Adolf Ziegler
Encyclopedia
Painting
Painting is the practice of applying paint, pigment, color or other medium to a surface . The application of the medium is commonly applied to the base with a brush but other objects can be used. In art, the term painting describes both the act and the result of the action. However, painting is...
and politician.
He was tasked by the Nazi Party
Nazism
Nazism, the common short form name of National Socialism was the ideology and practice of the Nazi Party and of Nazi Germany...
to oversee the purging of "Degenerate art
Degenerate art
Degenerate art is the English translation of the German entartete Kunst, a term adopted by the Nazi regime in Germany to describe virtually all modern art. Such art was banned on the grounds that it was un-German or Jewish Bolshevist in nature, and those identified as degenerate artists were...
", made by most of the German modern artists. He was the favoured painter of Hitler. Hitler commented that Ziegler's work was akin to that of perfection.
Life
Born to an architect father and a family of architects on his mother’s side, Ziegler was always surrounded by artists. He studied at the Weimar Academy from 1910 under master of technique Max Doerner at the Academy of Fine Arts Munich. However, the First World War interrupted his studies when he signed up to become a front-line officer.After the war, he settled in Munich and continued his studies at the Academy of Fine Arts Munich in 1919, where he attended classes by art nouveau artist Angelo Jank. He ultimately achieved the position of professor at the Munich Academy in 1933, when the Nazis came to power. His works fitted the Nazi ideal of "racially pure" art, and, as the President of the Reich Chamber for the Visual Arts, he was entrusted with the task of eliminating avant-garde
Avant-garde
Avant-garde means "advance guard" or "vanguard". The adjective form is used in English to refer to people or works that are experimental or innovative, particularly with respect to art, culture, and politics....
styles. This he did by expelling Expressionist
Expressionism
Expressionism was a modernist movement, initially in poetry and painting, originating in Germany at the beginning of the 20th century. Its typical trait is to present the world solely from a subjective perspective, distorting it radically for emotional effect in order to evoke moods or ideas...
artists such as Karl Schmidt-Rottluff
Karl Schmidt-Rottluff
Karl Schmidt-Rottluff was a German expressionist painter and printmaker, and a member of Die Brücke.-Life and work:...
. Writing to Rottluff, he forbade him from any artistic activity "professional or amateur".
Already a member of the Nazi Party in the early 1920s, he met Hitler in 1925 and became one of his advisors in artistic matters. Hitler commissioned Ziegler to paint a memoriam portrait of his niece, Geli Raubal
Geli Raubal
Angelika Maria "Geli" Raubal was Adolf Hitler's half niece. Born in Linz, Austria-Hungary, she was the second child and eldest daughter of Leo Raubal Sr. and Hitler's half-sister, Angela Raubal...
, who committed suicide. In 1937 he painted the Judgement of Paris, which Hitler personally acquired some time later, hanging it in his residence at Munich
Munich
Munich The city's motto is "" . Before 2006, it was "Weltstadt mit Herz" . Its native name, , is derived from the Old High German Munichen, meaning "by the monks' place". The city's name derives from the monks of the Benedictine order who founded the city; hence the monk depicted on the city's coat...
- Hitler would later also hang Ziegler's The Four Elements at a residence in Munich
Munich
Munich The city's motto is "" . Before 2006, it was "Weltstadt mit Herz" . Its native name, , is derived from the Old High German Munichen, meaning "by the monks' place". The city's name derives from the monks of the Benedictine order who founded the city; hence the monk depicted on the city's coat...
. It became an overnight sensation through frequent reproduction. This painting was much liked, judging by the enormous numbers of postcards and reproductions of it sold. The National Socialist celebrations of the human figure without conflict or suffering were immensely popular. By this time, Ziegler had become the foremost official painter of the Third Reich and was awarded the Gold Badge, the highest party member recognition, of the NSDAP.
Not much is known about his early works except that his early style exhibited modernist forms. Exiled museum director :de:Alois Schardt noted that Ziegler was “in former times a modern painter… he was one of the most extreme modern painters, but one of inferior rank.” Unfortunately, there are no examples of such early works. He gave up the modern style a representational and realistic style in the 1920s, during which time he had increased contact with Hitler. Ziegler exhibited eleven canvases at the Great German Art Exhibitions at the House of German Art between 1937 and 1943. A technically accomplished painter, Ziegler was known for mainly floral compositions, genre paintings, allegorical paintings inspired by Greek mythology
Mythology
The term mythology can refer either to the study of myths, or to a body or collection of myths. As examples, comparative mythology is the study of connections between myths from different cultures, whereas Greek mythology is the body of myths from ancient Greece...
, portraits, and numerous female nudes. His static, pseudo-classical nudes depicted ideal Aryan figures. In an interview with American playwright Barrie Stavis, Ziegler explained that a painting of a beautiful nude German woman encourages the ideal of a perfect body and gives German men the incentive to have many German children. However, the artistic ‘naturalism’ of the racially pure figures left nothing to the imagination, earning him the disparaging nickname of ‘Meister des Deutschen Schamhaares' ("Master of Pubic Hair").
Role in the Degenerate Art Exhibition
Eugen Honig
Eugen Honig was one of Adolf Hitler's architects.In 1931 Honig, along with other German architects such as Alexander von Senger, Konrad Nonn, German Bestelmeyer and especially Paul Schultze-Naumburg were deputized in the National Socialist fight against modern architecture, in a para-governmental...
as president of the Chamber of Art, which then had 45,000 members. Ziegler’s replacement of Hönig as president was a clear signal of the Reich’s growing distaste for nonconformity in the arts.
Ziegler headed a five-man commission that toured state collections in numerous cities, hastily seizing works they deemed degenerate. The works were then rushed to Munich for installation in the narrow rooms of the Hofgarten arcade for display, including some 16,000 examples of expressionist, abstract, cubist and surrealist works of art. The paintings of such "degenerate" artists, including the works of Max Beckmann
Max Beckmann
Max Beckmann was a German painter, draftsman, printmaker, sculptor, and writer. Although he is classified as an Expressionist artist, he rejected both the term and the movement...
and Emil Nolde
Emil Nolde
Emil Nolde was a German painter and printmaker. He was one of the first Expressionists, a member of Die Brücke, and is considered to be one of the great oil painting and watercolour painters of the 20th century. He is known for his vigorous brushwork and expressive choice of colors...
, were confiscated on Ziegler’s orders as head of the sluice commission. Ziegler managed to organize the Exhibition of Degenerate Art
Degenerate art
Degenerate art is the English translation of the German entartete Kunst, a term adopted by the Nazi regime in Germany to describe virtually all modern art. Such art was banned on the grounds that it was un-German or Jewish Bolshevist in nature, and those identified as degenerate artists were...
in Munich in less than two weeks. On July 19, 1937, he opened the exhibition and condemned those museum directors from whose collections the works came and their tolerance of the decadent art.
During the Second World War, Ziegler was temporarily sent to a prison camp after he publicly expressed doubts about the viability of Hitler's campaign. When Hitler was notified of Ziegler’s “defeatist” attitude, he ordered his arrest. Ziegler was arrested by the Gestapo
Gestapo
The Gestapo was the official secret police of Nazi Germany. Beginning on 20 April 1934, it was under the administration of the SS leader Heinrich Himmler in his position as Chief of German Police...
and imprisoned in the Dachau concentration camp for six weeks. However, Hitler personally ordered that he be released from Dachau and be allowed to retire.
Because his paintings were so closely associated with National Socialism, Ziegler was unable to successfully revive his career as an artist after the war. He repeatedly petitioned for reappointment to the Academy of Fine Arts in Munich from 1955 to 1958, but was denied because the Academy determined that he initially received the position due to Hitler’s personal appointment. There were some reports that Ziegler exhibited works in 1955 at the Ben Uri Gallery
Ben Uri Gallery
The Ben Uri Gallery is a gallery of Jewish art in London, currently sited at 108a Boundary Road, St John's Wood, London NW8 0RH. It is the only museum in Europe to be dedicated to Jewish art...
in London, but the gallery’s records indicate the artist was an “Adolf Zeigler,” a Jewish painter from London, not the German Ziegler. He also penned a response to Paul Ortwin Rave’s first-hand accounts of the Entartete Kunst exhibition in Munich, arguing with Rave’s assertions, but experts like Rave were not ready to analyze his standpoint objectively at that time. Unable to revive his career, Ziegler lived quietly in the village of Varnhalt near Baden-Baden for the last years of his life. He died in September 1959, at the age of sixty-seven.
Letter to Schmitt-Rottluff
- THE PRESIDENT OF THE NATIONAL CHAMBER OF FINE ARTS
- File NumberBerlin W. 35 II B/M/756/870 Blumenhof 4-6
- Telephone 21 62 71
- Postal Account No. 144430
- Mr. Karl Schmidt-Rottluff
- Berlin W. 30 Bamberger St. 19
In connection with the task, entrusted to me by the Fuehrer, of eradicating the works of degenerate art from our museums, no fewer than 608 paintings of yours had to be seized. A number of these paintings were displayed at the exhibits of Degenerate Art in Munich, Dortmund, and Berlin. This fact could leave no doubt in your mind that your paintings did not contribute to the advancement of German culture in its responsibility toward people and nation. Although you must also have been aware of the policy-setting speech of the Fuehrer at the opening of the Great German Art Exhibit in Munich, the recent paintings of yours which you have now submitted to us indicate that even at this date, you are still far removed from the cultural foundations of the National Socialist state. On the basis of these facts, I am unable to grant that you possess the necessary reliability for belonging to my Chamber. On the basis of Paragraph 10 of the first executive Order implementing the Law Concerning the National Chambers of Culture of November 1, 1933 (Official Gazette, I, 797) I hereby expel you from the National Chamber of Fine Arts and forbid you, effective immediately, any activity - professional or amateur - in the field of graphic arts. MEMBERSHIP BOOK NO. M 756 issued in your name is no longer valid, and you are requested to send it back to me by return mail.
s. ZIEGLER.
Certified: DOEMLING
(Rubber Stamp: National Chamber of Culture Chamber of Fine Arts)