943, in Sächsisches Hauptstaatsarchiv Dresden (SHD), 10716 Verein Haus Wettin, no. 320, f. 216. The receipt from the shipping company Gustav Knauer of 8 June 1943 lists eight boxes of drawing (weighing a total of 365 kilograms), another dated 6 August 1943 lists three boxes of paintings and watercolours (weighing a total of 78 kilogram), in SHD, no. 320, ff. 24– 25. A handwritten list without date by Pechstein summarizing the contents of each of the twelve boxes lists a total of 3,083 drawings, 67 watercolours, 12 paintings plus a box of paintings for which Pechstein provided no exact number, in SHD, no. 320, f. 20. We are very grateful to Thomas Rudert for providing us with copies of these documents. See also letter Pechstein to Ochsenbein, 13 January 1944, in private collection; and letter Pechstein to Gerbig, 16 December 1945, in SMZ, 2005/25/Au. The owner of Schloss Moritzburg, Ernst Heinrich Prince of Saxony, was collecting drawings to enlarge his family’s Friedrich August Handschriftensammlung, and bought works by Kollwitz, Barlach, Nolde, and Pechstein in the 1930s. 333 Letter Pechstein to Zickel, 7 February 1944, in AM, 1975/9.2. 334 Ibid. 335 See letter Pechstein to Wolfgang Gurlitt, 11 February 1944, copy in private collection; and letter Pechstein to A. Ochsenbein, from Gliesnitz (Kreis Stolp in Pomerania), 1 May 1944, in private collection. 336 Letter Pechstein to Zickel, 7 February 1944, in AM, 1975/9.2. 337 Pechstein, Erinnerungen, 116. See also postcards by Pechstein to Wolfgang Gurlitt, from Leba, dated 11 April 1944 and 26 June 1944, copies in private collection. 338 See letter Pechstein to Willi Riese (New York), 8 July 1950, in private collection. In this letter he mentions 68 paintings and 54 watercolours which he had stored in Wald-Drehna

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Marta were able to leave their Berlin flat where they had been living lately in a single room, ‘one hole, without windows, doors gone’, as Pechstein reported to his former art dealer Gurlitt.339 Even Leba, however, where they sought refuge from the constant air raids was no longer unaffected by war. The beach and the sand dunes were cordoned off by the army, ‘for secret military reasons. So I have lost not just the [opportunity of] bathing in the sea, but also my place of work,’ Pechstein wrote to his sister.340 Still, for some five weeks Pechstein managed to continue painting. In mid-August, however, he and Marta were drafted into the civilian workforce for the construction of the so-called ‘Pomeranian Rampart’, a fortification aimed at stopping the approaching Soviet troops.341 The conditions on the building site were very basic. ‘We were put up in mass quarters in barns, schools, halls, etc.,’ Pechstein told his friend Gerbig of their ordeal.342 The problem was that the organization failed because it was not in the hands of the Wehrmacht. They were indeed in charge of the actual construction, but not of food and everything else. Party people were supposed to arrange everything, God help us, where should a legal clerk, or a book dealer, inn-keeper etc acquire the knowledge all of a sudden of how to accommodate and feed thousands of people? It took over four weeks before some routine was established, no kitchens, no shithouses, and there was no bread, […] and sometimes nothing but a watery soup with potatoes and some carrots or kohlrabi. Of course, everyone suffered from diarrhoea, but still one continued to work. There were no medical examinations, either. And when a doctor came, medicine and bandages were lacking. There were mainly women, we men constituted a very small percentage, about three percent, one was literally wading through female meat, the fair sex was represented from age 14 up to 58. After four weeks we were joined by Russian prisoners and Ukrainians, but they worked nowhere as hard as we did. Out early at 5 am, one and a half hours marching to the building site, shovelling until 2 pm, through hard and stony clay soil, [then] back over cobblestones and bumpy roads. Exhausted, because of an empty stomach. If we had had at least our share of the general food allocation we would have been happy.343

On top of this, Pechstein found the anti-tank trenches which he had to dig out laughable and useless.344 In late September 1944, he was finally

339 340 341 342 343 344

in the Niederlausitz region as well as another place ‘behind Königswusterhausen’. It is not known with whom he left his works in either place. Postcard Pechstein to Gurlitt, from Leba, post-stamped 26 June 1944, copy in private collection. Letter Pechstein to Gertrud, June 1944, quoted in Rüxleben, ‘Lebensdaten’, 38. Letter Pechstein to Gerbig, 19 November 1944, in SMZ, 2005/24/Au. Ibid. Ibid. See letter Pechstein to Jacobi, 1 November 1946, in AdK, Archiv Bildende Kunst: Annot Archiv, 23, unpaginated.

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dismissed for medical reasons, two weeks before the doctors also allowed Marta to leave. Having returned to Leba, Marta was immediately recruited again for local defence duties. Pechstein was nearly drafted into the local unit of the newly established ‘People’s Militia’ (Volkssturm) but continued to benefit from the doctor’s protection.345 The proximity to the Eastern Front completely transformed Leba. ‘The place is full of military,’ Pechstein wrote in November 1944.346 It had also become a testing ground for the new weapons, the V2 rockets, which Pechstein heard being launched all day and night, ‘they grind and hiss with firey tail into the air, disappear, and then one hears only the explosions of subsequent boosts from far away.’347 By now, Pechstein expected the war to end with a complete German defeat in the very near future. He visualized his feelings in a New Year greeting card to an acquaintance.348 It showed the Germanic god Odin with his two ravens, holding his death-bringing spear in his left hand, and pointing with his right at a silhouette of a city in ruins, with smoke rising from the rubble. The dating ‘winter solstice’ was both an ironic take on the Nazi festive calendar and a reference to a Germanic legend according to which this was the beginning of the end of Odin’s reign. Two weeks after Pechstein had sent off this card, the Soviets launched their final offensive. As expected by Pechstein, the ‘Pomeranian Rampart’ proved no serious obstacle, and after fourteen days Soviet troops had reached the river Oder, cutting off Pomerania from the rest of Germany. In early March they closed in on Leba. Pechstein recalled the Soviet invasion in a letter to a friend: All around us red flames appeared on the night sky, like we were used to from Berlin. To the Pomeranians this was still unknown. Even on the final day [before the Soviets arrived] the SS would not let us leave the village, at five o’clock in the afternoon the 15- to 65-year-old were supposed to meet, at 7 pm in the evening they drove us out of the village, after setting fire to everything which would still burn.349

The subsequent weeks were the most traumatic in Pechstein’s life. Russian tanks soon caught up with their refugee trek and shelled them. ‘We had dead and wounded, [and] we dragged the latter to a nearby farm house,

345 346 347 348

Letter Pechstein to Gerbig, 19 November 1944, in SMZ, 2005/24/Au. Ibid. Ibid. Postcard Pechstein to L.F. Ertel, 29 December 1944, copy in Günter Krüger papers, Berlin. 349 Letter Pechstein to Jacobi, 1 November 1946, in AdK, Archiv Bildende Kunst: Annot Archiv, 23, unpaginated.

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Fig. 5.9: Odin, 1944, ink drawing on Pechstein’s New Year’s greeting of 29 December 1944, private collection.

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and we had to suffer the usual plundering and the women had to endure rapes’, Pechstein recounted the ordeal a few years later.350 After three days all men of the village were rounded up and we had to set out on a march, without sufficient clothing, guarded by military. We marched for three days and four nights. A few older men over the age of 70 broke down. We arrived in a camp where new groups arrived on a daily basis. After interrogations the healthy, stronger men and women were set on march for Russia.351

Pechstein was lucky to be considered too frail for forced labour service in the Soviet Union. After three weeks, he escaped from the encampment, in his stockings, as Soviet troops had taken away his boots. He made his way back to the farm house where he had been separated from Marta. He had only just arrived when he and three other men hiding there were arrested by a ‘liquidation commando’, as Pechstein called it. For a long time we four were under the watch of a Tatar guard until the murderer arrived, in civilian clothes along with two other younger guards. As I was unfortunately the one closest to the door, he immediately began to beat me up until I broke down bleeding, but I did not utter a sound which caused him to continue the mistreatment. We had to strip naked, he emptied all pockets, trampled down on glasses, [official] documents, and what he liked he pocketed. They ripped our trousers in two, and then they led us in front of the house where I was third. He dragged the first [of us] around the corner. It banged twice! Then he grabbed the second one, it was the owner of the farm, who broke down several times. While this was happening, the young Russian guard covered me and pointed towards the house. When finally I had understood I started to run together with the fourth, through the house, and hid behind the mats in the bee house among the excitedly swarming bees.352

After the departure of the Russians, Pechstein waited until the middle of the night until he dared come out of his hiding place. An old refugee woman helped him find Marta, and together they made their way to the Koser Lake, Pechstein’s former summer retreat. There he was arrested again by Russian troops. Pechstein claimed that he was a local fisherman, and for several months he was forced to help supply a local Russian food depot.

350 From a CV written in April 1949, submitted to the Magistrate of Greater Berlin, in LAB, B Rep 080, no. 78, 5. 351 Ibid. For the experience of mass rapes in 1945, see Helke Sander, Barbara Johr (eds.), Befreier und Befreite: Krieg, Vergewaltigungen, Kinder (Frankfurt/Main, 1995). 352 From a CV written in April 1949, submitted to the Magistrate of Greater Berlin, in LAB, B Rep 080, no. 78, 5. Shortly after the event, Pechstein recalled being amazed at having escaped ‘the Russian bullet because of the benevolence of one individual Russian guard’, see letter Pechstein to Herbert Eulenberg, 20 January 1946, quoted in Jürgen Schilling (ed.), Max Pechstein: Zeichnungen und Aquarelle (Wolfsburg, 1987), 80.

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The Russian depot was closed down at the end of June 1945, and Pechstein agreed to Marta’s request to return to Leba to find out about the fate of her relatives.353 When they arrived there, Marta’s siblings and her father had just returned themselves, and they helped restore the family home. Pechstein performed a variety of small painting jobs for the Russian occupation authorities, labelling herring barrels and fish boxes. He was much in demand. ‘The Poles, who occupied the village, came to me,’ Pechstein recalled in his memoirs, ‘and for a fee, for foodstuffs, I painted for them, company name plates, cars, walls.’354 Eventually, Pechstein was even able to tackle a proper painting again, producing a Madonna for the newly constructed Catholic-Polish church. I greatly enjoyed working on the painting, which gave me a lot of inner strength. It was a large picture, over two metres high and one metre wide. I painted it on a bed sheet, with lacquer colours which the fishermen used to restore their boats. It was primitive, but the overcoming of these difficulties was the best thing about it.355

However, now that the war had ended, Pechstein was eager to return to Berlin, hoping to recover his works which he had stored in various places. The journey back took them four days, and when they arrived in late September, there was bad news awaiting Pechstein. Almost all his work which had stored in Schloss Moritzburg and elsewhere had been lost. In Schloss Moritzburg alone, he had stored 59 paintings, 76 watercolours, and his ‘entire life’s work of drawings’, 3,400 pieces of which only 120 had been rescued.356 ‘We have 353 From a CV written in April 1949, submitted to the Magistrate of Greater Berlin, in LAB, B Rep 080, no. 78, 6. See also Pechstein, Erinnerungen, 116. 354 Pechstein, Erinnerungen, 117. 355 Ibid. 356 Letter Pechstein to Herbert Eulenberg (Kaiserwerth), 20 January 1946, reprinted in Schilling, Max Pechstein. Zeichnungen und Aquarelle (Wolfsburg, 1987), 80. In another letter he specified the number of his works in Schloss Moritzburg as ‘3,133 sheets [of] drawings, diaries, and 76 watercolours, 58 paintings’, see letter Pechstein to the art historian Christian Töwe, undated (late January 1947), copy in Günter Krüger papers, Berlin. Unfortunately, it is not clear what exactly happened to the works stored in Moritzburg. Possibly Ernst Heinrich Prince of Saxonia shifted them – alongside with many of his family’s most valuable possessions – into his Villa Parkstrasse in Dresden to safeguard them from the anticipated destruction of Schloss Moritzburg by the retreating Wehrmacht. In that case, they all burnt during the devastating air raids on Dresden in February 1945; see Georg Kretschmann, Das Silber der Wettiner: eine Schatzsuche zwischen Moskau und New York (Berlin, 1995), 24–28. But the fact that Pechstein was returned a few of these works – probably in November 1945, see Tägliche Rundschau (Berlin), 22 November 1945: ‘Max Pechstein – der Maler des Ursprünglichen’ – seems to suggest that some if not all works survived the destruction. In that case, they may have fallen victim to the Soviet looting of art or they were destroyed in the course of the so-called Schlossbergungsaktion in the wake of the land reform in the Soviet zone of occupation in autumn 1945, see Kretschmann, Das Silber der Wettiner, 41–45. Indeed, in an undated letter (ca. October/

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lost completely everything,’ he wrote to a friend.357 Aged 64, Pechstein stood before the ruins of an artist’s lifetime: homeless and jobless, his reputation tainted by the Nazis, his paintings purged from public museums, his entire possessions – including his collection of over thousand of his own works – destroyed in the course of the war.

November 1949) to Charlotte Weidler, Pechstein wrote that upon his return to Berlin in September 1945 he learned ‘that my stored works have been plundered’. 357 Letter Pechstein to Dr Fritz Schneider, undated [late 1945], in SMB-ZA, Pechstein documentation.

CHAPTER VI

The Final Years 1945–1955 ‘I yearn for the sun and warmth, but it is so hard for an old man like the one into which I have now turned to make tracks again.’ (Pechstein to August Ochsenbein, 25 February 1954)

The city to which Pechstein and Marta returned in autumn 1945 was barely recognizable. Intensified Allied air raids in the final months of the war and artillery bombardment by the Red Army had turned Berlin into a ‘heap of rubble near Potsdam’, as the playwright Bertolt Brecht noted in his diary.1 A third of all housing stock, more than half a million dwellings, had been destroyed.2 Hundred thousands of Berliners were living in makeshift accommodation, and their numbers were swelled by a massive influx of returning evacuees and refugees expelled from their homes in Central and Eastern Europe. Occupation authorities were struggling to make ends meet. By September 1945, the refugee crisis had reached such proportions that the Allied Command had to take emergency measures: only those people resident in Berlin on 30 September were to be issued food rationing cards; those arriving 1 October or later had no entitlement.3 Pechstein arrived on 30 September, and despite the fact that this was a Sunday and that he was without documentation he managed to secure a residence permit. Only in retrospect he was able to appreciate how lucky he had unknowing-

1 2 3

Entry in Brecht’s Arbeitsjournal, 27 October 1948, Bertolt Brecht, Arbeitsjournal 1938– 1955 (Berlin-East, 1977), 457. Christian Engeli, ‘Krieg und Kriegsfolgen in Berlin im Vergleich zu anderen Städten’, in Wolfgang Ribbe, Jürgen Schmädeke (eds.), Berlin im Europa der Neuzeit: Ein Tagungsbericht (Berlin, 1990), 406, table 3. For the refugee crisis, see Matthew Frank, Expelling the Germans: British opinion and post–1945 population transfer (Oxford, 2007), 122–206. For the ration card decree, see http://www.luise-berlin.de /kalender/, entry for 13 September 1945, last accessed 1 July 2011.

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Fig. 6.1: Ruins in Berlin (Zerstörtes Berlin), 1945, drawing, 10,5 × 14,8 cm, private collection

ly been to make it back to Berlin in the nick of time.4 It was here that all his remaining friends and colleagues were concentrated, a social network which was to help him through the difficult months after the end of war. Also, it was in Berlin that his reputation as a leading modern artist – defamed by the Nazis as ‘degenerate’ – shone strongest. It proved an invaluable door-opener into the post-war German art world. The first person Pechstein turned to after his arrival was his friend Eduard Plietzsch. Plietzsch had run his own gallery until recently, buying and selling old masters, and doing quite well, not least because of his involvement in the Nazi looting of art in the occupied Netherlands.5 Plietzsch and his wife Mica, who was god-mother of Mäki, immediately agreed to 4

5

CV written in April 1949, submitted to the Magistrate of Greater Berlin, in LAB Berlin, B Rep 080, no. 78, 6; letter Pechstein to Paul Westheim, 2 February 1947, in Akademie der Künste (AdK), Berlin, Archiv Bildende Kunst: Paul Westheim Archiv, 98, unpaginated. See also note by British Military Police, dated 3 October 1945, confirming that the Pechstein couple had been in Berlin on 30 September 1945; and note by the Berlin’s Deputy Mayor, dated 12 October 1945, granting Pechstein a residence permit and rationing cards, both in private collection. Jonathan Petropoulos, Kunstraub und Sammelwahn. Kunst und Politik im Dritten Reich (Berlin, 1999), 183; Günther Haase, Kunstraub und Kunstschutz (Nordersted, 2008), 191.

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share their apartment in Meinekestrasse 9 in Berlin-Charlottenburg with the Pechstein couple. Next, Pechstein contacted the painter Karl Hofer, director of Berlin’s newly-founded Hochschule für Bildende Künste (Academy of Fine Arts).6 During the Weimar Republic, Hofer had held a professorship in Berlin until dismissed by the Nazis in 1933; his works had been included in the ‘Degenerate Art’ exhibition, and like Pechstein he had been expelled from the Prussian Academy of Arts in 1937. He was now in the process of gathering a body of teachers mostly composed of surviving ‘degenerates’, in an attempt to make a clear break with the Nazi past.7 Among the teachers were many old acquaintances of Pechstein, like Georg Tappert, the art historian Adolf Behne and the architect Max Taut. Hofer offered Pechstein a teaching position at the new Academy and Pechstein did not hesitate to accept. The official publication of the Soviet Military Administration (SMAD), Tägliche Rundschau, deemed Pechstein’s appointment worthy of a lengthy article in which it praised him as a ‘German van-Gogh nature’, describing his life as ‘the novel of an adventurer, a proletarian, who asserts himself and who very consciously pursues a particular […] artistic aim.’8 This was an early indication of the symbolic function that Pechstein was going to play over the next couple of years, especially in the Soviet-controlled part of Germany. As the offspring of a working-class family, with immaculate left-wing credentials – as founder of the Novembergruppe and a former member of the ‘Association of Friends of the New Russia’ – and ennobled as a ‘degenerate artist’ by the Nazis, Pechstein became a representative of the ‘good Germany’ and a symbol of the cultural reconstruction now under way. Within weeks of his return to Berlin, he was courted by functionaries of the new ‘Cultural Association for the democratic renewal of Germany’ (Kulturbund zur demokratischen Erneuerung Deutschlands), founded by the Soviets with the official intention of forging a broad anti-fascist alliance within the cultural sphere.9 The managing director of 6

7

8 9

See postcard Pechstein to Adolf Behne, 6 October 1945, in Staatsbibliothek zu Berlin – Preussischer Kulturbesitz (SBB), Adolf Behne papers, 27, in which he alludes to a prior meeting with Hofer who told him that Behne knew the address of Max Taut. The earliest document in his file in the University’s archive is a handwritten CV from 15 October 1945. See Archiv der Universität der Künste (UdK-Archiv), 16/I, 126, unpaginated. Christine Fischer-Defoy (ed.), Ich habe das Meine gesagt! Reden und Stellungnahmen von Karl Hofer zu Kunst, Kultur und Politik in Deutschland 1945–1955 (Berlin, 1995), 20–23; Christine Fischer-Defoy, “Kunst, im Aufbau ein Stein”: die Westberliner Kunst- und Musikhochschulen im Spannungsfeld der Nachkriegszeit (Berlin, 2001), 22–27, 70–73. Tägliche Rundschau, 22 November 1945: ‘Max Pechstein – der Maler des Ursprünglichen’. Its President was the writer Johannes R. Becher; Karl Hofer was one of the Deputy Presidents. See also Magdalena Heider, Politik – Kultur – Kulturbund. Zur Gründungs- und Frühgeschichte des Kulturbundes zur demokratischen Erneuerung Deutschlands 1945–1954

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the Aufbau-Verlag, the Cultural Association’s publishing house, offered Pechstein to publish a richly illustrated book on his works including an autobiography. The publishing contract which was signed in early November 1945 envisaged a print run of 1,500 to 2,000 copies, as well as a smaller, hand signed luxury edition. Within the Aufbau-Verlag’s early publishing programme it was the only project on the fine arts and it was accorded high priority: the contract stated December 1945 as the delivery date for Pechstein’s manuscript.10 The publishing house also exerted its influence to help Pechstein find new accommodation. But Pechstein declined the offer to move into a villa in the Russian sector of Berlin-Pankow. Instead, Pechstein and Marta moved into a small two-room flat in Hubertus Allee 18 in Berlin-Grunewald in mid-December 1945.11 It is unclear whether Pechstein realized that there was a political dimension to his appropriation by some of these new cultural institutions. He joined the Cultural Association in December 1945 with a declaration emphasizing his anti-fascist motivation: We painters are no politicians, and what I understand to be democracy is possibly not the same as it is for the politicians. But we are all agreed on one thing, I believe: namely that democracy is not what we have experienced with pain for twelve years. […] We painters can possibly not deliver speeches or write articles, but we can demonstrate through our work that one must and one can have a decent ethos in the arts.12

10

11

12

in der SBZ/DDR (Cologne, 1993), 33–40; Anne Hartmann,Wolfram Eggeling, Sowjetische Präsenz im kulturellen Leben der SBZ und frühen DDR 1945–1953 (Berlin, 1998), 188–196. For the publishing contract, see Archiv Aufbau-Verlag, in Staatsbibliothek zu Berlin – Preussischer Kulturbesitz (SBB), IIIA, Dep38-0691, 0081r-0082r. For the origins of this, see letter Kurt Wilhelm to Pechstein, 27 October 1945, in Elmar Faber, Carsten Wurm (eds.), Allein mit Lebensmittelkarten ist es nicht auszuhalten. Autoren- und Verlegerbriefe 1945 bis 1949 (Berlin, 1991), 212–213. See also Carsten Wurm, ‘Prospekt und Umbruch. Die ersten Jahre des Aufbau-Verlags’, in Ursula Heukenkamp (ed.), Unterm Notdach. Nachkriegsliteratur in Berlin 1945–1949 (Berlin, 1996), 147–174. Postcard Pechstein to Dr Fritz Schneider (Rotenkirchen), undated (end December 1945), in Zentralarchiv der Staatlichen Museen Berlin, Preußischer Kulturbesitz, Pechstein documentation. For the support of the Aufbau-Verlag, see letter Kurt Wilhelm to Pechstein, 17 November 1945, in Archiv Aufbau-Verlag, in SBB IIIA, Dep38-0691, 0077r. At this point, the Soviet administration had an official policy of providing such patronage to artists, see Jutta Held, ‘Die Kammer der Kunstschaffenden und der Schutzverband Bildender Künstler in der Berliner Kunstpolitik von 1945 bis 1949’, in Bildungswerk des BBK (ed.), 30 Jahre BBK (West Berlin, 1980), 38. The Russian offer of a villa in Pankow is mentioned in a report by Gisela Greinke, in Bürgerbrief no. 42 (March 2001), unpaginated, published by the Bund der Lebaer e.V. Tagesspiegel, 15 December 1945: ‘Pechstein und die Demokratie’.

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With the writer Gerhart Hauptmann as its Honorary President and a cross-party composition of its Presidential Council, the Cultural Association at this point was characterized by formal non-partisanship and ideological pluralism, and had not yet turned into the instrument of socialist cultural politics which it was later to become.13 But when he began to work on his autobiography in December 1945, Pechstein felt it expedient to emphasize his working-class background and his leftist socialisation. One of the most interesting documents of this process of self-fashioning was a letter which he sent to his son Mäki, who was at this point still a POW in the British-controlled city of Kiel. Writing on Christmas Day 1945, Pechstein set out to describe the moment of political awakening, ‘an event […] which I recognised as determining my human development’.14 It was the incident during his childhood, when a demonstration of Zwickau workers including his father clamouring for higher pay had been violently dissolved by mounted policemen. According to Pechstein, the experience triggered a subconscious longing to demonstrate one day ‘that one did not have to be the son of rich parents to be able to let speak one’s god-given talents’.15 He went on to describe another such clash between demonstrators and policemen during his time in Dresden. He admitted that he did not know the reasons for that demonstration (he suspected elections to the City Council), but thought that these experiences had somehow naturally led on to his later political outlook: Hence it happened automatically, Mäki, that later here in Berlin I came into closest contact with fighters of the Social Democratic Party. That I produced a woodcut of Bebel, that I passionately hated militarism. That in November 1918 I produced the posters ‘Defend the young freedom!’, ‘Break the Weapons!’, [that] I steadily supplied drawing for the magazine ‘To the lanterns!’ […]. That I joined the ‘League for Human Rights’. That I was a close friend of Käthe Kollwitz […] since we both belonged with all our heart to the party of humans and those who loved our art […].16

13 14 15 16

Heider, Politik – Kultur – Kulturbund, 38–40. Letter Pechstein to Mäki, 24 December 1945, in private collection. Reprinted in Berliner Zeitung, 21 May 1946: ‘Max Pechstein an seinen Sohn Mäcky’. Ibid. Interestingly, this sentence was left out in Pechstein’s memoirs, posthumously edited by Leopold Reidemeister, the great-nephew of Wilhelm von Bode. Ibid. As far as can be ascertained, Pechstein exaggerated his proximity to Kollwitz here. He was referring to a joint statement he issued together with Kollwitz in 1927 as part of a campaign against the destruction of frescoes by Heinrich Vogeler in a Communist orphanage in Worpswede, published in Meta Kraus Fessel, Polizeiterror gegen Kind und Kunst. Dokumente zur Geschichte der sozialen Republik Deutschlands (Berlin, 1927), which claimed to be an ‘appeal to the party of decent humans’ (ein Appell an die Partei der anständigen Menschen).

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Pechstein thought that this letter summarized perfectly his politics, and a few months later passed it on to the official organ of the Berlin Magistrate, Berliner Zeitung, which published it in May 1946 in its entirety, commenting that it provided ‘significant insights into the life of the artist, who is the son of a worker and who prevailed through tough social struggles.’17 Within the new Berlin city administration, those in charge of cultural affairs quickly realized that Pechstein was an ideal artist-citizen to hold up to the German public. In the final months of 1945 Adolf Jannasch, the art historian in charge of the organization of public exhibitions in Berlin, decided to prepare a big retrospective of Pechstein’s works for early 1946.18 The project constituted a major challenge for Pechstein since he was lacking all basic material like frames, glass and cardboard.19 More crucially, he found it difficult to come up with a decent number of paintings for the show. ‘Boy oh boy, haven’t I lost a lot of my works’, he complained in a letter to his friend, the writer Herbert Eulenberg. Only now that I am in the process of going through the few works that have been saved for a February exhibition, I realize what is all missing. Entire years’ worth of work are gone, of course also the most important paintings […].20

He bemoaned his losses in many letters to friends around this time, but was able to put his situation in some perspective. ‘It is very hard’, he told Gerbig, ‘but nevertheless […] I am glad to be rid of the Nazis, and to be able to breathe freely again, [and] that I can speak my name once more.’21 In fact, he was greatly flattered by the new public attention and devoted all his time to the preparation of the exhibition, to the great frustration of his publisher who sent him numerous reminders requesting the manuscript of his autobiography.22 The Pechstein retrospective opened to much fanfare in the Admiralspalast, the temporary residence of the Berlin Staatsoper, in February 1946.23 It was the first major solo exhibition of a living artist in Berlin

17 18

Berliner Zeitung, 21 May 1946: ‘Max Pechstein an seinen Sohn Mäcky’. For Jannasch, see Maike Steinkamp, Das unerwünschte Erbe. Die Rezeption “entarteter” Kunst in Kunstkritik, Ausstellungen und Museen der SBZ und frühen DDR (Berlin, 2008), 140, 373, ftn. 641. 19 Letter Pechstein to Gerbig, 16 December 1945, in SMZ, 2005/25/Au. 20 Letter Pechstein to Herbert Eulenberg, 20 January 1946, in private collection. 21 Letter Pechstein to Gerbig, 16 December 1945, in SMZ, 2005/25/Au. 22 Letters Wilhelm to Pechstein, 13 December 1945, 16 January 1945, 19 February 1946, 6 April 1946; all in Archiv Aufbau-Verlag, in SBB IIIA, Dep38-0691, 0076r, 0075r, 0073r, 0068r. 23 It was opened by the Lord Mayor of Berlin, Dr Arthur Werner, see ‘Max Pechstein stellt aus. Wiedersehen mit einem grossen Maler’, in Nacht-Express, 16 February 1946.

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Fig. 6.2: Poster for the Pechstein exhibition in Berlin’s Admiralspalast, starting in February 1946, colour lithograph, 56.8 × 39 cm (Krüger 1988, L 414).

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after the war and attracted a significant amount of attention.24 Jannasch’s programmatic introduction to the exhibition catalogue set the tone of the press coverage: Pechstein has returned. Until recently he was homeless and persecuted, now he works restlessly once more in our Berlin. Now he is presenting to us that which has remained from the great destruction of the war. Unbending and uninfluenced by Hitler-art he went his own way. […] The forty-year oeuvre of a leading master is a mirror of the development of art in recent times, and a document of our path into the future. Once more Pechstein belongs to us.25

The amount of attention suddenly lavished on Pechstein was not to everyone’s liking. In a letter to the sculptor Gerhard Marcks, Pechstein’s former studio neighbour in Durlacher Strasse 14, Hofer excoriated his colleague for sucking up to the new authorities: ‘Pechstein too is happy here, [he] is advertising himself in a grotesque fashion, he is all socialist and man-of-the people, the bustling activity is being mistaken for vitality, and one hack is copying it from the other.’26 There was a certain amount of truth in this statement, as well as a hefty dose of professional jealousy. Hofer was probably the only artist who came close to the public prominence of Pechstein at this time – but Pechstein, as a kind of personification of Expressionism, was widely considered the more important artist.27 Pechstein’s new public role kept him busy throughout the year. As one of the few contemporary artists with a name familiar to a wider public, he was called upon whenever people needed a high-profile representative of 24 Earlier exhibitions organized by the Berlin Magistrate had been devoted to Käthe Kollwitz and Ernst Barlach, see Held, ‘Kammer der Kunstschaffenden’, 40. Press reviews in the newspaper clipping collection in SMB-ZA, include: Nacht-Express (Berlin), 16 February 1946: ‘Max Pechstein stellt aus. Wiedersehen mit einem großen Maler’; Der Morgen (Berlin), 16 February 1946: ‘Blick auf ein Lebenswerk. Pechstein Ausstellung in der Staatsoper’; Der Kurier, 18 February 1946: ‘Eine kräftige Natur: Max Pechstein: Vierzig Jahre Malerei’ (by Carl Linfert); Tagesspiegel, 19 February 1946: ‘Max Pechstein, Zu einer Ausstellung seiner Werke im Admiralspalast’ (by Gert Theunissen); Berliner Zeitung, 19 February 1946: ‘Wiedersehen mit Max Pechstein’; Tägliche Rundschau, 20 February 1946: ‘Max Pechsteins Werk’; Deutsche Volkszeitung, 20 February 1946: ‘Wiedersehen mit geretteten Kunstwerken. Aus dem Lebenswerk Max Pechsteins’; Neue Zeit (Berlin), 2 March 1946: ‘Bilder einer Entwicklung’ (by Werner Fiedler); Die Zeit (Hamburg), 18 April 1946: ‘Vom Expressionismus zur Gegenwart. Zu einer Ausstellung Max Pechsteins’ (by Paul Fechter). 25 Inroduction by Adolf Jannasch to exhibition catalogue Magistrat von Berlin, Abteilung für Volksbildung (ed.), Pechstein Ausstellung Staatsoper (Admiralspalast) Februar bis März 1946 (Berlin, 1946), 4, 7. 26 Letter Hofer to Gerhard Marcks, 23 February 1946, in Andreas Hüneke (ed.), Karl Hofer: Malerei hat eine Zukunft (Leipzig, 1991), 265. 27 See, for example, Der Morgen, 30 December 1945: ‘Max Pechstein führend. In der Ausstellung Berliner Künstler.’

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the fine arts, whether for public statements, celebrations, exhibition openings, or indeed as a reliable witness for denazification requests.28 In January he participated in a conference of artists and intellectuals organized by the Soviet Military Administration at which the decision was taken to stage a big exhibition in Dresden later that year, the General German Art Exhibition. He went on to serve on the jury for that exhibition, and participated himself with three paintings.29 In early March 1946, Pechstein took part in a big rally organized by the socialist German Administration for Public Education under the heading ‘Towards New Shores – German Artists speak to people and the world’, as one of the artists invited to reflect on means and aims to lead Germany towards a better future.30 The following month, he delivered a half-hour address in a radio broadcast that formed part of a series of artists’ portraits.31 This speech inspired the editors of the youth magazine Horizont to ask Pechstein for a contribution specifically addressed to youth. In his piece, Pechstein used the opportunity to summarize artistic developments before 1933, from impressionism to surrealism, and pleaded for solid artistic training as the way forward. Since this article was subsequently widely published it is worth quoting at some length, as it gives a good taste of his standing as a public role model and art educator at this time: Art is the refinement of craftsmanship. […] In past times it was a matter of course that art students would join the workshop of a great master and learn 28 E.g. his address to Kokoschka’s sixtieth birthday, in Neue Zeit (Berlin), 1 March 1946: ‘Gruß an Oskar Kokoschka’, or his greeting to Renée Sintenis, Berliner Zeitung, 27 January 1946: ‘Max Pechstein an Renée Sintenis’. Pechstein also participated in the celebrations of the first anniversary of the Cultural Association, as one of the speakers in a radio broadcast, with a speech entitled ‘Against kitsch’, see letter Pechstein to Mäki, 2 July 1946, in private collection; and Katharine Riege, Einem Traum verpflichtet: Hans Mahle – eine Biographie (Hamburg, 2003), 210. He also gave the opening speech at the exhibition ‘Berliner Künstler’ in early December 1946, see Winfried Ranke (ed.), Kultur, Pajoks und CARE-Pakete: eine Berliner Chronik 1945–1949 (Berlin, 1990), 152. For Pechstein’s complaint about time spent on denazification requests, see copy of letter Pechstein to Rudolf Jacobi, 25 January 1947, in Akademie der Künste (AdK), Berlin, Archiv Bildende Kunst: Annot Archiv, 23, unpaginated. 29 Tägliche Rundschau, 1 February 1946: ‘Für die geistige Wiedergeburt des deutschen Volkes’; Andreas Hüneke, ‘Um die Freiheit in der Kunst und um die Menschlichkeit. Max Pechstein in seiner Zeit’, in Magdalena M. Moeller (ed.), Max Pechstein. Sein malerisches Werk (Munich, 1996), 120. For the exhibition, see Kathleen Schröter, ‘Kunst zwischen den Systemen. Die Allgemeine Deutsche Kunstausstellung 1946 in Dresden’, in Nikola Doll, Ruth Heftrig et al. (eds.), Kunstgeschichte nach 1945. Kontinuität und Neubeginn in Deutschland (Cologne, 2006), 211–237; Steinkamp, Das unerwünschte Erbe, 105–113. 30 For the event on 4 March 1946 in the Admiralspalast, see the DEFA newsreel Der Augenzeuge no. 3 (1946), however, this contains a still of Pechstein only; Heukenkamp (ed.), Unterm Notdach, 472; Ranke (ed.), Kultur, Pajoks und CARE-Pakete, 113. 31 Der Rundfunk (Berlin), 9 March 1946: ‘Max Pechstein’.

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everything from him, from the grinding of colours to artistic composition. […] If now a young person who strives to be an artist begins by learning a craft he can become a productive artist, or if that fails remain a craftsman. Whoever delivers good work – and be it the meanest – using his best endeavours can proudly stand to it. […] The opportunity of finding your own straight path now, you youth have too now, you only have to learn to listen into yourself and to tell healthy from ill. The terrible years of destruction of everything spiritual now lie behind us; the flame burns, but it also cleans! Leave the waste behind! Don’t be lazy! Get rid of the dullness of the spirit to which you had been sentenced! Fight, as we have fought, for spiritual values; then you will regain your self-esteem and sooner or later the esteem of the world, too! 32

It was the kind of rhetoric that appealed to many contemporaries worried about the attitudes of the young, and Pechstein’s article was reprinted in numerous newspapers and journals, often under the headline ‘A call to youth’.33 In the case of his students, Pechstein felt he had to strike a careful balance between nursing their self-esteem and combating their sometimes rather dogmatic views on what constituted art. ‘[Y]outh has been kept completely ignorant by the Nazis about everything that was alive among us before 1933, and they have not just been kept ignorant but turned hostile […] against it’, he reported in a letter to his friend, the artist Rudolf Jacobi. So it is not just necessary to teach them the ABC of the craft, but also to convey to youth the missing […] terms of Impressionism, Cubism, Futurism, Expressionism. Unfortunately we are missing for this the most important illustrative material because so little has survived, all that has not burnt or been stolen has been shipped abroad […] [M]ost importantly, one has to give back the young people the belief in themselves, but at the same time one hat to clip back their arrogant, Nazi-taught, feathers, and to guide them towards modesty and reverence in the face of art and humanity. A huge and comprehensive task. But apart from a few still self-important poor devils, former BDM [i.e. Bund deutscher Mädel] girls and HJ [i.e. Hitlerjugend] younglings, I have to say that I am optimistic in this respect.34

32 33

Horizont. Halbmonatsschrift für junge Menschen (Berlin), 26 May 1946: ‘An die Jugend’. Max Pechstein, ‘Ruf an die Jugend’, Neue Zeitung (Munich), 26 May 1946. This article was later reprinted – together with Jannasch’s introduction to the Pechstein exhibition catalogue – in an article series ‘This was defamed art’ in the cultural magazine Aussaat 1 (1946), no.6/7, 39–43. Other publications include Tagespost (Potsdam), 14 July 1946: ‘Achtung vor der Arbeit. Max Pechsteins Ruf an die Jugend’; Tages-Post (Potsdam), 14 July 1946: ‘Achtung vor der Arbeit. Max Pechsteins Ruf an die Jugend’; Nacht-Express (Berlin), 29 August 1946: ‘Max Pechstein: Werft die Trägheit des Geistes von Euch!’; Oberbayerisches Volksblatt (Rosenheim), 4 March 1947: ‘Es geht um Euer Sein!’. 34 Letter Pechstein to Rudolf Jacobi, 1 November 1946, in AdK, Archiv Bildende Kunst: Annot Archiv, 23, unpaginated. The Bund Deutscher Mädel was the Nazi youth organization for girls age 10 to 18; the Hitlerjugend the equivalent for boys.

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It was, however, hard work. Every day during term time, Pechstein spent five hours at the Academy with a small class of students. They were ‘absolute beginners’ whom he even had to teach how to mount a sheet of paper.35 He apparently did not have a particular teaching philosophy. ‘For the time being I let them work in the hardest techniques, glue-bound distemper, casein, tempera, watercolours, and that immediately in big formats’, he wrote in November 1946. ‘I push them into the water, and they have to learn swimming.’36 In his spare time he was teaching too. Every Sunday he privately taught members of the American and British occupation forces. Apart from the additional money it also provided him customers for his works and with access to scarce resources, like alcohol.37 For a short while commissioned works, like that of Mrs. Freda Wermel, the wife of an American economist involved in the reconstruction of the German social security system, made him so much money that the income tax he had to pay for these sales was significantly more than he was drawing as a monthly salary at the academy.38 Around 1946/47, Pechstein’s public reputation was in its zenith. For some, like the publishing director of the Aufbau-Verlag, he was ‘probably Germany’s greatest living artist’.39 At the occasion of Pechstein’s sixty-fifth birthday, numerous newspapers throughout Germany showered him with praise. Journalists honoured him as the decisive pioneer of Expressionism. ‘Without him modern painting would lack its backbone, it would not be so juicily alive, not so soaked with temperament’, wrote the Berlin-based Neue Zeit.40 Pechstein was a ‘shining example’ for youth ‘as a human and an exceptionally gifted painter’, declared the Neue Presse in Coburg; he was ‘the most popular German Expressionist’, proclaimed the Leipziger Zeitung.41 A photo of him made it onto the front cover of Germany’s first mass il35 Ibid. 36 Ibid. See also ‘Künstler und Lehrer. Max Pechstein – zu seinem 65. Geburtstag am 31. Dezember 1946’, in Die Aussprache 2 (1947), no.1, 6–7. 37 For his private teaching, see letter Pechstein to Dr August and Hilde Ochsenbein, 5 October 1946, in private collection; letter Pechstein to Rudolf Jacobi, 1 November 1946, in AdK, Archiv Bildende Kunst: Annot Archiv, 23, unpaginated; and letter Pechstein to Robert Langstadt, 1 November 1946, in Deutsches Kunstarchiv im Germanischen Nationalmuseum Nürnberg, Pechstein papers, II C; ‘Künstler und Lehrer. Max Pechstein – zu seinem 65. Geburtstag am 31. Dezember 1946’, in Die Aussprache 2 (1947), no.1, 7. See also Ernst Niekisch, ‘Gründung des Kulturbundes’, in Ilse Spittmann-Rühle, Gisela Helwig, DDR Lesebuch: Von der SBZ zur DDR 1945–1949 (Cologne, 1989), 215. 38 Letter Pechstein to Rudolf Jacobi, 1 November 1946, in AdK, Archiv Bildende Kunst: Annot Archiv, 23, unpaginated. 39 Letter Kurt Wilhelm to Dr Heinz Steinberg, 3 December 1946, in Archiv Aufbau-Verlag, SBB IIIA, Dep38-0691, 0061r. 40 Neue Zeit (Berlin), 31 December 1946: ‘Die glühende Farbe’. 41 Neue Presse (Coburg), 8 January 1947: ‘Ein Kämpfer mit Pinsel und Palette’; Leipziger Zeitung, 31 December 1946: ‘Max Pechstein’.

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Fig 6.3: Max Pechstein in a private art class with American officers, c. 1946.

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Fig. 6.4: Portrait of Mrs Wermel in Spanish costume (1946/7), oil on canvas, 75 × 52 cm, private collection, California.

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lustrated magazine, Revue.42 At numerous occasions when he appeared in public, camera teams were present. ‘Devil, I have now been filmed so often that I am getting annoyed whenever I see a chap with a camera. Yes I think I am almost better known in Moscow [and the] USA than I am here’, he joked in a letter to a friend in April 1947.43 The magazine Aussaat described him as ‘one of the most popular painters in Germany’ at the occasion of his election to the Cultural Association’s Presidential Council in the summer.44 Pechstein’s city of birth, Zwickau, made strenuous efforts to embrace its now-famous prodigal son. The official letter of congratulation at the occasion of his sixty-fifth birthday described him as ‘the greatest German modern artist’.45 City officials initiated an annual art competition for the Max Pechstein Prize, and they offered Pechstein to build a studio for him in the recently expropriated Schloss Stein near Zwickau.46 Pechstein was flattered, and seriously played with the idea of accepting the offer of studio space. ‘Perhaps it is just the result of sentimental memories, but after the loss of my working area in the East I am forced to find a new one’, he wrote in spring 1947, ‘and at the bottom of my heart there was always the wish to conclude my work in the Heimat.’47 He also agreed to provide the city with material for a big retrospective which opened in July 1947.48 That same month he was elected Honorary Citizen of Zwickau.49 At the ceremony in October Pechstein was visibly moved, and in his acceptance speech left open the possibility of spending his remaining years there and ‘to draw manifold inspiration for his mature work from heimatlich motifs underground and above’, as the local newspaper reported.50 Relatively soon, however, such plans were overtaken by political realities. The conflict between the former war allies over the future of Germany intensified dramatically in 1947 and 1948, resulting eventually in the foundation of the two German states in 1949. By political inclination, one would have expected Pechstein to opt for Eastern Germany, as did numerous left-wing intellectuals like the playwright Bertolt Brecht, the writer Anna Seghers, or the art historian and museum director Ludwig Justi. But 42 43 44 45 46 47 48

Revue 2 (1947), no. 2 (23 January 1947). Letter Pechstein to Dr August Ochsenbein, 1 April 1947, in private collection. Die Aussprache 2 (1947), no. 7 (August), 5: ‘Der neue Präsidialrat’. Neue Zeit (Berlin), 31 December 1946: ‘Die glühende Farbe’. See letter Pechstein to Klaus Schuster, Zwickau, 17 June 1947, in private collection. Ibid. The correspondence between Pechstein and the Director of the City Museum Zwickau, Dr Gertrud Rudloff-Hille, is kept in SMZ, Museumsschriftwechsel. The first letter by Pechstein in this correspondence is dated 3 January 1947 (no inv. no.). See also the exhibition catalogue Gertrud Rudloff-Hille (ed.), Max Pechstein: Ausstellung; Juli-August 1947. Städtisches Museum Zwickau (Sachsen) und die bildenden Künstler (Zwickau, 1947). 49 See letter Pechstein to Zwickau City Council, 17 July 1947, in SMZ, Museumsschriftwechsel. 50 Freie Presse (Zwickau), 7 October 1947: ‘Ehrenbürgerbriefe für Max Pechstein’.

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by 1949, Expressionism had fallen from grace within the socialist establishment, and the prospect of spending his retirement days in the newly-founded GDR did not have much allure to Pechstein. At the same time, he could consider himself lucky not to be penalized for his involvement in socialist cultural politics by the new West-German authorities. Although he had never joined the SED, the socialist party in control of the Soviet-zone of occupation, he had come very close to be associated with them in 1946. At the occasion of the first regional elections in Eastern Germany in October 1946, the Cultural Association published numerous election manifestos calling on voters to support ‘real anti-fascists’. Pechstein, as a member of the executive committee of the Berlin section at this point, was one of the signatories.51 The manifestos were kept general enough not to risk the Cultural Association’s official claim to non-partisanship. But a few days before the elections the Berliner Zeitung published a piece by Pechstein in which he highlighted his socialist affinity and accused the Social Democrats of having failed to prevent National Socialism before 1933.52 This was an old trope of Communist propaganda, and the article was obviously intended as a public endorsement of the SED. It is, however, possible that the article had been slightly edited to bring about this effect. By early 1947, Pechstein was increasingly disillusioned about his encounters with censorship. It is painful but true that I have to observe […] that much of importance has been cut from my talks and articles b[y] t[he] c[ensors]’, he complained in a letter to a friend in the US. ‘And I had imagined I could and would only have to stay to the truth, as I had sworn to do in the first rush of exuberance of pure joy to be liberated by the oppression and persecution of the Nazis. We do not have a proper peace here yet, and it will last many more years before we have reached again somewhat orderly conditions here.53

With the announcement of the Marshall Plan, tensions between the United States and the Soviet Union reached new heights in the summer of 1947. It was at this point that contemporaries were starting to talk of a ‘cold war’ between the two former allies.54 Within cultural politics, too, 51

‘Der Kulturbund und die Berliner Wahlen’, in Die Aussprache 1 (1946), no. 3 (October), 6. See also the leaflet in Deutsche Historisches Museum (DHM), Berlin, DG 56/4788. 52 Max Pechstein, ‘Durch Wahrheit zur Freiheit’, in Berliner Zeitung, 13 October 1946. The critical passage reads: ‘But where remained these dreams after 1918 and in the years thereafter? When the newly-won power dissipated? Where did Social Democratic toleration lead us? Sung out and undone! It led to the suppression of our freedom during the terrible Nazi period and to the loss of esteem of all nations of the world.’ 53 Letter Pechstein to Rudolf and Annot Jacobi, 3 March 1947, in AdK, Archiv Bildende Kunst: Annot Archiv, 23, unpaginated. 54 The term was coined by Walter Lippmann in an article series on foreign policy in New York Herald Tribune in September 1947. See Ronald Steel, Walter Lippmann and the American Century (New Brunswick, 1999), 445.

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the atmosphere became more frosty. In November 1947, the Cultural Association was banned in the American and British sectors in Berlin. All those employed within the city administration in the western sectors had to resign their membership if they did not want to risk dismissal.55 Pechstein seemed not to be deterred by this threat. He helped with the move out of the Cultural Association’s offices in Berlin-Charlottenburg; a photo of him in taking down the death mask of Käthe Kollwitz from the wall in the old office in Schlüterstrasse was published by the association’s journal Sonntag with the caption ‘Art has to pack up’ as part of a wider protest campaign against the ban.56 Pechstein also participated as one of the Cultural Association’s delegates in the SED-sponsored ‘German People’s Congress for Unity and a Fair Peace’, held in Berlin in early December 1947, a propagandistic counter-event to the conference of foreign ministers in London discussing the future of Germay.57 Even in 1948, when the conflict between the Soviet Union and the Western allies over the German question escalated, Pechstein was happy to be associated with the socialist camp. In late August 1948 – two months after the beginning of the Berlin blockade – he travelled to Wroclaw (formerly Breslau) as a member of the German delegation to the ‘World Congress of Cultural Workers for the Defence of Peace’. Invitations to this Communist-sponsored event had only gone out to those ‘who were considered convincible and safe’, as George Grosz observed after receiving a report by Pechstein.58 The tone of the conference was set by Alexander Fadeyev, the Secretary General of the Union of Soviet Writers, who lambasted Western culture for its ‘stinking degeneration’.59 It was the first time that Pechstein came face to face with 55

Hans-Martin Hinz et al. (eds.), Die vier Besatzungsmächte und die Kultur in Berlin 1945– 1949 (Leipzig, 1999), 84. 56 Sonntag, 7 December 1947: ‘Die Kunst muß einpacken’. For the ban, see Hartmann/ Eggeling, Sowjetische Präsenz, 41–44. 57 Klaus Bender, Deutschland, einig Vaterland? Die Volkskongressbewegung für deutsche Einheit und einen gerechten Frieden in der Deutschlandpolitik der Sozialistischen Einheitspartei Deutschlands (Frankfurt/Main, 1992); Bernhard Vogel, Dieter Nohlen, Rainer-Olaf Schultze, Wahlen in Deutschland (Berlin, 1971), 259. For Pechstein’s participation, see Fischer-Defoy, “Kunst, im Aufbau ein Stein”, 318, ftn. 35. 58 Letter George Grosz to Herbert Fiedler, 11 October 1948, George Grosz (ed. Herbert Knust), Briefe 1913–1959 (Reinbek/Hamburg, 1979), 414. Unfortunately, the letter by Pechstein to which Grosz was refering here has not survived. The German delegation included among others Anna Seghers, Hanns Eisler, Alexander Abusch and Hans Scharoun, see Gerd Ditrich, Politik und Kultur in der Sowjetischen Besatzungszone Deutschlands (SBZ) 1945–1949 (Berlin, 1993), 155. In fact, all the delegates had been approved beforehand by the SED’s party secretariat, see David Pike, The politics of culture in Sovietoccupied Germany, 1945–1949 (Stanford, 1992), 476. For the congress, see Hartmann/ Eggeling, Sowjetische Präsenz, 63–74. 59 Die Zeit, 2 September 1948: ‘Intellektuellen-Krieg’; Alexander Fadeyev, ‘Kultur, die für den Frieden kämpft’, in Tägliche Rundschau, 5 September 1948.

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Fig. 6.5: Kulturbund peace rally with Max Pechstein on the panel of speakers, Berlin (Admiralspalast), 24 September 1948. Pechstein is in the first row, third from the left (standing), with Bertold Brecht behind him. Photograph: Abraham Pisarek. Deutsche Fotothek, SLUB Dresden.

the official Soviet policy of zhdanovshchina, the ideological-cultural campaign against so-called ‘bourgeois art’. Unfortunately, Pechstein’s reactions to the conference have not survived; according to another participant he was mostly preoccupied recovering from the feast organized on the first evening.60 In any case, the experience at the World Congress did not keep him from participating two months later in a big peace rally organized by the Cultural Association. Under a huge banner declaring ‘Defence of Culture is Defence of Peace’, he shared a platform with other left-wing luminaries like the playwright Bertolt Brecht, the composer Hanns Eisler and the writer Arnold Zweig.61 But in the course of late 1948 and early 1949, Pechstein seems to have realized that there were dangers in associating oneself too closely to the political forces in charge of Eastern Germany. In October 1948 he com60 Hans Mayer, ‘Die Reise nach Polen’, in Merkur: deutsche Zeitschrift für europäisches Denken 36 (1982), no. 3, 278–286, here 281. 61 Institut für Marxismus-Leninismus beim ZK der SED (ed.), Geschichte der deutschen Arbeiterbewegung: Chronik Teil 3: von 1945 bis 1963 (Berlin-East, 1965), 175; Günter Caspar, Über Bodo Uhse: ein Almanach (Berlin-East, 1984), 447.

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plained that in the wake of the currency reform the Russians had confiscated all his bank accounts and that he had thereby lost all his savings.62 More than ever, he was now dependent on his income as a teacher at the Academy of Fine Arts. And he must have been aware that in the long-term his involvement in high-profile socialist propaganda events was going to cause problems at the Academy, located in the British sector of Berlin. At the height of the Berlin blockade political tempers were running high and one of Pechstein’s colleagues, the painter Heinrich Ehmsen, was sacked for signing a peace manifesto in the run-up to the Communist ‘World Congress of the Partisans of Peace’ in Paris in February 1949.63 Although this manifesto had been signed by numerous Berlin artists and intellectuals – among them Hofer, too – Pechstein’s name was missing. By the time that the Cultural Association passed new guidelines stipulating an unambiguous commitment to the Soviet Union and the newly founded German Democratic Republic (GDR) in November 1949, Pechstein had already left the organization.64 Unfortunately there is precious little evidence to trace this development towards political abstinence: Pechstein rarely wrote about politics in his correspondence and the little that he did provides no real clues. But there are good grounds to suspect that his disillusionment was mainly triggered by the official propagation of the Soviet example of ‘socialist realism’ and the condemnation of Expressionism as a ‘reactionary’ style from 1948 onwards.65 Ironically, Pechstein agreed to some extent with Soviet critics of modern art, especially with the charge of ‘cosmopolitanism’ which was allegedly corrupting Western culture. In January 1948, the weekly news magazine Der Spiegel published an article by Pechstein in which he voiced his fears in view of some developments in contemporary art. He warned against the ‘slavish acceptance’ of artistic trends from abroad which would lead to a levelling of German art. Abstract art in particular attracted his ire: ‘Wires are being bent, tubes are being brazed. People nail. Or a beautiful piece of stone, wood, metal is simply being polished. Oh, ready! But now for the most difficult part: to complete for this work the most profound explanations and assertions. For the catalogue. Or better still, the explanation is hung next to the exhibited work.’66 Forty years ago, when Archipenko was 62

Letter Pechstein to Mrs Dieterle, 30 October 1948, copy in SMB-ZA, Pechstein documentation. 63 Fischer-Defoy, “Kunst, im Aufbau ein Stein”, 31–33. 64 Gerd Friedrich, Der Kulturbund zur Demokratischen Erneuerung Deutschlands: Geschichte und Funktion (Cologne, 1952), 83. 65 For a good summary of the formalism debate see Steinkamp, Das unerwünschte Erbe, 175–190. 66 Max Pechstein, ‘Sorge um die Kunst’, in Der Spiegel 1 (1948), 3 January 1948, 15.

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doing this kind of thing, it was still new and valid – now it was evidence that these artists had nothing new to say, Pechstein claimed. With his emphasis on solid artistic skills he shared much common ground with SED functionaries who deplored the prominence of so-called ‘pseudo-art’ which baffled the broad masses, at a time when people demanded to participate in all aspects of public life.67 But when Alexander Dymschitz, the officer in charge of cultural affairs in the Soviet-occupied part of Germany, opened the attack on so-called ‘formalist’ art in November 1948, his criticism focused not so much on abstract but figurative artists like Hofer, Schmidt-Rottluff and Chagall, whom he accused of prioritizing form at the expense of ideational content.68 Within a few months, Expressionism lost its privileged position within the Soviet-controlled part of Germany. ‘Expressionism was the art of the German November revolution and reflects its fiasco’, proclaimed the art historian Heinz Lüdecke in an article on the historical role of Expressionism which featured several illustrations by Pechstein.69 For Lüdecke, Expressionism was the ‘artistic concomitant of the German failure in revolutionary circumstances’ and as such unsuited for the process of socialist transformation.70 Pechstein’s first bruising encounter with the new art dogma happened in October 1948, at the opening of the Moritzburg-Museum in Halle, in Saxony-Anhalt. The director there, Gerhard Händler, had managed to rebuild a splendid collection of modern art, mostly of former ‘degenerate’ artists, but had run into serious trouble with the responsible Soviet officer who – after seeing acquisitions of works by Pechstein and Jawlensky – had accused him of wasting public funds. Still, Pechstein was invited to give the opening speech and when going through the exhibition together with the director on the evening before the opening he was witness to another very heated exchange with the Soviet officer. In his opening speech, Pechstein defended the collection – and thereby Expressionism more generally – against such criticism. Healthy opposition against the new art was possible, he acknowledged, but it had to remain objective. ‘Pechstein rejected any dictation of the artist in strong terms’, reported a local paper.71 But he was fighting a losing battle. In January 1949, a party functionary suggested to reduce the number of Expressionist art works in the Halle museum to a 67 Pike, The politics of culture, 312. 68 Alexander Dymschitz, ‘Über die formalistische Richung in der Malerei, in Tägliche Rundschau, 19 and 24 November 1948. 69 Heinz Lüdecke, ‘Die Tragödie des Expressionismus. Notizen zu seiner Soziologie’, in bildende kunst (1949), no. 4, 109–115, here 115. 70 Ibid. See also Steinkamp, Das unerwünschte Erbe, 183. 71 Liberaldemokratische Zeitung (Halle), 9 October 1948: ‘Wiedereröffnung des Städtischen Museums’, quoted in Hüneke, ‘Max Pechstein in seiner Zeit’, 121.

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number that would fit into one room, and to mount a sign at its entrance reading ‘bürgerliche Verfallskunst’ (bourgeois decadent art). A few weeks later the museum director fled to West Germany.72 Pechstein’s autobiography, too, fell victim to the new cultural policy. After missing the original deadline it had taken Pechstein until October 1946 to complete a first draft of his manuscript.73 Finding illustrations to go with the text proved another challenge, but in summer 1947 it looked as if the project was finally coming to a successful conclusion.74 It was then delayed again by the currency reform in 1948 which resulted in a crisis in book publishing. Like other publishing houses, the Aufbau-Verlag found that it was now almost impossible to sell inferior post-war quality in either West or East Germany.75 However, the project was not yet abandoned. Instead, the plan was now to publish the book in two volumes, one containing the text of Pechstein’s autobiography, the other the accompanying illustrations.76 But progress was painfully slow, and Pechstein became increasingly frustrated and tried in vain to speed up proceedings. In October 1949, he demanded to see the second volume but was put off by the publishing house. He never heard from them again.77 It is clear from the archives of the Aufbau-Verlag that by this stage everything was ready for the printing process.78 But after the foundation of the two German states,

72

For the ‘Hallenser Museumstreit’, see Steinkamp, Das unerwünschte Erbe, 216–225, especially 223. 73 See letter Pechstein to Dr August and Hilde Ochsenbein, 5 October 1946, in private collection. In another letter to A. Ochsenbein, from 1 April 1947, Pechstein stated the manuscript had been finished in November 1946, and that the English translation had just been completed, too. 74 For the difficulty of finding illustrations, see letter Pechstein to Rudolf Jacobi, 25 January 1947, in AdK, Archiv Bildende Kunst: Annot Archiv, 23, unpaginated. In July 1947, he received the first 50 pages of proofs, see letter Pechstein to Dr Gertrud Rudloff-Hille, 3 July 1947, in SMZ, Museumsschriftwechsel. He was apparently promised that the book would appear in November 1947, see letter Pechstein to Wendt (Director of AufbauVerlag), 21 October 1949, in Archiv Aufbau-Verlag, in SBB IIIA, Dep38-0691, 0053r. 75 Wurm, ‘Prospekt und Umbruch’, 152. 76 See letter Pechstein to Wendt (Director of Aufbau-Verlag), 21 October 1949, in Archiv Aufbau-Verlag, in SBB IIIA, Dep38-0691, 0053r. 77 The final correspondence to Pechstein by the Aufbau Verlag dates from 7 November 1949 in which Pechstein was told that Director Wendt was currently ill, and would come back to him as soon as he had returned to work, see SBB IIIA, Dep38-0691, 0054r. 78 See letter Janka to Eulenberg, 4 April 1952, in SBB IIIA, Dep38-0691, 0043r. Till Eulenberg, son of Pechstein’s friend Herbert Eulenberg, was the director of the West-German publishing house Die Fähre and had contacted the Aufbau-Verlag with the request to buy the existing Pechstein material. It is not known whether the deal ever went ahead and, if so, why it the book was not published.

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and in view of the official propagation of ‘socialist realism’ at this point, such a publication was apparently considered inopportune.79 In the western part of Germany, Pechstein continued to be revered as an outstanding pioneer of modern art. His students at the Academy looked up to him as someone ‘whose life’s oeuvre occupies a permanent position in the history of German painting’, reported the art journal Bildende Kunst.80 One of his older paintings was included in the German pavilion at the first post-war Venice Biennale in 1948, together with works by Heckel, Schmidt-Rottluff, Hofer and Dix.81 In 1949, he was promoted to a professorship at the Academy of Fine Arts and put in charge of one of the Academy’s newly-established master studios; this came with a hefty pay rise.82 That same year saw the publication of a book entitled Max Pechstein and the beginning of Expressionism by the West-Berlin publishing house Konrad Lemmer.83 Two years later, at the occasion of Pechstein’s seventieth anniversary, he was elected an Honorary Senator of his Academy and honoured with a big retrospective.84 In 1952, the German Pavilion at the Venice Biennale featured five of Pechstein’s early oils as part of a collection devoted exclusively to the Brücke group.85 In conscious contrast to the aesthetic politics in the GDR, the Federal Republic was happy to claim Expressionism as part of the historical German contribution to twentieth-century culture.86 For his seventy-first birthday, the West German government awarded Pechstein the Great Order of Merit, making him the first fine

79 80 81

82

83 84 85 86

Wurm, ‘Prospekt und Umbruch’, 171. For the political pressures on publishing from 1949, see also Pike, The politics of culture, 648–656. bildende kunst 2 (1948), no.5, 32. Letter Pechstein to Adolf Hartmann, 16 April 1948, in Deutsches Kunstarchiv im Germanischen Nationalmuseum Nürnberg, Hartmann papers, I C–25. The curator of the German Pavilion was Eberhard Hanfstaegl, Director of Berlin’s National Gallery in 1933–1937, and at this point Director of the Bavarian State Art Collection. His monthly salary increased from 909 DM (gross) per month to 1,255 DM from April 1949, see LAB Berlin, B Rep 080, no. 78, 7. For his promotion, see letter to Pechstein, 19 November 1949, in LAB Berlin, B Rep 080, no. 78, 8. See also Fischer-Defoy, “Kunst, im Aufbau ein Stein”, 30. Konrad Lemmer, Max Pechstein und der Beginn des Expressionismus (Berlin-West, 1949). For his election to Honorary Senator, see Pechstein file in UdK-Archiv, 16/I, 126, unpaginated; and Neue Zeitung (Munich), 6 January 1952: ‘Vom Anstreicher zum Ehrensenator’. See exhibition list in Aya Soika, Max Pechstein. Das Werkverzeichnis der Ölgemälde (Munich, 2011), vol. 2, 95. For a summary overview, see Christian Saehrendt, “Die Brücke“ zwischen Staatskunst und Verfemung. Expressionistische Kunst als Politikum in der Weimarer Republik, im “Dritten Reich“ und im Kalten Krieg (Stuttgart, 2005), 89–94.

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artist to receive the Federal Republic’s highest decoration.87 In 1954, he received the annual Art Prize awarded by the city of (West) Berlin. All these official honours, however, looked back to the achievements of the young Pechstein. Few people showed much interest in his recent works. For Pechstein, this was a major disappointment. In numerous letters after 1947 he complained that he was unable to sell anything.88 This did not keep him from continuing to paint. In fact, over the eight years between 1946 and 1954 he painted nearly 100 paintings, roughly the same number as in the fifteen years between 1930 and 1945. The loss of so many of his works through the war acted as a major incentive. ‘I have to create anew that which has been lost’, he explained in a newspaper interview in January 1946.89 He used photographs of his lost paintings for inspiration, though of course he realized that it would be impossible to recreate the original paintings. But he thought that was not necessarily a bad thing because ‘the newly created works will be more mature than their models’, as he explained to the interviewer.90 He took heart from the example of Titian: ‘[…] this old fighter in painting, painted his best work in old age, so I too hope with unshakeable lust for life for a new late flowering’, he wrote in a letter to a friend around the same time.91 Palau played a prominent role in this personal reconstruction project. In numerous drawings, watercolours and oils he tried to recapture the paradisical idyll which he remembered experiencing over thirty years earlier. He openly admitted to indulging in nostalgia: ‘I think they originate out of a particular longing for something irrecoverable’, he was quoted by the journal Bildende Kunst. ‘I try to trace that which is coming back to me in vague dreams.’92 He had little sympathy for people who thought that his choice of subject matter was somehow irrelevant to contemporary society. Painting the ruins of Berlin was not really an option for him. His motifs originated in his heart, he declared in early 1946, and the sight of urban destruction was too painful to be trans87 Tagesspiegel, 1 January 1953: ‘Zu seinem 71. Geburtstage’, in Pechstein file in UdK-Archiv, 16/I, 126, unpaginated. For an account of the award at the occasion of Pechstein’s birthday, see Paul Fechter, Menschen auf meinen Wegen. Begegnungen gestern und heute (Gütersloh, 1955), 209–210. See also letter Pechstein to A. Ochsenbein, 25 February 1954, in private collection. Hofer received the same decoration in 1953; Schmidt-Rottluff was awarded it in 1954 but declined; Heckel received it in 1956. 88 See, for example, his remark that ‘nothing is being sold’, in letter Pechstein to Mäki, 4 October 1949; or ‘only sales are in short supply, none take place’, in letter Pechstein to Charlotte Weidler, 21 December 1952; ‘there is no use in exhibiting because those who are now earning money have not interest in the fine arts’, in letter Pechstein to A. Ochsenbein, 18 October 1953, all letters in private collections. 89 Nachtexpress, 24 January 1946: ‘Besuch bei Max Pechstein’. 90 Ibid. 91 Letter Pechstein to Herbert Eulenberg, 20 January 1946, in private collection. 92 bildende kunst 2 (1948), no.5, 32.

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Fig. 6.6: In the Taro Field (1917/81), oil on canvas, measures unknown, lost.

formed into art.93 ‘I want to express my longing for uplifting experiences’, he explained his recent works on South Sea motifs. ‘I do not want that we always pity ourselves, and so I want to give beauty.’94 Palau was not the only paradise from which Pechstein had been evicted. Already by late 1945 Pechstein realized that Leba and Rowe would be lost to him forever. In a letter to Mäki in December 1945 he tried to put on a brave face: ‘[…] [W]e do not want to let courage sink, I simply have to hit the road once more as an old wanderer to find an unspoilt spot where one can simply be human.’95 In fact, without his artistic retreat in 93 Nachtexpress, 24 January 1946: ‘Besuch bei Max Pechstein’. 94 bildende kunst 2 (1948), no.5, 32. 95 Letter Pechstein to Mäki, 24 December 1945, in private collection.

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Fig. 6.7: Planting Taro in Palau (1950/9), oil on canvas, 90 × 75 cm, Stiftung Pommersches Landesmuseum Greifswald (loan from private collection).

Pomerania Pechstein felt ‘like a fish out of water’ as he confessed to many friends.96 In summer 1947 he spent a month at Lake Chiemsee in Bavaria and although he worked a lot – mostly in watercolours – he apparently did 96 Quoted in Heinz Barüske, ‘Ostdeutschland im Schaffen von Max Pechstein’, in Ostdeutsche Monatshefte 22 (1955), no. 2, 102.

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not find the mountain scenery an adequate substitute for the fishermen’s life he had lost in the east.97 The following year, when unable to leave Berlin for a working holiday, he painted a lot of flower still lifes, mostly of sun flowers. Then, in summer 1949, he thought for a short while that he had finally found a replacement for Leba: he spent two months in Ückeritz on the island of Usedom, at the stretch of the Baltic Coast nearest to Berlin. Even a heavy bout of dysentery towards the beginning of his stay did not damp his enthusiasm, nor the fact that as a resident of West Berlin he did not received a ration card and therefore had to rely on Marta to send him food provisions by post.98 With its mixture of fishing communities and rural hinterland Usedom offered the sort of motifs which Pechstein had missed for so long. ‘Already now I have fixed in sketches many of the works that will need to be done next year, I have struck friendships among the fishermen which cost me quite a bit of tobacco, but at long last I have a working field again, these last years I suffered almost physically of the fact that I was homeless’, he reported happily to Mäki.99 But once again, political developments thwarted him. Soon after the foundation of the GDR, new regulations required West Germans to apply for permits when wishing to travel to locations within Eastern Germany, and these were only granted to those visiting family.100 After this new disappointment, he attempted twice more to find a similar substitute. In 1952 he spent a few weeks in Strande, a small holiday town at the Bay of Kiel, but it was not what he had been looking for.101 The following year he went to the North Sea island of Amrum with his colleague Wilhelm Robert Huth, but after weeks of cold and daily storms he returned to Berlin, unimpressed and with a feverish cold.102 At this point he seemed to have resigned himself to his loss. ‘I yearn for the sun and warmth, but it is so hard for an old man like the

97 Pechstein stayed from 1 August to 5 September 1947 with a study friend of his son Frank, Dr Günther Bauer, in Arlaching, see entry in guest book of family Bauer-Lagally, reproduced in Leonie von Rüxleben, ‘Max Pechsteins Selbstbildnisse in Briefen und Postkarten’, in Graphische Kunst 36 (1991), no. 1, 12. 98 Letter Pechstein to Paul Fechter, 14 October 1949, in Getty Research Library (GRL) Los Angeles, Special Collections, 2001.M.19. 99 Letter Pechstein to Mäki, 28 September 1949, in private collection. 100 Friedrich Ebert Stiftung (ed.), Reisen in die DDR – Realitäten, Argumente (Bonn, 1985), 17; Bundesministerium für innerdeutsche Beziehungen (ed.), DDR Handbuch (Bonn, 1985), 634. 101 For Strande, see letter Pechstein to Mäki, from Strande, 19 July 1952, in private collection; for his disappointment with it, see Siegfried Gliewe, ‘“Sind keine pommerschen Fischer hier?”’, in Welt, 30 December 1981. 102 For his experience of Amrum, see letter Pechstein to A. Ochsenbein, 25 February 1954, in private collection; and Wilhelm Robert Huth, ‘Erinnerungen an Max Pechstein’, in Brücke-Archiv 6 (1972–1973), 17–20, here 19.

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Fig. 6.8: Foggy Morning (1949/11), oil on canvas, 70 × 80 cm, private collection, Germany.

one into which I have now turned to make tracks again’, he conveyed his frustration to a friend.103 Quite a few contemporaries thought that Pechstein’s attempts at recreating works from happier times did not yield very convincing results. ‘Once more the experience is confirmed that losses of this kind can only be recreated in a very limited way’, the art critic of the Berlin Tagesspiegel wrote in early 1952.104 And it was not just Pechstein’s recent works which attracted criticism now. Although the big Pechstein retrospective in the Academy at the occasion of his seventieth birthday attracted over 6,000 visitors so many of them apparently seemed to be unimpressed with Pechstein’s oeuvre that one critic felt it necessary to come to the artist’s defence: ‘Those visitors of the exhibition which consider the works of the artist too superficial should recall that Pechstein is already today of art historical significance, and that 103 Letter Pechstein to A. Ochsenbein, 25 February 1954, in private collection. 104 Tagesspiegel, 6 January 1952: ‘Verkünder des Glücks.’

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his truly pioneering deeds belong to the time before the First World War.’105 While pleased with the number of visitors, Pechstein felt aggrieved that he did not sell a single of his exhibits at the show. ‘[I] live hand-to-mouth, the salary that I earn as a professor of the Academy is the only thing that keeps me going’, he complained in a letter from February 1952.106 In view of the lack of interest in the fine arts which he perceived prevailing he now advised his students to look into advertising as a source of income.107 But young and aspiring artists were less and less inclined to look to someone like Pechstein for guidance, and not just because he retired from the Academy in September 1952.108 By the early 1950s, figurative art appeared increasingly dated to them. This applied to Expressionism in particular, which many younger artist felt certainly did not point the way forward.109 Exhibitions in the Western part of Germany showed an increasing dominance of abstract art. At the Berlin Academy, too, the trend to abstract art was so noticeable that Hofer felt it necessary to sound a warning note when giving a speech at the beginning of the summer term 1952: ‘Every hairdresser, every run-of-the-mill painter, in short everyone who would legitimately never amount to more than a kitsch painter, today paints in an abstract way and is successful with it […].’110 The conflict between proponents of abstract art and those of figurative art soon acquired an almost ideological nature. In 1953, Pechstein became one of its first high profile casualty when the jury of the Deutscher Künstlerbund – which Pechstein had helped found in 1950 – considered his submissions too weak and excluded him from its annual exhibition, together with Dix and three other founding members, all of them figurative artists. One of Pechstein’s colleagues called the decision a ‘dictatorship of the abstractionists’, an interpretation that Pechstein was happy to pick up. ‘I am against dictatorships, and I consider this as dictatorship’, he was quoted in the press. ‘The abstractionists are getting boring and they want to establish themselves through violence. But the sensible public wants to see how an artist engages with his surroundings, regardless of the form.’111 105 Steglitzer Anzeiger, 6 January 1952: ‘Farbe als Erlebnis’. For detailed information on the number of visitors of the exhibition, see Pechstein file in UdK-Archiv, 16/I, 126, unpaginated. 106 Letter Pechstein to Robert Langstadt, 16 February 1952, in Deutsches Kunstarchiv im Germanischen Nationalmuseum Nürnberg, Pechstein papers, II C–2, unpaginated. 107 Ibid. 108 For his retirement, see letter Professor Tiburtius to Pechstein, 1 September 1952, in Landesarchiv Berlin (LAB), B Rep 080, no. 78, 18. 109 See Markus Krause, ‘Max Pechstein und die Rezeption des deutschen Expressionismus nach 1945’, in Moeller (ed.), Max Pechstein, 131–132. 110 Hofer speech at the beginning of the summer semester, 6 May 1952, reprinted in FischerDefoy (ed.), Ich habe das Meine gesagt!, 205. 111 Der Spiegel 7 (1953), no. 29 (15 July 1953): ‘Rabiat wie ein Religionskrieg’, 28.

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Coupled to the term ‘dictatorship’, Pechstein’s recourse to the ‘sensible public’ was not unproblematic as it conjured up the concept of ‘gesundes Volksempfinden’ which the Nazis had used as a justification of their persecution of modern art. Hofer, although himself a strong critic of abstract art, contradicted Pechstein in public, arguing that the audience’s view was irrelevant. ‘If artists were to work according to the tastes of the wider public, there would be none’, he told journalists.112 Many of Pechstein’s colleagues however agreed that the jury’s decision had been ill-judged. According to the news magazine Der Spiegel, they were ready to admit that Pechstein’s work had become rather weak lately, but felt that for reasons of tact alone such an outright rejection should have been ruled out. But adding insult to injury one of the jury members countered this suggestion by pointing out that the show was not meant to be ‘an exhibition of tact but of art’.113 The incident roused Pechstein’s fighting spirits for a final time. ‘It is shameful how these gentlemen of the Künstlerbund jury have acted, I and twenty others here have lodged a complaint against this scandal […]’, he wrote in a letter to Dix. He and his colleagues were now threatening to resign from the association, he told Dix, ‘then only that clique will remain that fancies it can get away with violating art’, and the rump association could hardly call itself German Art Association any longer. ‘That’s where we stand now, and we have to defend ourselves and can wait and see because whether these gentlemen will then still receive public funding after we have resigned is an open question, [but] cooperation with them is not possible.’114 Pechstein also sued for compensation on the basis of ‘damages to sale opportunities’.115 But his legal action was unsuccessful, and those colleagues who had protested against the jury’s decision eventually decided against breaking with the association over Pechstein’s case. The conflict within the Künstlerbund was not ‘a war of religion’ as Der Spiegel called it in 1953. Instead, Pechstein’s rejection signalled a caesura: the avant-garde of the time before 1933 had finally become history. Together with Pechstein, Expressionism was now relegated from the ranks of progressive contemporary art, and elevated into the confines of museums’ holdings of classical modernity. At this point Pechstein was already very frail, and it is tempting to suggest that the humiliation suffered at the hands of the Künstlerbund jury sped up the decline of his final years. In fact, ill-health plagued him more or less continuously from 1948 onwards. He suffered from a chron112 Ibid. 113 Ibid. 114 Letter Pechstein to Otto Dix, 23 June 1953, in Deutsches Kunstarchiv im Germanischen Nationalmuseum Nürnberg, Dix papers, I C–535; reprinted in Lothar Fischer, Otto Dix. Ein Malerleben in Deutschland (Berlin, 1981), 147. 115 Der Spiegel 7 (1953), no. 29 (15 July 1953): ‘Rabiat wie ein Religionskrieg’, 27.

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ic bronchitis, something he claimed was a legacy of his pneumonia in 1936, although it was more likely the result of his heavy smoking over the years.116 Hardly a letter which he wrote in his final years failed to contain a reference to some recent affliction, though he usually made light of it. In May 1950, he spent a month in Bad Wiessee, a health resort at the shores of Lake Tegernsee in Upper Bavaria. ‘It is damn fancy here, and expensive’, he wrote to Gustav Seitz, a colleague at the Academy, ‘but it helped and I am glad that I held out my four weeks faithfully, bravely, and respectably in this boring spa, beautiful in terms of scenery but too many sick people stumble across one’s path.’117 Pechstein hoped to recover sufficiently there to be able to travel to England later that year, but he had to abandon that plan in August when he suffered a deep vein thrombosis in his right leg. It laid him low for five months and he never really regained his strengths afterwards.118 The following summer, it was his left leg that gave him trouble and that prevented him from going away for a working holiday.119 An acquaintance from Pomerania who met Pechstein in 1952 during his summer stay in Strande was shocked by the extent of his physical decline.120 Paul Fechter, too, thought that Pechstein appeared considerably older than he really was when seeing him for his seventy-first birthday.121 ‘One is getting old and rickety’, Pechstein admitted to his old friend after one of his many falls caused by fits of dizziness around this time.122 In spring 1953, he was contacted by an editor of the Kieler Nachrichten, the art collector Hans Henseleit, who tried to arrange for Pechstein a teaching position in Eckernförde, a small town at the northern end of the Bay of Kiel. Pechstein, though touched by the gesture, felt too unfit to take the plunge. ‘Unfortunately, I am under the weather these days, the thrombosis 116 Letter Pechstein to Charlotte Weidler, undated [ca. late 1949], in private collection. Huth recalls that the doctors strictly forbade any tobacco or alcohol in Pechstein’s final years, see Huth, ‘Erinnerungen an Max Pechstein’, 19. 117 Postcard Pechstein to Gustav Seitz, 8 June 1950, from Bad Wiessee, in Deutsches Kunstarchiv im Germanischen Nationalmuseum Nürnberg, Gustav Seitz papers. 118 For the thrombosis, see postcard Pechstein to Rosa Schapire (London), 29 December 1950, in Stiftung Historische Museen Hamburg, Altonaer Museum für Kunst und Kulturgeschichte, Hamburg (AM), 1963/313a. 119 ‘I am unwell, for more than ten days now I am having all kinds of trouble with my left leg, have to lie down, and make compresses, but I hope this will get me over it’, in letter Pechstein to his son Mäki, 20 July 1951, in private collection. 120 Siegfried Gliewe, ‘“Sind keine pommerschen Fischer hier?”’, in Welt, 30 December 1981. 121 Paul Fechter, Menschen auf meinen Wegen. Begegnungen gestern und heute (Gütersloh, 1955), 207. 122 Postcard Pechstein to Fechter, 28 August 1953, copy in Günter Krüger papers, Berlin; original in GRL, Special Collections, 2001.M.19. For other mentions of falls, see letter Pechstein to Mäki, 2 June 1953, in private collection; and Fechter, Menschen auf meinen Wegen, 211.

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is causing me a lot of trouble again, and I do not really know if it is still worth making plans for the future’, he replied in a letter from May 1953.123 A year later, when Eckernförde approached Pechstein with a formal offer, the artist declined on health grounds. ‘Unfortunately it comes four years too late, since last year I am suffering from tuberculosis, and am still under medical treatment, the doctor has vetoed a climate change towards the north, and so I have to relinquish the friendly offer by Eckernförde, […] I am too old after all, and no longer healthy’, he told Henseleit in July 1954.124 He spent that year mostly bed-ridden in Warmbrunner Strasse 20 in Berlin-Grunewald where he had moved with Marta in October 1951. His frustration with his deteriorating health was palpable in many of his letters. ‘While I am writing these lines I am suffering from urticaria’, he wrote in August 1954, ‘and on top of this I spat blood once more this morning, I have turned into a test object for doctors, this has been happening since the end of last year, I am really fed up, I am always meant to rest which is not one of my strengths[; and] occasionally when I am doing a bit better I drive to my studio and dolefully look at my unfinished works and I just hope that there will be an end to my illness at some point.’125 Health was not his only complaint. ‘The situation for the arts, too, has become very bad here, because of the obstacles to traffic caused by the Soviets it is no longer possible to send one’s works to the west so easily, so one prefers to let it be’, he reported on the difficulties facing his exhibition activities in early 1954. ‘After all I cannot now exhibit in the exhibitions of the Eastern zone, it is crazy, everything is in disorder […].’126 It took him great efforts and Marta’s full support to send recent paintings to his exhibitions in Darmstadt, Wiesbaden, Mannheim and Munich in 1954. That same year also saw an exhibition of his works by the Rosen gallery in Berlin, the city’s leading gallery for modern art. It was the first time since the end of the war that one of Berlin’s commercial galleries staged a solo-exhibition of his works.127 Pechstein asked Fechter to write the introduction to the exhibition catalogue, and the two old friends also selected the works together. The trip to the Academy where Pechstein stored his works was a sorry affair. The old artist had just suffered another fall and 123 Letter Pechstein to Hans Henseleit (Kiel), 14 May 1953, in private collection; quoted in auction catalogue Galerie Bassenge, no. 70 (1997), lot 2819, 222. 124 Letter Pechstein to Henseleit, 26 July 1954, in private collection; quoted in auction catalogue Galerie Bassenge, no. 70 (1997), lot 2819, 222–223. 125 Letter Pechstein to Henseleit, 15 August 1954, in private collection; quoted in auction catalogue Axel Schmoldt (Krefeld), autograph auction of 8 April 2000, lot 1515, 162. 126 Letter Pechstein to A. Ochsenbein, 25 February 1954, in private collection. 127 See Beatrice Vierneisel, ‘Berliner Ausstellungschronologie 1945–1951’, in Eckhart Gillen (ed.), Zone 5: Kunst in der Viersektorenstadt 1945–1951 (Berlin, 1989), 235–271.

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had to be accompanied by a nurse. He looked pitiful, as Fechter later recalled: ‘slender, a slightly worn-out face, broad shadows under his big eyes which were still like those of a child, once happy, now sad – he was a boy and an old man at the same time.’128 In Pechstein’s studio, the tragedy of the artist’s decline struck Fechter even more strongly when faced with the stark contrast between his friend’s early works and those produced more recently. There was nothing of the vitality and power of the early Pechstein left. Worst of all, Fechter thought, was the fact that Pechstein seemed to be totally aware of the contrast between now and then: ‘He was sitting there with his sad, ill, old Saxon face: sometimes he would laugh his former hearty laughter – but the person, who he had once been, was already long behind him somewhere.’129 Fechter visited Pechstein regularly during his final months when the artist was no longer allowed to leave his bed. The last visit took place on 26 June 1955. ‘He spoke very little, off and on he tried to nod slightly; occasionally a distant smile flickered over his face’, Fechter later recalled.130 Above Pechstein’s bed hung the painting which the artist had produced in Leba in summer 1925, of Marta and Eva Grosz breast-feeding their babies. Fechter felt that the painting radiated so much of Pechstein’s personality and power that the entire room was filled with a bright joie de vivre that dispelled any atmosphere of a sickroom. When writing about this moment at Pechstein’s bedside a few weeks after the event, Fechter paid his old friend a final tribute: I suddenly realize that it would be absurd to lament and to grieve for this man, who is lying in front of me, thin, feeble, ill, a shadow of his former self: he has so intensified and increased life’s richness and exuberance for our world and the next that we […] can only thank him joyfully for what he has presented to us and those after us.131

Three days after this visit, on 29 June 1955, Pechstein died at the age of seventy-three.

128 Fechter, Menschen auf meinen Wegen, 211–212. Fechter was mistaken when recalling that this encounter happened on the day after Pechstein’s seventieth birthday. Pechstein’s first mention of the Rosen exhibition (which took place in October and November 1954) was in a letter to Fechter dated 17 September 1954, copy in Günter Krüger papers, Berlin. 129 Ibid, 212–213. 130 Ibid, 214. 131 Ibid, 215.

CHAPTER VII

Epilogue So eventually the curtain has to come down if abundance is not to turn into mass, richness not to become confusion. At some point restraint has to reign, even if one feels oneself ungrateful towards all the concealed life in which there was still so much reality, so much joy and colour and values which it would be worth narrating. (Paul Fechter, An der Wende der Zeit. Menschen und Begegnungen (Gütersloh, 1949), 483–484)

The day after Pechstein’s death, the Berlin Academy of Fine Arts published an official death notice: ‘Once again one of our best German artists, a pioneer of modern art, has passed away. His oeuvre will remain unforgotten. Teachers and students have lost a friend. We will always remember him faithfully.’1 Two years later, the Academy began preparations for a big memorial exhibition. By this time, Pechstein exhibitions had already rarity value.2 The Director of West-Berlin’s National Gallery, Leopold Reidemeister, agreed to take charge of the memorial show. But Reidemeister, who was later to become the founding director of the Brücke Museum in Berlin, disliked the idea of simply presenting an overview of Pechstein’s oeuvre that spanned more than five decades. ‘A Pechstein exhibition has to be uncompromising’, he declared to journalists when explaining why he had decided only to show works produced in the period between 1906 and 1914.3 The exhibition opened in February 1959 under the title ‘The Young Pechstein’. Though widely covered in the German press, it attracted disappointingly few visitors.4 Already half a year earlier, one journalist

1 2 3 4

In Archiv der Universität der Künste (UdK-Archiv), 16/I, 126, unpaginated. Dürener Nachrichten (Düren), 4 February 1959: ‘Sehnsucht nach beglückenden Erlebnissen’. Der Kurier (Berlin), 2 February 1959: ‘Auf der Suche nach verlorenen Paradiesen’. A few days before the exhibition closed it was reported that it had only attracted around 6,000 visitors, compared to 70,000 which had visited the show of French Impressionists in autumn 1958. See Tagesspiegel (Berlin), 12 March 1959, 4.

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had observed that ‘Max Pechstein’s posthumous reputation does not really match the luminance of his glory of the day’.5 During Pechstein’s lifetime, the reception of his work was not significantly framed by the fact that he was – or had been – a member of the Brücke group. He achieved his artistic breakthrough independently of Brücke, through his participation in the Berlin Secession exhibition in 1909 and the leading role he played in organizing the artistic attack on the dominance of impressionism through the New Secession from 1910 onwards. Indeed, if somebody benefited from Pechstein’s Brücke membership it was his colleagues: Pechstein led them the way from their provincial existence in Dresden into the limelight of Berlin’s art world. In the 1920s and 1930s contemporary critics mentioned Pechstein’s Brücke past very rarely if at all. For the Nazis, his membership in the November Group was more significant than that in Brücke, and in their ‘Degenerate Art’ exhibition in 1937 they felt little need for art historical subtleties when showcasing the so-called ‘cultural bolsheviks’: Pechstein’s works mostly hung next to artists who had not formed part of Brücke, like Max Beckmann, Karl Hofer, Oskar Kokoschka, George Grosz, Paul Klee and Oskar Schlemmer.6 Yet in the wake of the rehabilitation of these artists after 1945 and the canonization of ‘classical modernity’ throughout the Western world, art historians began to rediscover Expressionism, and with it the Brücke group. When Pechstein died in 1955, none of the obituaries failed to mention his membership in Brücke. Ironically, contemporaries now thought Pechstein’s oeuvre was overshadowed by that of his former Brücke colleagues. ‘Whereas their names ascended more and more brilliantly after 1945 a curtain went down in front of Pechstein’, observed the art critic of the Berlin Kurier in 1959. ‘But why is that? The former all appeared complex, whilst Pechstein was a true and pure naïve.’7 This was indeed the contrast presented by Lothar-Günther Buchheim in the first and very influential monograph devoted to Brücke in which he accused Pechstein of having failed to take on board ‘the complexity, the spiritual substance, that which is difficult to understand’ of Expressionism. ‘With rolled-up sleeves he produced colourful, decorative and unproblematic Naturburschenexpressionismus’, Bucheim wrote in 1956.8 It was a criticism which Reidemeister felt he had to address in his intro5 6

7 8

Der Kurier (Berlin), 25 July 1958: ‘Pechstein war der populäre Expressionist’. According to the reconstruction of the exhibition by Mario-Andreas von Lüttichau and Andreas Hüneke, in Peter-Klaus Schuster (ed.), Die ‘Kunststadt’ München 1937. Nationalsozialismus und ‘Entartete Kunst’ (Munich, 1998), 132, 134, 142, 150, 170, 173, 174, 176, 178. Der Kurier (Berlin), 2 February 1959: ‘Auf der Suche nach verlorenen Paradiesen’. Lothar Günter Bucheim, Die Künstlergemeinschaft Brücke (Feldafing, 1956), 293.

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duction to the catalogue of the ‘Young Pechstein’ exhibition: ‘One should simply ask oneself why Pechstein is berated as a nature-boy for working from the basis of vitality and colour, when at the same time laurel wreaths are made up for the Fauve Vlaminck who is similarly unsuspected of intellectualism?’9 But throughout the rest of the twentieth century, many art historians echoed Bucheim’s dismissive verdict. At the occasion of a big Pechstein retrospective in the Brücke Museum in Berlin in 1996, one critic felt that Pechstein’s later works certainly vindicated this view. ‘Without the rest of the group Pechstein becomes banal – and starts repeating himself: a [Paul] McCartney of Expressionism’, the critic commented in Berlin’s Tagesspiegel.10 It is not within the scope of this biography to provide a comprehensive history of the reception of Pechstein’s work after 1955. But there are a few observations worth making on Pechstein’s afterlife as a German Expressionist. First of all, he clearly came to suffer from the decorative quality of his works. The moderated radicalism of his oils which so appealed to many contemporary admirers of Pechstein became a disadvantage in the age of a visually more experienced art-appreciating public. As the ‘Sunday child of Brücke’ – a term first used by Ernst Gosebruch in 1920 and later picked up by Reidemeister in 1959 – Pechstein now carried the stigma of having produced ‘more pleasing’ works than his Brücke colleagues.11 Also, artists of ‘classical modernity’ came to be expected to express certain tensions of modernization, as perceived by later generations. Pechstein, the self-proclaimed ‘child of nature’, did not quite fit the bill. His works expressed his individuality and the mood of his time well enough, the newspaper Die Welt acknowledged in 1959. ‘But he does not struggle anxiously with a dark and lonely self. He was a sensuous bruiser. A happy-go-lucky fellow.’12 Kirchner, the metropolitan flaneur, had more to offer in this respect, not least in terms of psychological complexity: the nervous, Angst-ridden drug addict, the painter of prostitutes and street life, ill, increasingly deranged and ultimately suicidal fitted the image of a modern genius, verging on the brink of insanity, much better than Pechstein ever could. Kirchner

9 10 11

12

Leopold Reidemeister (ed.), Der junge Pechstein (Berlin, 1959), unpaginated. Ronald Berg, ‘Der McCartney des Expressionismus’, in Tagesspiegel (Berlin), 22 September 1996, 25. See Die Welt, 2 February 1959: ‘Explosion der Lebensfreude’. The art historian Ernst Gosebruch was director of the Folkwang Museum in Essen, and used the term ‘Sunday child’ for Pechstein in a review of Schmidt-Rottluff ’s works in 1920, see Ernst Gosebruch, ‘Karl Schmidt-Rottluff ’, in Genius 2 (1920), 5–20. Die Welt, 2 February 1959: ‘Explosion der Lebensfreude’. The original reads: ‘Er ringt freilich nicht notvoll mit einem einsam-düsteren Selbst. Er war ein sinnenfroher Kraftmensch. Ein Ei-Potz-Kerl.’

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produced paintings which, like his Potsdamer Platz in Berlin’s National Gallery, went on to become icons of German Expressionism. ‘German Expressionism […] is a movement essential to an understanding of modern art’, Donald Gordon declared at the occasion of a big Kirchner retrospective in the United States in 1969.13 But just what exactly Expressionism signified was never quite clear, as it had never been a coherent aesthetic or ideological movement. It was a term coined by ‘the literati’, as Heckel pointed out. Heckel was also reluctant to read too much meaning into the formal style developed by the Brücke artists prior to the First World War: ‘Much of what conflicted with the then conventional way of painting or [of producing] graphics can be explained from the technical side of things’, he told the art-dealer Roman Norbert Ketterer.14 But by the early 1950s, art historians and critics thought they knew what made Brücke so special. ‘Back then, in the early days of Expressionism, their paintings sometimes resembled each other so strikingly that they could have been mistaken for each other, and the style-forming strength of the more powerful [artists] conveyed itself to the others’, one critic wrote in 1954. ‘For the sake of their joint aspirations they discarded their individuality.’15 The summer in Moritzburg in 1910 came to be defined as the group’s pinnacle because it seemed to allow a reading of Brücke not as primarily an exhibition association but an artists’ collective which helped German art gain a foothold within the avant-garde. ‘By 1910/11, the Brücke artists had reached a level which secured them a premier position within European art, equal to the French Fauves’, declared the exhibition catalogue of the first big Brücke retrospective in 1958.16 Heckel himself always expressed amazement when hearing that people claimed the works by the various artists during the Brücke period looked very similar – ‘it strikes me as quite suspect’, he said in 1958 – but the idea that the Brücke artists had jointly developed a collective style proved very attractive.17 From the late 1950s onwards, countless exhibitions and publications in Germany and abroad consolidated Brücke’s place within the canon of modern art.18

13 14 15 16 17 18

Donald E. Gordon, E. L. Kirchner. A retrospective exhibition (Boston, 1969), 9. In a conversation recorded in 1958, in Roman Norbert Ketterer (ed.), Dialoge. Bildende Kunst – Kunsthandel (Stuttgart, 1988), 54. H. R. Conrath [Hans Haueisen], ‘Rückblick auf eine große Zeit’, Tagesspiegel, 31 October 1954, 4. Martin Urban, ‘Zur Geschichte der Brücke’, in Museum Folkwang (ed.), Brücke 1905– 1913: eine Künstlergemeinschaft des Expressionismus (Essen, 1958), 14. See Ketterer (ed.), Dialoge, 37. For an overview, see Mathias Wagner, ‘Bibliographie (1912–2001) Künstlergruppe Brükke’, in Birgit Dalbajewa, Ulrich Bischoff f (eds.), Die Brücke in Dresden 1905–1911 (Cologne, 2001), 418–421. See also Christian Saehrendt, “Die Brücke“ zwischen Staatskunst

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Some of the works which Pechstein produced during the period of his Brücke membership, like his Horsemarket in Moritzburg from 1910 (now in Thyssen-Bornemisza Collection in Madrid), are rightly celebrated as brilliant masterworks of a particular Brücke style. But as discussed in Chapter Two, Pechstein also produced many works during this period which do not readily lend themselves to the label ‘Brücke’ or indeed ‘Expressionism’. The stylistic variations evident in the different media in which Pechstein worked, from the stained-glass windows for the Eibenstock town hall in 1907 to his design for a Bismarck statue in 1910, make it difficult to subsume his artistic output of this time within any single art historical category. In Kirchner’s eyes Pechstein’s artistic versatility made him a ‘fraud and total eclectic’, as he declared in one of his many venomous outbursts against his former colleague in the 1920s.19 However, Brücke was only one facet of Pechstein’s life and artistic development, and though important not the defining one. Unlike Kirchner who had difficulties coming to terms with his Brücke past, or Heckel who had managed Brücke’s day-to-day affairs, Pechstein did not look back in either anger or sorrow: the group simply did not mean as much to him as it did to those two. The present biography of Pechstein is only able to provide a glimpse of the range of art works which the artist produced in his lifetime. The catalogue raisonné of Pechstein’s graphic work, published in 1988 by Günter Krüger, includes over 900 woodcuts, etchings and lithographs.20 The catalogue raisonné of Pechstein’s oils, published in 2011, lists 1,242 works (though a quarter of these are considered lost).21 Pechstein produced even more drawings and watercolours but he lost most of them in 1945. Of 3,400 drawings stored in Schloß Moritzburg near Dresden he was returned only 120 works.22 There is no catalogue raisonné of those drawings or watercolours which survived the war in private collections. Jürgen Schilling’s exhibition catalogue accompanying a show of Pechstein’s watercolours and drawings in 1987/88 provides only a first though not very impressive starting point.23 However, Pechstein’s autobiography which Marta finally managed to get published in 1960 is richly illustrated with an excellent und Verfemung. Expressionistische Kunst als Politikum in der Weimarer Republik, im “Dritten Reich“ und im Kalten Krieg (Stuttgart, 2005), 82–83. 19 Letter Kirchner to Gustav Schiefler, 8 June 1925, reprinted in Wolfgang Henze (ed.), Briefwechsel: 1910–1935/38; mit Briefen von und an Luise Schiefler und Erna Kirchner sowei weiteren Dokumenten aus Schieflers Korrespondenz-Ablage. Ernst Ludwig Kirchner; Gustav Schiefler (Stuttgart, 1990), 365. 20 Günter Krüger, Max Pechstein. Das graphische Werk (Tökendorf, 1988). 21 Aya Soika, Max Pechstein. Das Werkverzeichnis der Ölgemälde (Munich, 2011), vol. 1, 133. 22 Letter Pechstein to Herbert Eulenberg (Kaiserwerth), 20 January 1946, reprinted in Jürgen Schilling (ed.), Max Pechstein. Zeichnungen und Aquarelle (Wolfsburg, 1987), 80. 23 Schilling, Max Pechstein. Zeichnungen und Aquarelle.

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selection of his drawings.24 Many of Pechstein’s interior decorations have not survived. The wall decorations on canvas which he created for the Villa Perls in 1912 were presented to Berlin’s National Gallery in 1926, confiscated by the Nazis in the course of their ‘degenerate art’ campaign and probably destroyed in 1939.25 His mosaics for Gurlitt’s gallery and the stained glass windows for Gurlitt’s private villa in Berlin were destroyed by air raids in the course of the Second World War. But the Palau mural in his former studio in Offenbacher Str. 13 still exists.26 His stained glass windows from 1907 for the Eibenstock town hall can also still be admired in their original location. The stained glass windows triptych from 1910, Three standing female nudes, is now kept in Berlin’s Brücke Museum.27 The huge cycle of stained glass windows produced for the International Labour Office in Geneva in 1926 was moved to the ILO’s new building in 1974.28 Pechstein also created some sculptures, of which only the head of his friend Eduard Plietzsch has survived in public collections.29 Some of the jewellery which Pechstein created during the 1930s is still in his estate. These works that have survived the artist are the building-blocks of Pechstein’s post-humous reputation. But which ones of these are being used, by whom, and in which setting, is an on-going process of negotiation between art historians, curators, museums, art dealers, auction houses, collectors, the mass media, and the museum-going public. Within this process, foundations play an important role. The Brücke Museum in Berlin which was initiated through generous donations by Schmidt-Rottluff and Heckel in the mid–1960s, and which opened in 1967, has been an important institutional player in framing Pechstein as a Brücke artist over the last five decades. Kirchner’s reputation as a lone genius and the leading representative of Brücke is carefully honed by the Ernst Ludwig Kirchner Foundation in Davos, founded and endowed by the art dealers Roman Norbert Ketterer (who inherited Kirchner’s estate) and Eberhard W. Kornfeld.30 In the case of Emil Nolde, it was the artist himself who set up the Emil 24 Max Pechstein (ed. Leopold Reidemeister), Erinnerungen (Wiesbaden, 1960). 25 See 1912/40 in Soika, Werkverzeichnis der Ölgemälde. 26 Holger Lippke, ‘Über der Heizung ein echter Pechstein’, in Berliner Illustrirte Zeitung, 10 July 2005, 2. 27 Magdalena M. Moeller (ed.), Max Pechstein im Brücke-Museum Berlin (Munich, 2001), no. 154. 28 See http://www.genf.diplo.de/Vertretung/genf/de/04/ILO_dt_Fenster_Seite.html, last accessed 1 July 2011. The ILO is located at 4 route des Morillons, Geneva, Switzerland. 29 Two bronze casts of the Plietzsch head are on loan to the Kunstsammlungen Städtische Museen Zwickau and Stiftungen Schleswig-Holsteinische Landesmuseen Schloß Gottorf; the Brücke-Museum in Berlin has a plaster cast from 1919 in its collection, see Moeller (ed.), Max Pechstein im Brücke-Museum, no. 153. 30 See http://www.kirchnermuseum.ch, last accessed 1 July 2011.

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and Ada Nolde Foundation in Seebüll in 1946. The foundation serves the ‘noble mission of administering the extensive estate of Emil Nolde in Seebüll in the interest of the artist, of preserving his oeuvre for posterity and of presenting it globally.’31 Interestingly, all of these former Brücke colleagues of Pechstein died childless which allowed their estates to remain intact. Unlike some other artists, Pechstein did not leave behind a widow with an ambitious agenda of reputation-building. Marta Pechstein survived her husband by twenty-one years. She died in Berlin in 1976, age seventy-one. Her enduring contribution to Pechstein’s after-life was her role in securing the publication of his memoirs. She had probably hoped to have them published in time for Pechstein’s memorial exhibition of 1959.32 Pechstein’s Erinnerungen eventually appeared in 1960, with a preface by Leopold Reidemeister; in 1963 a paperback edition followed.33 In 1993, Pechstein’s memoirs were republished, with some changes to the biographical data by Pechstein’s son Mäki, and afterword by a curator of the Staatsgalerie in Stuttgart.34 The final sentence of that afterword reads: ‘It will only be possible to make a conclusive evaluation (eine abschließende Beurteilung) of [Pechstein’s] painterly and sculptural production, especially of the later years, once a catalogue raisonné of his work is available and the total oeuvre thus becomes visible.’35 The reader who has reached the end of this biography of Pechstein will probably agree with us that it is rather unlikely that there will ever be a static, conclusive judgement on Pechstein’s art, and his role within German Expressionism.

31 32

See http://www.nolde-stiftung.de, last accessed 1 July 2011. The memoirs may well have been based on the proofs that Pechstein had received from the Aufbau-Verlag for the first volume, see letter Marta Pechstein to Max Niedermayer, 6 January 1958, in Marguerite Valerie Schlüter (ed.), Briefe an einen Verleger. Max Niedermayer zum 60. Geburtstag (Wiesbaden, 1965), 198–199. 33 Max Pechstein, Erinnerungen. Herausgegeben von Leopold Reidemeister. Mit 105 Zeichnungen des Künstlers (Wiesbaden, 1960), published by Max Niedermayer’s Limes Verlag; Max Pechstein, Erinnerungen. Herausgegeben von Leopold Reidemeister. Mit 14 Zeichnungen des Künstlers (Munich, 1963), published by List Verlag München. 34 Max Pechstein, Erinnerungen. Mit 105 Zeichnungen des Künstlers. Herausgegeben von Leopold Reidemeister. Mit einem Nachwort von Karin v. Maur (Stuttgart, 1993 [1960]). It is only in this edition that Pechstein is said to have participated in the Moritzburg sessions of 1909. 35 Ibid., 144.

List of illustrations Copyright for works by Pechstein: Pechstein – Hamburg/Tökendorf Frontispiece: Max Pechstein, 1910. Photograph: Minya Diez-Dührkoop, private collection . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . VIII Fig. 1.1: Geierwally, ca. 1896, oil, on canvas/cartoon, 48 × 32 cm, Städtische Museen Zwickau, Kunstsammlungen . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7 Fig. 1.2: Sunflowers, 1901, gouache, measures unknown. Published in Dekorative Vorbilder, 1905. Photograph: bpk / Kunstbibliothek, Staatliche Museen zu Berlin / Dietmar Katz . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 15 Fig. 1.3: Study, 1902, watercolour, 64 × 47 cm, Kunstsammlungen Chemnitz . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 16 Fig. 1.4: The Royal Academy of Arts, Dresden. Postcard, c. 1900, private collection . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 19 Fig. 1.5: Sitting male nude, 1905, drawing, 40 × 29 cm, private collection . . . . 20 Fig. 1.6: Old Age (1905/1), oil on canvas, 110 × 45 cm, private collection, Germany . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 23 Fig. 1.7: Coming and Leaving (Childhood and Old Age), 1905, colour woodcut, 18.5 × 18.5 cm (Krüger H 1). . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 24 Fig. 1.8: Design for an Ibach Piano advertisement, 1905, zincograph, measures unknown (Krüger L 1). Published in Deutsche Kunst und Dekoration 16 (1905), 581 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 25 Fig. 1.9: Physalis and Chili Peppers (1906/1), oil on canvas, 65.5 × 70.5 cm, Sprengel Museum Hannover . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 27 Fig. 1.10: Zinnwald church, 1906, watercolour, measures unknown. Published in Moderne Bauformen 6 (1907), no. 7, figure 51 . . . . . . . . 28 Fig. 1.11: The Spring, painting of tiles executed after a design by Pechstein. Fountain niche at the Third German Decorative Arts Exhibition, Dresden, 1906. Published in Deutsche Kunst und Dekoration 8 (1906), 658 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 31 Fig. 1.12: The Spring (1906/4), oil on canvas, 102 × 112 cm, private collection, Germany . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 32 Fig. 2.1: The Model, 1906, woodcut, 14.4 × 9.5 cm (Krüger H 40). . . . . . . . . . Fig. 2.2: Under the Bridge, 1906, woodcut, 20.8 × 21.2 cm (Krüger H 25). . . . Fig. 2.3: Stained glass windows in the town hall of Eibenstock, 1906, executed after designs by Max Pechstein. Photograph: Ina Gläser, Eibenstock . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Fig. 2.4: Garden of Flowers (1907/2), oil and tempera on cardboard, 36 × 37.5 cm, private collection . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Fig. 2.5: Max Pechstein in Paris, Winter 1907/08. Unknown photographer. . . .

38 42 44 46 52

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Fig. 2.6: Seine Bridge with small steamer (1908/1), oil on canvas, 46.5 × 55 cm, National Gallery of Australia, Canberra . . . . . . . . . . . . Fig. 2.7: Rooftops (View from the artist’s studio), 1908, drawing, 48.6 × 38.4 cm, private collection. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Fig. 2.8: Haus Cuhrt, watercolour, 1908, measures unknown. Published in Moderne Bauformen, Monatshefte für Architektur und Raumkunst 7, 4 (1908), 25 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Fig. 2.9: Reception Room in Haus Cuhrt, watercolour, 1908, measures unknown. Published in Moderne Bauformen, Monatshefte für Architektur und Raumkunst 7, 4 (1908), 29 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Fig. 2.10: Women with Yellow Cloth (1909/47), oil on canvas, measures unknown, lost. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Fig. 2.11: Lagoon (1909/9), oil on canvas, 65.5 × 65 cm, Museo ThyssenBornemisza, Madrid . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Fig. 2.12: Morning (1909/16), oil on canvas, 50 × 65.5 cm, unknown private collection . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Fig. 2.13: Curonian Bride (1909/37), oil on canvas, 56 × 51.5 cm, unknown private collection . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Fig. 2.14: Fishermen in a Boat (1909/30), oil on canvas, 75 × 100 cm, unknown private collection . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Fig. 2.15: Lotte Pechstein, 1917. Photograph: Minya Diez-Dührkoop, private collection . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Fig. 2.16: The Brücke exhibition at the Emil Richter gallery, 1909. In the background Pechstein’s After the Bath (1909/46) Photograph: Ernst Ludwig Kirchner, Kirchner Museum Davos. . . . . . Fig. 2.17: Reclining Nude with cat (Lotte), 1909, watercolour and pastels, 34.5 × 45.5 cm, Brücke-Museum, Berlin. Photograph: Roman März, Berlin . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Fig. 2.18: Poster for the Brücke exhibition at Emil Richter gallery, Dresden, 1909, woodcut, 83.8 × 60 cm (Krüger H 85) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Fig. 2.19: Poster for the exhibition of the “Neue Secession”, the rejected artists of the Secession Berlin, 1910, colour lithograph, 71.5 × 99.2 cm (Krüger L 110) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Fig. 2.20: Woman (Lotte) (1910/56), oil on canvas, measures unknown, lost . . . Fig. 2.21: Fisherhouse (1910/7), oil on canvas, 68.5 × 79.5 cm, private collection, New York . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Fig. 2.22: Erich Heckel, Sleeping Pechstein (Vogt 1910/8), 1910, oil on canvas, 100 × 74 cm. Buchheim Museum, Bernried . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Fig. 2.23: Open Air (1910/33), oil on canvas, 70 × 80 cm, Stiftung Wilhelm Lehmbruck Museum, Duisburg. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Fig. 2.24: Horsemarket (1910/18), oil on canvas, 70 × 81 cm, Museo Thyssen-Bornemisza, Madrid (loan from the Carmen ThyssenBornemisza Collection) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Fig. 2.25: Yellow-black tricot (1910/31), oil on canvas, 68 × 78 cm, Brücke-Museum, Berlin (loan from private collection) . . . . . . . . . . . . Fig. 2.26: Seated Fränzi (1910/27), oil on canvas, 80 × 70 cm, Staatliche Museen zu Berlin, Nationalgalerie. Photograph: bpk, Staatliche Museen zu Berlin / Klaus Göken . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

54 59 60 63 68 74 75 76 77 78 79 80 83 87 88 92 93 95 96 97 98

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403

Fig. 2.27: Stained glass window for the music room of House Tetzner, Chemnitz, 1909. Executed after a design by Pechstein. Published in Deutsche Kunst und Dekoration 26 (1910), 311 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 101 Fig. 2.28: Design for a national Bismarck memorial in Bingen, 1910, by Max Pechstein and Alfred Wünsche. Published in Hundert Entwürfe aus dem Wettbewerb für das Bismarck-National-Denkmal auf der Elisenhöhe bei Bingerbrück-Bingen, Dusseldorf, 1911, no. 161, figs. 87 and 88. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 103 Fig. 2.29: Reclining Nude (1911/55), oil on canvas, 70 × 80 cm, Stiftung Saarländischer Kulturbesitz, Saarlandmuseum, Saarbrücken. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 107 Fig. 2.30: On the Beach of Nidden (1911/65), oil on canvas, 50 × 65 cm, Staatliche Museen zu Berlin, Nationalgalerie. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 108 Fig. 2.31: Poster for the MUIM Institute in Durlacher Str. 14 in BerlinWilmersdorf, 1911, by Ernst Ludwig Kirchner. Woodcut, 86.9 × 54.6 cm (Dube ELK H 716). Photograph: Roman März, Berlin. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 113 Fig. 2.32: The dining room in House Perls, Berlin, with wall decorations by Max Pechstein, 1912. Unknown photographer. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 123 Fig. 2.33: Convent of San Gimignano (1914/6), oil on canvas, 69 ×78 cm, private collection. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 131 Fig. 3.1: Club House on Palau, c. 1910, unknown photographer. Published in Willy Scheel, Deutschlands Kolonien in achtzig farbenphotographischen Abbildungen, Berlin 1912, 141 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 137 Fig. 3.2: The steamboat Derfflinger, postcard, ca. 1910 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 140 Fig. 3.3: Barge in Suez Canal, 1914, ink drawing, 28.6 × 22.6 cm, private collection. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 141 Fig. 3.4: Map of the Western part of the Pacific Ocean, and of the Palau-Islands, c. 1906. Published in Karl Semper, Auf den Palau-Inseln, Berlin (no date, c. 1906), 6–7. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 146 Fig. 3.5: Monsoon Atmosphere in Palau (1914/10), oil on canvas, 78 × 67 cm, unknown private collection. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 148 Fig. 3.6: Entry in Lotte Pechstein’s travel diary, 26 July 1914, private collection . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 151 Fig. 3.7: Interior of a Palau Bai, c. 1910. Unknown photographer. Published in Paul Ebert, Südsee-Erinnerungen. Leipzig 1924. . . . . . . . 152 Fig. 3.8: Lotte and Max Pechstein on Palau, 1914. Unknown photographer. . . 153 Fig. 3.9: Auchell (1917/94), oil on canvas, measures unknown, lost. . . . . . . . . . 154 Fig. 3.10: Sailing boat, 1914, watercolour, 19.5 × 13.3 cm, Brücke-Museum, Berlin. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 155 Fig. 3.11: Rubasack (1917/91), oil on canvas, 75 × 59.5 cm, private collection. . . 157 Fig. 3.12: Ronmay (1917/92), oil on canvas, 76 × 59.5 cm, private collection, Germany. Photograph: Alexander Pechstein, Tökendorf. . . . . . . . . . . 158 Fig. 3.13: Palau-Dance, 1914, ink drawing, ca. 29 × 34 cm, private collection, Germany. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 163 Fig. 3.14: Woolworth building, 1915, ink drawing on a postcard to Paul Fechter from New York to Berlin, 8 May 1915.

404

Fig. 3.15: Fig. 3.16: Fig. 3.17: Fig. 3.18: Fig. 3.19: Fig. 3.20:

Fig. 3.21: Fig. 3.22: Fig. 3.23:

Fig. 3.24: Fig. 3.25: Fig. 3.26: Fig. 3.27: Fig. 3.28: Fig. 3.29: Fig. 3.30: Fig. 3.31: Fig. 3.32: Fig. 3.33:

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Copy in Günter Krüger papers, Berlin (original in Getty Research Library, Special Collections, 2001.M.19.). . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 172 Pechstein in military uniform, 1915. Photograph: Städtische Museen Zwickau, Kunstsammlungen, Autographensammlung. . . . . . . . . . . . . 177 Pechstein with his regiment, 1916. Photograph: Städtische Museen Zwickau, Kunstsammlungen, Autographensammlung. . . . . . . . . . . . . 178 Wounded soldiers on the battlefield, 1916, hectograph in a letter to Eduard Plietzsch, 18 September 1916, Brücke-Museum, Berlin. . . . 184 Soldiers erecting wooden crosses on a cemetery, 1916, hectograph in a letter to Feldwebel P. Kaden, 29 October 1916, Städtische Museen Zwickau, Kunstsammlungen, Autographensammlung. . . . . . . 185 Flemish village church, 1916, hectograph in a letter to Pechstein’s sister Gertrud, 31 October 1916, Städtische Museen Zwickau, Kunstsammlungen, Autographensammlung. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 186 Soldiers digging trenches and carrying rolls of barbed wire, 1916, hectograph in a letter to Pechstein’s sister Gertrud, 1 November 1916, Städtische Museen Zwickau, Kunstsammlungen, Autographensammlung. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 187 Boy with toys (Frank) (1916/2), oil on canvas, 80 × 70 cm, Hamburger Kunsthalle (loan from private collection). . . . . . . . . . . . . 188 Family (Christmas greeting), 24 December 1916, colour-woodcut, 23.4 × 17 cm, private collection (Krüger H 164). . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 189 Design for a soldiers’ memorial in Berlin Wuhlheide (Heldenhain), by Max Pechstein and Bruno Schneidereit, 1917, drawing, measures unknnown. Published in Deutsche Kunst und Dekoration 40 (September 1917), 362–366 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 192 Portrait of an Industrialist: Adolf Sommerfeld (1917/129), oil on canvas, lost . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 193 Palau triptych (1917/57), oil on canvas, 119 × 91 cm (left), 119×176 cm (middle), 119 × 91 cm (right), Wilhelm-HackMuseum Ludwigshafen. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 197 Mural in Pechstein’s attic studio in Offenbacher Strasse, created 1917. (Photograph taken 2004). . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 198 Wall frieze in Pechstein’s studio in Kurfürstenstrasse 126, created 1917. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 199 Expulsion from paradise, 1917, detail of a mosaic in the newly built art gallery of Wolfgang Gurlitt, executed after designs by Pechstein. Published in Das Kunstblatt (1918), no. 6, 234. . . . . . . .200 Dance, 1917, stained glass window executed after a design by Pechstein. Published in Wieland 5 (1919/20), no. 7, 3. . . . . . . . . . 202 Somme (Exploding Shell), 1916, etching, 39.5 × 31.5 (Krüger R 99), private collection . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 203 The “Pechstein-Wall” in the exhibition of the Free Secession in the summer of 1917. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 207 Residential housing complex built by Alfred Messel, Kurfürstenstr. 126: Pechstein’s Berlin residence from August 1918 to October 1944. Photograph: K & M, 1894. Foto Marburg . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .208 Call to the National Assembly, 1919, poster – colour lithograph, 67.8 × 44.3 cm (Krüger L 358), private collection. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 214

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405

Fig. 3.34: Don’t strangle the newborn freedom, 1919, poster – colour lithograph, 99.5 × 67.7 cm (Krüger L 360), private collection. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 215 Fig. 3.35: To all artists, 1919, cover design – colour lithograph (Krüger L 359a), private collection. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 218 Fig. 3.36: Victims of the Revolution (1919/8), oil on cardboard, 32.5 × 41 cm, private collection, California. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .220 Fig. 4.1: Return of Barges (1919/43), oil on canvas, 89 × 63 cm, Stiftung Moritzburg, Kunstmuseum des Landes Sachsen-Anhalt, Halle . . . . . . 230 Fig. 4.2: Self portrait, 1920, lithograph, 19.5 × 15 cm (Krüger L 366). The print was added to each copy of Paul Fechter’s Das Graphische Werk Max Pechsteins which appeared in 1921. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 242 Fig. 4.3: At the dressing Table (1921/53), oil on canvas, 91.5 × 121 cm, Wilhelm-Hack-Museum, Ludwigshafen. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 246 Fig. 4.4: Self-portrait with Death (1921/59), c. 1921, oil on canvas, 80 × 70 cm, private collection. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 248 Fig. 4.5: Dr. Walter Minnich: Portrait outdoors (1925/20), oil on canvas, 70 × 80 cm, Kunstmuseum Luzern (loan from private collection). . . . 249 Fig. 4.6: Profane and sacred Love (1924/24), oil on canvas, 123 × 148.5 cm, private collection, Berlin. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 252 Fig. 4.7: Monterosso al Mare, 1924, ink and crayon drawing on a postcard to Robert Langstadt, private collection. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 254 Fig. 4.8: Painter and Audience (1925/11), oil on canvas, measures unknown, lost . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 257 Fig. 4.9: Cycle of stained glass windows for the International Labour Office in Geneva, based on designs by Max Pechstein, 1927. Published in Deutsche Kunst und Dekoration, April 1927. . . . . . . . . . . . 261 Fig. 4.10: Mother Helvetia, 1926, stained glass window, 43 × 41 cm, Städtische Museen Zwickau, Kunstsammlungen. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .264 Fig. 4.11: Feeding Mothers (1926/17), oil on canvas, 80 × 100 cm, Kunsthalle in Emden, Stiftung Henri und Eske Nannen und Schenkung Otto van de Loo (loan from private collection). . . . . . . . . 265 Fig. 4.12: Solidarity with Soviet Russia, 1927, poster – colour lithograph, 70 × 45.5 cm (Krüger L 407). Photograph: bpk / Kunstbibliothek, Staatliche Museen zu Berlin. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 270 Fig. 4.13: Summer Night in Montreux (1925/6), oil on canvas, 81 × 100 cm, private collection. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 273 Fig. 4.14: North-West Storm (1927/21), oil on canvas, 91 × 111 cm, private collection, Germany. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 274 Fig. 4.15: The members of the fishing association Rowe – Lake Garder, c. 1929, with Pechstein wearing a white jumper. Photograph: Otto K. Vogelsang, Stolp. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 277 Fig. 4.16: Summer, 1929, stained glass window, Stadtbad Mitte, Berlin. . . . . . . . 281 Fig. 4.17: Field with Wetches / Evening (1927/10), oil on canvas, 50.5 ×70.5 cm, private collection, Germany. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 282 Fig. 4.18: Evening in the Pyrenees (1931/5), oil on canvas, 69.5 × 79.5 cm, unknown private collection. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 285 Fig. 4.19: Max Pechsteins 50th birthday party, 31 December 1931, with son Frank, Max Osborn, Willy Jaeckel, Hans Purrmann,

406

List of illustrations

Alfred Flechtheim, George Grosz, Bruno Krauskopf and others. Unknown photographer. Pechstein archive, Hamburg. . . . . . . . . . . . . 287 Fig. 5.1: Das Symbol der Arbeit, 1934, lithograph, measures unknown. Photograph: bpk, Staatliche Museen zu Berlin. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 314 Fig. 5.2: Trawlers for repair (1933/7), oil on canvas, 80 × 100 cm, private collection. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 322 Fig. 5.3: Collage from Wolfgang Willrich’s book Cleansing of the Temple of Art with Pechstein’s Sitting Girl (1910/27), Munich 1937, fig. 6, private collection. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 330 Fig. 5.4: Illustrated letter to Mica Plietzsch with Mäki in Hitler Youth uniform, 19 February 1937, private collection. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 332 Fig. 5.5: Adolf Ziegler at the opening of the “Degenerate Art” exhibition. Behind him the exhibition wall with Pechstein’s Couple (1917/58). . . . 334 Fig. 5.6: Pechstein’s painting Fishermen (1922/59), on display in the “Degenerate Art” exhibition in Munich 1937, under the heading: “German peasants – as seen in Yiddish” . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 335 Fig. 5.7: Autumn at the Lake (1937/2), oil on canvas, 80 × 103.5 cm, private collection. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .343 Fig. 5.8: Morgen bei Purwin (1939/6), oil on canvas, 70 × 80.5 cm, private collection, Germany. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .346 Fig. 5.9: Odin, 1944, ink drawing on Pechstein’s New Year’s greeting of 29 December 1944, private collection. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 359 Fig. 6.1: Ruins in Berlin (Zerstörtes Berlin), 1945, drawing, 10.5 × 14.8 cm, private collection . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .364 Fig. 6.2: Poster for the Pechstein exhibition in Berlin’s Admiralspalast, starting in February 1946, colour lithograph, 56.8 × 39 cm (Krüger 1988, L 414). . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 369 Fig 6.3: Max Pechstein in a private art class with American officers, c. 1946. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 374 Fig. 6.4: Portrait of Mrs Wermel in Spanish costume (1946/7), oil on canvas, 75 × 52 cm, private collection, California . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 375 Fig. 6.5: Kulturbund peace rally with Max Pechstein on the panel of speakers, Berlin (Admiralspalast), 24 September 1948. Pechstein is in the first row, third from the left (standing), with Bertold Brecht behind him. Photograph: Abraham Pisarek. Deutsche Fotothek, SLUB Dresden. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 379 Fig. 6.6: In the Taro Field (1917/81), oil on canvas, measures unknown, lost. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 385 Fig. 6.7: Planting Taro in Palau (1950/9), oil on canvas, 90 × 75 cm, Stiftung Pommersches Landesmuseum Greifswald (loan from private collection).. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 386 Fig. 6.8: Foggy Morning (1949/11), oil on canvas, 70 × 80 cm, private collection, Germany. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 388

Bibliography Archival Sources AAdW: Archiv der Berlin-Brandenburgischen Akademie der Wissenschaften, Berlin Ludwig Justi papers AdK: Akademie der Künste, Berlin, Archiv Bildende Kunst George Grosz Archiv; Annot (= Anna Jacobi) Archiv; Lovis Corinth Archiv; Paul Westheim Archiv AM: Stiftung Historische Museen Hamburg, Altonaer Museum für Kunst und Kulturgeschichte, Hamburg Max Pechstein correspondence APWGH: Archiv Puhl & Wagner, Gottfried Heinersdorff, Berlinische Galerie, Landesmuseum für Moderne Kunst, Fotografie und Architektur, Berlin BArch: Bundesarchiv, Berlin-Lichterfeld ex-Berlin Document Center files: Pechstein file Bauhaus-Archiv Berlin Walter Gropius papers Bildarchiv Foto Marburg Bildarchiv, Preussischer Kulturbesitz BMB: Brücke-Museum, Berlin National Library of South Africa, Cape Town Irma Stern papers Deutsches Literatur Archiv Marbach Paul Fechter papers DHM: Deutsche Historisches Museum, Berlin GNM: Deutsches Kunstarchiv im Germanischen Nationalmuseum Nürnberg Adolf Hartmann papers; Otto Dix papers; Max Pechstein papers GRL: Getty Research Institute, Research Library, Los Angeles Special Collections, 2001.M.19. Günter Krüger papers, Berlin HL: Houghton Library, Harvard George Grosz papers Kreis- und Verwaltungsarchiv Aue-Schwarzenberg, 09456 Annaberg-Buchholz Kunstbibliothek Berlin, SMB-PK Kunsthalle Mannheim LAB: Landesarchiv Berlin PrAdK: Preussische Akademie der Künste SBB: Staatsbibliothek zu Berlin – Preussischer Kulturbesitz Adolf Behne papers; Archiv Aufbau-Verlag

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SHD: Sächsisches Hauptstaatsarchiv Dresden SMZ: Archiv der Kunstsammlungen, Städtische Museen Zwickau Stadtarchiv Düsseldorf SUB: Staats- und Universitätsbibliothek Carl von Ossietzky, Hamburg Gustav Schiefler papers (Nachlass Gustav Schiefler, NGS) UdK-Archiv: Archiv der Universität der Künste, Berlin Pechstein file 16/I, 126. ullstein bild, Berlin Zentralarchiv der Staatlichen Museen Berlin, Preußischer Kulturbesitz Pechstein documentation

Primary Printed Sources Max Pechstein’s writings Pechstein, Max, ‘Was ist mit dem Picasso?’, in Pan 2 (1912), no. 23, 25 April 1912, 665–669 Pechstein, Max, ‘Als Gefangener nach Japan’, in Vossische Zeitung, no. 544, 24 October 1914 Pechstein, Max, ‘Meine Flucht nach der Heimat’, in Licht und Schatten 6, no. 4, 1915, 2–4 Pechstein, Max, ‘Reise nach Palau’, in Vossische Zeitung, no. 492, 26 September 1915 Pechstein, Max, ‘Kriegsausbruch in der Südsee’, in Vossische Zeitung, no. 518, 10 October 1915 Pechstein, Max, ‘Was wir wollen’, in Deutsche Allgemeine Zeitung, no. 58, 4 February 1919 Pechstein, Max, ‘Volk, Kunst und Künstler’, in Die Freiheit, no. 134, 20 March 1919 Pechstein, Max, ‘Braunes Leid auf Palau’, in Berliner Tageblatt, 6 June 1926 Pechstein, Max, ‘Willkommen in Deutschland’, in Berliner Tageblatt, no. 26, 16 January 1927 Pechstein, Max, ‘Ronmay mit der Hibiscusblüte’, in Berliner Lokal-Anzeiger, no. 263, 5 June 1927 Pechstein, Max, ‘Max Pechstein. Ein Lebensbild’, in Das Magazin (Berlin), no. 191 (July 1940), 17–19, 55 Pechstein, Max, ‘Ruf an die Jugend’, in Aussaat (Lorch) 1, no. 6/7, 1946, S. 39–43 (as part of the article by Adolf Jannasch, ‘Das war verfemte Kunst, Max Pechstein’, in Die Aussaat 1, 1946, no. 6/7, 38–39, 43–44 Pechstein, Max, Sintenis, Renée, ‘Max Pechstein an Renée Sintenis’, in Berliner Zeitung, 27 January 1946 Pechstein, Max, ‘Gruß an Oskar Kokoschka. Zum 60. Geburtstag am 1. März’, in Neue Zeit (Berlin), 1 March 1946 Pechstein, Max, ‘An seinen Sohn Mäcky’, in Berliner Zeitung, 21 May 1946 (first published in Kieler Nachrichten, December 1945) Pechstein, Max, ‘Ruf an die Jugend’, in Horizont (Berlin) 1, 1945/46, 13, 23 May 1946, 26–27 Pechstein, Max, ‘Ruf an die Jugend’, in Neue Zeitung (Munich), 26 May 1946

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Pechstein, Max, ‘Achtung vor der Arbeit. Max Pechsteins Ruf an die Jugend’, in Tagespost (Potsdam), 14 July 1946 Pechstein, Max, ‘Max Pechstein: Werft die Trägheit des Geistes von Euch!’, in NachtExpress (Berlin), 29 August 1946 Pechstein, Max, ‘Durch Wahrheit zur Freiheit’, in Berliner Zeitung, 13 October 1946 Pechstein, Max, ‘Es geht um Euer Sein!’, in Oberbayerisches Volksblatt (Rosenheim), 4 March 1947 Pechstein, Max, ‘Sorge um die Kunst’, in Der Spiegel 1 (1948), 3 January 1948, 15 Pechstein, Max, (ed. Leopold Reidemeister), Erinnerungen (Wiesbaden, 1960)

Contemporary exhibition catalogues Katalog der Neuen Secession Berlin. Ausstellung von Werken der Zeichnenden Künste (Berlin, 1910) Katalog der Neuen Secession Berlin. III. Ausstellung Gemälde Februar–April 1911 (Berlin, 1911) Katalog der Neuen Secession e.V. IV. Ausstellung. Gemälde. 18. Nov. 1911–31. Jan. 1912 (Berlin, 1911) Gurlitt, Fritz (ed.), Kollektiv-Ausstellung Max Pechstein Berlin [Berlin, 1913] Katalog der Neuen Secession Berlin (Berlin, 1911), unpaginated. Katalog der Freien Secession (Berlin, 1918) Katalog der 58. Ausstellung der Berliner Secession. Herbst-Ausstellung Malerei (Berlin, 1929) Kunstausstellung Berlin 1919, Glaspalast am Lehrter Bahnhof, 24 July–30 September 1919, (Berliner, 1919) Magistrat von Berlin, Abteilung für Volksbildung (ed.), Pechstein Ausstellung Staatsoper (Admiralspalast) Februar bis März 1946 (Berlin, 1946) Munich Secession, I. Allgemeine Kunstausstellung München, Glaspalast 1926 (Munich, 1926)

Newspapers and journals Aussaat Ausstellungszeitung der Dritten Deutschen KunstgewerbeAusstellung 1906 Bauwelt Berliner Architekturwelt Berliner Börsen Courier Berliner Börsenzeitung Berliner Illustrirte Zeitung Berliner Illustrierte Nachtausgabe Berliner Lokal-Anzeiger Berliner Morgenpost Berliner Tageblatt Berliner Zeitung bildende kunst

Breslauer Zeitung BZ am Mittag Cicerone Das Kunstblatt Das Plakat Das schwarze Korps Dekorative Vorbilder Der Kurier Der Morgen Der neue Merkur Der Rundfunk Der Spiegel Der Tag Deutsche Allgemeine Zeitung Deutsche Kunst und Dekoration

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Secondary Literature Achenbach, Sigrid, Eberle, Mathias (eds.), Max Liebermann in seiner Zeit (Munich, 1979) Albers, Klaus, Presler, Gerd, ‘“Fränzi” – Modell und Muse der “Brücke”-Maler Erich Heckel, Ernst Ludwig Kirchner und Max Pechstein’, in Christine E. Stauffer (ed.), Festschrift für Eberhard W. Kornfeld zum 80. Geburtstag (Bern, 2003), 205–218

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Index

Abels, Hermann 224 Adenauer, Konrad 204 Amersdorffer, Alexander 286n, 329, 331n, 335n Amiet, Cuno 40n, 43, 47 Apollinaire, Guillaume 57 Archipenko, Alexander 57, 380 Arnhold, Eduard 62, 121n Arnold, Ernst (gallery) 22, 24, 26f., 34, 57, 94, 102, 104, 106n, 111n, 119, 135n, 224, 276 Auchell 153f., 156, 160, 163, 165, 196 Baader, Johannes 266 Bantzer, Carl 21 Barlach, Ernst 226, 293, 300f., 308, 324, 331, 356n, 370n Bebel, August 2, 367 Beckmann, Max 132n, 222n, 286, 324, 395 Behne, Adolf 212, 365 Belling, Rudolf 199, 211, 277, 286n, 305, 319 Bender, Ewald 110n Bengen, Harold 260 Bernstein, Carl 62 Beyersdorff, Ernst 65n Beyme, Klaus von X, XIIIn, 57n Biermann, Georg 51n, 195n, 205n, 206, 237 Bischoff-Culm, Eduard 71 Bismarck, Otto von 102f., 398 Bleyl, Fritz 34, 36, 39n, 40 Bode, Wilhelm von 62, 115, 367n Böss, Gustav 278f. Bossard, Johann 260, 262n Boticelli, Sandro 48 Boucher, Alfred 57 Braque, Georges 50, 124 Brauns, Heinrich 260 Breuer, Robert 100n, 115n, 205n

Breughel, Pieter 268 Bruun, Laurids 135 Buchheim, Lothar-Günther Bülow, Hans von 85

86n, 395

Calvesi, Maurizio XI Cárdenas, Lázaro 319 Cassirer, Paul 26, 41, 62, 64f., 106, 111n, 115, 120, 124, 126, 129, 134, 224, 225n, 237, 292 Cézanne, Paul 49, 67, 74, 135 Chagall, Marc 57, 381 Corinth, Lovis 26, 67, 120f. Cranach, Lucas 36 Däubler, Theodor 124n Daumier, Honoré 65 Degas, Edgar 65 Delaunay, Robert 57 Derain, André 50, 55, 75n, 124, 138, 284 Deri, Max 124, 125n Dietrich, Marlene 233 Diez-Dührkoop, Minya VIII, 78, 221 Dinkgraeve, Guido 345n Dix, Otto 201, 204, 227, 245, 291n, 296f., 300, 324n, 383, 389f. Döblin, Alfred 283, 297 Dodo (model) 39, 45, 92 Dongen, Kees van 49, 64, 75n Dufy, Raoul 50 Dürer, Albrecht 36 Dymschitz, Alexander 381 Ede, see Plietzsch, Eduard Ehmsen, Heinrich 380 Einstein, Albert 309 Einstein, Carl 217, 239, 266 Epiteaux, Georges 260 Ernst Ludwig, Grand Duke of Hesse 127 Eulenberg, Herbert 360f., 368, 382n, 384n, 398n

428

Index

Fadeyev, Alexander 378 Fechter, Paul 2n, 45f., 62n, 66, 79n, 82n, 109n, 114n, 115n, 116, 119, 122–124, 129n, 133, 135n, 137n, 150n, 161n–163n, 165n, 167, 169, 170n, 171f., 174n, 175f., 178n, 181n, 182n, 188n, 201n, 207n–209n, 210, 211n, 212n, 213, 217, 221n, 222n, 228, 229n, 231, 232n, 237f., 241f., 258n, 283, 301, 308, 323, 342, 343n, 370n, 384n, 387n, 391–394 Fehrmann, Fränzi (actually: Franziska) 92, 94, 96–99 Fehrmann, Johanna Rosa 92, 94, 97 Feininger, Lyonel 226, 237, 301, 306, 308, 324 Finckelstein, Leo 233, 309 Fischer, Alfred 125, 279 Fischer, Ludwig 115n Fischer, Rosy 115n Flechtheim, Alfred 237n, 238, 245, 287 Fra Angelico 48n Franck, Maria 104n Franck, Philipp 240, 292, 293n Frick, Wilhelm 294, 309, 311 Friedeberger, Hans 119n, 131n Frisch, Emmy 81 Frisch, Hans 81 Fuchs, Heinz 213 Gallén-Kallela, Axel 41 Gauguin, Paul 49, 67, 97, 106, 109, 134f., 138, 205 Georgi, Walther 127n Gerbig, Alexander 11–13, 21, 37n, 43n, 45n, 47–51, 53–58, 60, 61n, 63–66, 69n, 70, 71n, 81f., 106, 110, 117n, 118f., 121f., 125–130, 134, 135n, 138, 139n, 142, 143n, 160n, 164, 165n–167n, 169–172, 175, 176n, 178n, 179n, 180–183, 188n, 190n, 191, 194n, 195, 208n, 210, 212, 221, 245, 246n, 253, 255f., 275–277, 278n, 283f., 287, 289f., 309n, 310, 312, 316n, 320f., 327, 336n, 337–340, 341n, 342n, 343, 344n, 345, 346n, 347f., 350, 351n, 352–355, 356n, 357, 358n, 368 Gerstenberg, Otto 62, 227n Giotto di Bondone 48, 133f., 333 Glaser, Curt 90, 110n, 116, 119, 120n, 122, 126n, 131f., 162n, 166n, 204, 210, 217, 222, 235n Glaser, Elsa 116, 117n

Goebbels, Joseph 282, 307–309, 311, 316, 320n, 329, 349 Goethe, Johann Wolfgang von 34, 278 Goltz, Hans 128n, 224 Gordon, Donald E. XI, 69n, 397 Gosebruch, Ernst 396 Graff, Karl Ludwig 12 Gropius, Walter 212, 217, 226, 315 Grossmann, Rudolf 55n, 286n Grosz, Eva 265, 288 Grosz, George 1n, 201, 217, 227, 245, 265–269, 275, 283, 286–290, 292, 295, 296n, 297–301, 303, 305f., 310– 313, 315–319, 378, 393, 395 Grosz, Peter 265, 288 Grünewald, Matthias 36 Gurlitt, Fritz 62 Gurlitt, Hildebrandt 258 Gurlitt, Wolfgang XV, 84n, 119, 120, 127f., 138f., 164n, 167, 196, 198–200, 204–206, 222–224, 228, 233, 234n, 243–245, 247, 255, 275, 356n, 357, 399 Gussmann, Otto 18f., 21f., 24, 28f., 43f., 99 Gutbier, Ludwig 57f. Hagemann, Carl 345 Hahl, Albert 144, 145n Händler, Gerhard 381 Hanfstaengl, Eberhard 311 Harden, Maximilian 269 Hardenberg, Cuno Graf 30n Harris, Arthur 353 Hartberg, Victor 271, 280 Haskell, Francis XIV Hauptmann, Gerhart 367 Hausenstein, Wilhelm 133, 138n, 165n, 206, 234f., 251 Hausmann, Raoul 266 Heartfield, John 266 Hebbel, Friedrich 117 Heckel, Erich 26, 33–37, 40–42, 45, 56, 58, 64n, 65, 70, 72f., 75n, 76, 77n, 79–82, 84n, 86, 87n, 90–93, 94n, 96, 99f., 102, 104–106, 108, 109n, 110n, 111f., 117f., 119n, 120–122, 128n, 129n, 131, 221, 225n, 226, 239f., 287, 292–294, 308, 324, 383, 384n, 397–399 Heckel, Manfred 94n Heilbuth, Käthe 256 Heilmann, Hans (called ‘Pa’) 172n, 174n, 176n, 181n, 182n, 190n, 191n, 352

Index Heilmann, Hansi 352, 176n, 181n, 182n, 190n, 352 Heilmann, Margarethe (called ‘Ma’) 352, 181n, 182n, 190n, 191n, 352 Heinersdorff, Gottfried 43, 105, 115, 116n, 117, 183, 199, 200n, 220, 260, 262n, 263n Hellwag, Fritz 100n Hess, Alfred 233, 239, 250 Heyde, Galerie von der 321, 323, 326, 336, 337n, 342, 343n, 345f., 349 Heymann, Hans 233 Heymann, Walther 30n, 124, 133, 333 Hillern, Wilhelmine von 6 Himmler, Heinrich 281, 349, 350 Hindenburg, Paul von 263 Hinkel, Hans 325 Hitler, Adolf XI, XII, 251, 283, 292–300, 309, 313, 370 Hobsbawm, Eric IX Hodler, Ferdinand 22, 30 Hofer, Karl 292n, 296, 299f., 306, 308, 324n, 365, 370–381, 383, 384n, 389f., 395 Holländer, Felix 117 Huch, Ricarda 297 Hugenberg, Alfred 280 Huth, Wilhelm Robert 387, 391n Ibach, Rudolf 22, 24n, 25 Isabella (model) 39n Jaeckel, Willy 213, 286f., 292n, 356 Jannasch, Adolf 368, 370, 372n Jaumann, Anton 115n Jawlensky, Alexej 109, 324n, 381 Jessner, Leopold 234 Justi, Ludwig 217, 221n, 226f., 232, 236–238, 273–275, 293n, 376 Kaesbach, Walter 233, 239 Kahnweiler, Daniel-Henry 49 Kampf, Arthur IX, 329n, 333f. Kandinsky, Wassily 24, 41, 109f., 120, 133, 221, 306 Kaprolat, Carl Gustav 77 Kaprolat, Harry 77n Kaprolat, Lotte, see Pechstein, Lotte Kaprolat, Maria 77 Kardorff, Konrad von 69 Kaulbach, Friedrich August von 207 Kerr, Alfred 124n Kessler, Harry Graf 22n, 62

429

Ketterer, Roman Norbert 33n, 34n, 40n, 111, 112n, 118n, 121n, 122n, 225n, 233n, 239n, 397, 399 Kirchner, Ernst Ludwig 34, 36f., 39, 41, 45, 49n, 56, 64, 69n, 72n, 76, 79, 81f., 84n, 86, 90, 91n, 92, 94n, 95f., 99, 102, 104, 111–115, 116n, 117f., 119n, 120–122, 128, 129n, 131, 202, 206n, 222n, 239, 272, 282, 286, 297, 305f., 331, 345, 396–399 Klee, Paul 221, 286, 296, 306, 395 Kleist, Heinrich von 259 Klimt, Gustav 21 Klinger, Max 130 Koch, Alexander 115, 127, 233 Kokoschka, Oskar 213, 226, 286n, 371n, 395 Kolbe, Georg 79n Kollwitz, Käthe 212, 240, 297, 356n, 367n, 370n, 378 Kornfeld, Eberhard W. 112n, 282, 305, 399 Kraus, August 120, 302n, 303n, 304n Krauskopf, Bruno 211n, 286f. Kreis, Wilhelm 17f., 29f., 33f., 100, 291 Kuehl, Gotthard 18n, 21 Kühne, Hans Max 28f., 32f. Kyser, Otto 277, 288, 328 Langstadt, Julius 277n, 303n, 305, 309n Langstadt, Robert 254, 290n, 303n, 319, 336, 373, 389 Lederer, Heinz 337n, 341, 342n, 344n Léger, Fernand 57 Lemmer, Konrad 383 Levy, Rudolf 286 Liebermann, Max 21, 26, 64–66, 69, 84f., 120f., 129, 238–240, 293n, 297 Liebknecht, Karl 159 Lilienfeld, Karl 233, 238n Lippert 146f., 160f. Livonius, Adelheid von 324f. Lloyd, Jill 14n, 26n, 45n–47n, 136n, 148, 149n Lorenz, Felix 120n, 125n Lossow, William 28f. Lüdecke, Heinz 381 Macht, Maximiliam 88, 102 Macke, August 128, 129n Macke, Lisbeth 128n Mäki, see Pechstein, Mäki Manet, Edouard 65 Mann, Heinrich 297

430

Index

Mann, Thomas 297 Mantegna, Andrea 48 Marc, Franz 104n, 109f., 120, 125n, 126, 128, 129n, 228, 237, 308 Marcella see Fehrmann, Fränzi Marcks, Gerhard 81, 226, 370 Marees 111n Marx, Karl 283 Marx, Wilhelm 100n Matisse, Henri 50, 55, 75, 111n, 128, 170, 201, 238f., 284 Mayer, Hannes 319 McCartney, Paul 396 Mebert, Richard 14 Meidner, Ludwig 221, 239 Meier-Graefe, Julius 26 Melzer, Moriz 86n, 112n, 211 Messel, Alfred 207f., 404 Minnich, Walter 229n, 231n, 233, 243n, 244n, 247n, 248–251, 252n, 253–259, 260n, 262, 263n, 264f., 268, 269n, 271f., 275n, 276, 278, 284, 305n, 312, 313n, 318, 321n, 405 Modigliani, Amedeo 57 Moll 55n, 211n Möller, Ferdinand 224, 237f., 308f., 324 Möller, Liese 246 Möller, Marta see Pechstein, Marta Monet, Claude 138 Morgner, Wilhelm 89, 110n, 112n Mueller, Mascha 111n Mueller, Otto 102n, 111, 121, 211, 226, 239 Munch, Edvard XI, 41, 50, 64n, 69, 222n Münter, Gabriele 24, 110n Neumann, I. B. (Israel Ber) 224, 276n Nierendorf, Karl 62n, 86n, 211n, 245, 276 Nölcken 64n Nolde, Ada 43, 121, 127, 128n, 399 Nolde, Emil 34f., 40n, 41n, 43, 46, 47n, 104n, 109, 115, 121f., 127, 226, 239, 297, 302–304, 306n, 308f., 321, 324, 329, 331, 345n, 356n, 399 Noske, Gustav 220 Orlik, Emil 64, 241n Osborn, Max XIV, 8n, 10n, 13f., 30n, 32n, 33, 39, 43n, 47n, 48n, 55, 65n, 67n, 69n, 73n, 75n, 82, 90n, 114n, 119n, 123, 124n, 149f., 152, 160n,

166n, 169n, 233n, 234n, 238, 241, 243, 280, 283, 287 Osthaus, Karl Ernst 121n, 128 Pauli, Fritz 252n, 256, 284n Pechstein, Alexander XVI, 158, 340f. Pechstein, Frank 79n, 128n, 129f., 138, 139n, 174, 183, 188, 201, 208, 216, 221, 244n, 253, 255f., 258, 264, 277, 279n, 283, 287f., 301, 310, 317, 328, 338n, 339f., 345, 347f., 351, 352n, 354, 387n Pechstein, Franz Hermann XV, 1, 3–5, 8f., 12, 122, 138f., 174, 245, 251, 256n, 278, 325–328, 339, 367 Pechstein, Gertrud XV, 1, 6n, 180, 182f., 186f., 201, 245n, 256, 259, 277n, 278, 289n, 301, 309n, 310, 313n, 317n, 326–328, 337–342, 345, 357 Pechstein, Hugo XV, 1 Pechstein, Lina (née Richter) XV, 1, 4, 5, 8, 12, 122 Pechstein, Lotte (née Charlotte Kaprolat) XV, 36, 77–81, 88, 105f., 109, 121f., 125, 127, 129f., 134, 138–140, 142– 147, 149n, 150–153, 156, 159–162, 164f., 167n, 168, 170f., 176n, 180, 183, 201, 210, 221, 245–247, 250, 253, 333 Pechstein, Mäki (actually: Max jr.) 3n, 264, 280, 284, 288, 292, 311, 317, 332, 335, 348, 352, 354, 364, 367, 371n, 384n, 385, 387, 391n, 400 Pechstein, Marta (née Möller) XV, 246f., 250f., 253, 255f., 258f., 264, 266, 277f., 280, 284, 316, 318, 326f., 340, 345, 350–354, 356–358, 360f., 363, 366, 387, 392f., 398, 400 Pechstein, Max Frank, see Pechstein, Frank Pechstein, Paul Frank 125 Pechstein, Richard XV, 1, 4, 12, 309 Pechstein, Walter XV, 1 Pechstein, Wilhelmine (née Schubert) 1 Perl, Max 324 Perls, Hugo 122, 123, 399 Peters, Käti 115n Picasso, Pablo 124, 132n Pinder, Wilhelm 308 Piscator, Erwin 269, 283 Plietzsch, Eduard (called ‘Ede’) 105n, 115–117, 122, 126n, 135, 178, 179n, 180, 181n, 182, 184, 190n, 201, 207, 209f., 212, 227, 229, 231, 243n, 253n, 255n, 265n, 266, 267n, 268n, 275,

Index 283, 289, 292n, 311, 336, 341n, 347f., 364, 399 Plietzsch, Friedrich 102n, 104n, 108n, 116f., 126 Plietsch, Ludwig 87n Plietzsch, Mica 283, 332, 364 Poelzig, Hans 234 Puccini, Giacomo 13 Purrmann, Hans 55n, 240, 287 Rasmussen, Kristian Kongstad 41 Rathenau, Walher 69, 70n Redslob, Edwin 69n, 260 Reidemeister, Leopold 1n, 36n, 138n, 232n, 302n, 367n, 394–396, 398n, 400 Reinhardt, Max 117, 234, 259 Remarque, Erich Maria 282 Rembrandt van Rijn 51, 67 Rhaynach, Udo Freiherr von 127n Richter, Emil 24, 45, 46n, 58, 64, 66, 79, 80n, 82f. Richter, Heinrich 86n, 211 Richter, Lina see Pechstein, Lina Richter-Berlin, Heinrich 86n, 211n Rodin, Auguste 67, 128 Ronmay 156, 158f., 196 Rönnau, Meister 8 Rosenberg, Alfred 281, 309, 311f., 320 Rossini, Gioachino 85 Rubasack 156f., 161, 163, 196 Rust, Bernhard 308, 320n, 335 Sauerlandt, Max 109n, 110n, 308 Sauermann 102 Schaeffer, Emil 117n, 258 Schames, Ludwig 115n, 236 Schapire, Rosa 69n, 70n, 71f., 73n, 80, 90n, 92n, 111n, 221n, 391n Schardt, Alois 253, 308f., 311 Scharff, Edwin 286, 299 Schaudt, Johann 18 Scheel, Willy 136f. Scheffler, Karl 90, 104n, 106n, 109, 135, 206, 236, 237n, 238, 271, 274n, 280, 286n Scheibe, Richard 81, 105, 286n Schiefler, Gustav 47n, 90n–92n, 121f., 125n, 128, 129n, 174n, 175n, 176, 179n, 239n, 272n, 398n Schiefler, Johanna 128n Schiefler, Luise 91n, 112n, 121n, 398n Schiller, Friedrich 262n, 278 Schinkel, Karl Friedrich 123

431

Schlemmer, Oskar 294, 297n, 300, 301n, 306, 307n, 324n, 395 Schmalhausen, Otto 268 Schmidt, H. 102 Schmidt, Max 180 Schmidt, Paul Ferdinand 116, 120, 236n, 288n, 307 Schmidt-Rottluff, Karl 34, 40n, 41, 45, 49n, 63n, 64f., 81, 86n, 90f., 102n, 109n, 110, 111n, 112, 117f., 120–122, 131, 239, 345n, 381, 383, 384n, 396n, 399 Schneider, Fritz 336n, 341, 362n, 366n Schneidereit, Bruno 43, 60f., 71, 80, 105, 122, 128, 191f. Schönlank, Max Raphael 123n Schreiber, Otto Andreas 307, 309, 320 Schultze-Naumburg, Paul 281, 294, 311, 325 Schumacher, Fritz 18, 26, 28, 29, 33 Schuster, Peter-Klaus 62n, 293n, 328n, 333n, 376n, 395n Sebaldt, Otto 40n Secker, Hans 204 Seghers, Anna 376, 378n Seifert, Karl-Max 40, 41 Selz, Peter 55n, 122n Semper, Karl 136, 146 Servaes, Franz 22n, 205n, 232n, 236, 238n, 280n Signac, Paul 34 Sisley, Paul 49 Sklarek, Leo 278f. Sklarek, Max 278f. Sklarek, Willi 278f. Slevogt, Max IX, 21, 26, 121, 129, 240 Sommerfeld, Adolf 193f., 201 Soutine, Chaim 57 Spitzweg, Carl 13 Stahl, Fritz 116f., 205, 222f., 238f., 271 Staritz 2n, 303–305, 306n Steinbart, Carl 221, 231n, 232n, 259 Stern, Irma 195n, 204n, 207n, 208n, 209n, 211n, 231n, 247n, 248n, 250n, 251n, 252 Stern, Lisbeth 119n, 129n Sternberg, Josef von 233 Stiller, Richard 41n Strasser, Gregor 281 Stuck, Franz von 21 Tappert, Georg 86n, 89n, 104n, 108, 110n, 112, 211, 226, 365 Taut, Bruno 212, 235, 286n, 315, 319

432

Index

Taut, Max 328, 365 Tessenow, Heinrich 279 Tetzner, Karl 101 Thannhauser 224 Toulouse-Lautrec, Henri 65 Töwe, Christian 36n, 39n, 44n, 45n, 55n, 116n, 119n, 361n Trübner, Wilhelm 121 Tschudi, Hugo von 62 Valloton, Felix 50 Van der Rohe, Mies 122, 123n, 286n, 331 Van Dongen, Kees 49, 64, 75n Van Gogh, Vincent XI, 14, 26f., 32–34, 36, 41, 44–46, 47n, 49, 55, 62n, 65, 67, 74, 135, 272f., 365 Van Hauth, Emil 298 Vlaminck, Maurice de 50, 55, 124 Vogel, August 240 Vogeler, Erich 87n Vogeler, Heinrich 269, 367n Volborth, Alexander Hubert Law von IX, X, 125 Vollard, Ambroise 138

Voß, Hermann 67n Vuillard, Édouard 49 Walden, Herwarth 114, 124, 210, 211n, 226, 276 Wedekind, Frank 129 Weill, Kurt 283 Wellner, Wilhelm Adolph 67n Werckmeister, Otto Karl XIV Wermel, Freda 373, 375 Werner, Anton von IX, 46n, 114, 125 Westheider, Ortrud 14n, 33n, 34n, 37n, 39n, 45n Westheim, Paul 104, 206, 217, 221, 235, 319, 320n, 364n Whistler, James McNeill 22 Wilhelm II 190, 210, 226 Willrich, Wolfgang 328–330, 344 Winkler, Wilhelm 147–149, 156n, 161f. Wolfradt, Willibald 271 Worringer, Wilhelm 235 Wünsche, Alfred 43, 60f., 80, 102f. Ziegler, Adolf Zola, Emile

329, 333f., 349f. 51