Politicized Aesthetics: German Art in Warsaw of 1938

Abstract

This paper focuses attention on the reception of the exhibition “Deutsche Bildhauer der Gegenwart”, which was inaugurated on April 23rd, 1938 at the Institute of Art Propaganda in Warsaw – an institution whose exhibition hall was considered a venue of crucial importance to the cultural policy of the Polish state. The presentation was organized in the framework of a cultural exchange between Poland and Germany which was initiated by an exhibition of Polish contemporary art mounted in 1935 at the Preußischen Akademie der Künste in Berlin.

Keywords

• propaganda art
• sculpture
• interwar art
• neohumanism
• nazi regime
• neoclassicism
• neorealism