Bart de wever hitler paintings

Paintings painted by Adolf Hitler

Adolf Hitler, dictator of Nazi Germany from until his suicide in , was also a painter.^[1] During his Vienna years (–) he made his living as a professional artist and produced hundreds of works, but had little commercial success. A number of his paintings were recovered after World War II and have been sold at auctions for tens of thousands of dollars. Others were seized by the United States Army and are still in U.S. government possession.

Style and influences

Hitler's preferred subject was architecture, which he represented using "an amalgam of conventional styles".^[2] Instead of progressing, his works copied from nineteenth century and other artists.^[3] He drew primarily from Greco Roman classicism, the Italian Renaissance, and Neoclassicism. He liked the technical ability displayed by this art as well as the comprehensible symbolism.^[4] He called Rudolf von Alt his greatest teacher. Both Hitler and von Alt exhibited an interest in similar subject matter and use of color.^{[citation needed]}

History

Artistic ambition

In his autobiography Mein Kampf, Hitler described how, in his youth, he wanted to become a professional artist, but his dreams were ruined because he failed the entrance exam of the Academy of Fine Arts Vienna.^[5] Hitler was rejected twice by the institute, once in and again in In his first examination, he had passed the preliminary portion which was to draw two of the assigned iconic or Biblical scenes, in two sessions of three hours each. The second portion was to provide a previously prepared portfolio for the examiners. It was noted that Hitler's works contained too few heads.^[6] The institute considered that he had more talent in architecture than in painting.^[7] One of the instructors, sympathetic to his situation and believing he had some talent, suggested that he apply to the academy's School of Architecture. However, that would have required returning to secondary school from which he had dropped out and to which he was unwilling to return.^[8] Although Hitler became a painter and never practiced architecture, he came to regard painting as "mere subsistence work" and considered architecture his true calling.^[9]

According to a conversation in August , one month before the outbreak of World War II, published in The British War Blue Book, Hitler told British ambassador Nevile Henderson, "I am an artist and not a politician. Once the Polish question is settled, I want to end my life as an artist."^[7][5]

Vienna period

From to , Hitler made a meager living as a professional artist.^[9] He painted his first self-portrait in at the age of This painting, along with twelve other paintings by Hitler, was discovered by U.S. Army Sergeant Major Willie J. McKenna in in Essen, Germany.^{[10][unreliable source]}

Samuel Morgenstern, an Austrian businessman and a business partner of the young Hitler in his Vienna period, bought many of Hitler's paintings. According to Morgenstern, Hitler came to him for the first time at the beginning of the s, either in or in When Hitler came to Morgenstern's glazier store for the first time, he offered Morgenstern three of his paintings. Morgenstern kept detailed records of his clientele, through which it was possible to locate the buyers of Hitler's paintings. It was found that the majority of the buyers were Jewish. An important client of Morgenstern, a lawyer by the name of Josef Feingold, bought a series of paintings by Hitler depicting old Vienna.^[12]

World War I

When Hitler served in World War I at the age of 25 in , he carried fine paper and canvas with him to the front and spent hours of leave time drawing and painting. The works he painted during this period were among his last before he became a politician. The themes of his wartime painting included farmers' houses, the dressing-station, etc.

Attempt of retrieval and destruction

Peter Jahn was one of the original people assigned by Ernst Schulte Strathaus&#;[de], before Hitler annexed Austria in Strathaus had been appointed by Hitler in to locate and buy paintings Hitler had painted from to , and to Jahn spent nearly four years tracking down Hitler's early works, until he was called into military service.^[13] Jahn became the Art Consultant to the German Embassy in Vienna in , where he would then search for, purchase, and collect individual pieces of Hitler's art, allegedly in order to destroy a majority of the paintings. Jahn sold one of the largest collections of Hitler's art, about 18 pieces, with an average selling price of $50,^[13]

Auction sales

A number of Hitler's paintings were seized by the United States Army (some believed to still be in Germany) at the end of World War II. They were taken to the United States with other captured materials and are still held by the U.S. government, which has declined to allow them to be exhibited.^[14] Other paintings were kept by private individuals. In the s, a number of these works began to be sold at auction.^[15] In , auction house Mullock's of Shropshire sold 15 of Hitler's paintings for a total of £97, (US $,),^[16] while auctioneers at Ludlow Racecourse of Shropshire sold 13 works for over €,^[17] In a auction in Slovakia, a mixed-media painting fetched €32,^[18] And on 18 November , a watercolour by Hitler of the old registry office in Munich (Standesamt München) sold for €, at an auction in Nuremberg. The watercolour included a bill of sale and a signed letter by Albert Bormann, which may have contributed to its comparatively high selling price.^[19][20]

In , an auction was held at the Weidler auction house in Nuremberg where 14 paintings dated to by Hitler were sold in total for €, A watercolour of Neuschwanstein Castle by Hitler was sold for €, to a buyer from China. A year previously Weidler auction house had sold a Hitler painting to a buyer from the Middle East for around €,^[21]

In July , Mullock's Auctions sold two rare oil pictures. One shows a house at a lake.^[22][23]

Critical analysis

In , after seeing the paintings Hitler submitted to the Vienna art academy, John Gunther, an American journalist and author, wrote, "They are prosaic, utterly devoid of rhythm, color, feeling, or spiritual imagination. They are architect's sketches: painful and precise draftsmanship; nothing more. No wonder the Vienna professors told him to go to an architectural school and give up pure art as hopeless".^[7] The directors of the Academy of Fine Arts Vienna who rejected Hitler's application to join noted that he struggled to draw people.^[24] In Hitler and the Artists (), Henry Grosshans described Hitler's work as "dated, stiff, and with little to commend them save the curiosity aroused by our knowledge of their creator [T]here is no life in the work, and these buildings, parks, and monuments are stale and stilted."^[25] According to Vienna art historian Birgit Schwarz, Hitler "had no style of his own as a painter, but generally just copied",^[26] but the stage designer Edward Gordon Craig and the historian Werner Maser believed Hitler's early paintings showed potential.^[27] One modern art critic was asked in to review some of Hitler's paintings without being told who painted them. He said they were quite good, but that the different style in which he drew human figures represented a profound lack of interest in people.^[28][29]

In a report entitled The Water Colours of Hitler: Recovered Art Works Homage to Rodolfo Siviero, prepared by Fratelli Alinari, Sergio Salvi rejects the characterisation of Hitler as "a grim Sunday painter" and describes him instead as a "small time professional painter" of "innocuous and trivial urban landscapes".^[1] O.K. Werckmeister describes Hitler as an artist "of petty ambition, of failed training, and of no achievement, but an artist all the same", estimating that he produced between and works between the ages of 18 and 25, when art was his only profession.^[9]

Paintings

Working primarily in watercolour, Hitler used the medium to express both his love of painting and architecture.^[30] Charles Snyder says that Hitler's watercolours often show detailed attention to architecture in contrast to the conventional and negligent treatment of plants and trees that often frame the subject.^[31]

The Courtyard of the Old Residency in Munich () is a watercolour by Hitler depicting the Alter Hof, a stone quad in front of a large manor.^[32] During Hitler's time in Munich, he spent most of his days reading and painting, furthering his dream as an independent artist.^[33]

The Courtyard and a few other of his paintings are kept in the basement of the U.S. Army Center of Military History in Washington, D.C., never shown to the public due to their controversial nature.^[34]

Gallery

• Schloss Belvedere

• Neuschwanstein Castle

• Neuschwanstein Castle (different version)

• Munich town hall

• Munich Royal Hofbräuhaus, c. May – August

• Prague in the Fog

• Blumen-Arrangement, –

• Town and a narrow street

• Alpenhof, oil on board,

• Die Karlskirche im Winter,

• Frühlingsstrauss im Fenster,

• Morgen am Bergsee,

• The Old Building in Stand of Trees,

• Roma. S. Giovanni in Laterano, – (Archbasilica of Saint John Lateran)

• Penzing - St. Rochus Kapelle, (Chapel of St. Roch, Vienna)

• Ruprechtskirche,

• Hohe Burg,

• Farewell to the Huntsman, oil on canvas,

• Pencil drawing by Adolf Hitler 09 May,

• Pencil drawing by Adolf Hitler

Notes

See also

References

• Barron, Stephanie, Degenerate art: The Fate of the Avant-Garde in Nazi Germany (Los Angeles, Calif.: Los Angeles County Museum of Art, ).
• Hitler, Adolf, and Ralph Manheim, Mein Kampf (Boston: Houghton Mifflin Company, ).
• Price, Billy, Hitler: The Unknown Artist (Houston, Texas: Billy F. price Publishing Co., ).
• Snyder, Charles, The Real Deal – Adolf Hitler Original Artworks, retrieved 10 June
• Zalampas, Sherree Owens, Adolf Hitler: A Psychological Interpretation of his Views on Architecture, Art, and Music (Bowling Green, Ohio: Bowling Green University Popular Press, ). ISBN&#;

Further reading

• Bennardo, Francesco (). Il Diavolo e l'Artista. Le passioni artistiche dei giovani Mussolini, Stalin, Hitler (in Italian). Tralerighe. ISBN&#;.
• Pastore, Stephen R. (). The Art of Adolf Hitler: A Study of His Paintings and Drawings. Grand Oak Books.
• Price, Billy F. (). Adolf Hitler: The Unknown Artist. Stephen Cook. ISBN&#;.
• Price, Billy F. (). Adolf Hitler als Maler und Zeichner: ein Werkkatalog der Ölgemälde, Aquarelle, Zeichnungen und Architekturskizzen. Gallant Verlag. ISBN&#;.
• Spotts, Frederic (). Hitler and the Power of Aesthetics. The Overlook Press. pp.&#;– ISBN&#;.

External links