Hans Grundig. [Letters of an artist: 1926-1957]. Part Two

CLICK HERE FOR ITALIAN VERSION

German Artists' Writings in the XX Century - 16

Hans Grundig
[Letters of an artist: 1926-1957]
Künstlerbriefe aus den Jahren 1926 bis 1957

Prefaced and edited by Bernhard Wächter

Rudolstadt, VEB Greifenverlag, 1966

Review by Francesco Mazzaferro. Part Two

[Original Version: February 2018 - New Version: April 2019]

Fig. 3) The first edition of Hans Grundig's 1957 memoirs, entitled "Between Carnival and Ash Wednesday. Memories of a painter ". The cover page displayed the bucking horse from the series "Animals and men"

Go Back to Part One

Prisoner - Letters from 1938 to 1944

Except for the few cases which I mentioned at the end of the first part of this review, Grundig's correspondence did not tell us much of the 1930s. However, it is sure that, when the Nazis came to power in January 1933, Hans and Lea were immediately in great difficulty. In some ways, it helped them to be not very-well-known artists; except in isolated cases, their works were not exhibited in museums (and for this reason, unlike Nolde, to whom more than a thousand works were seized, only eight works by Hans were confiscated in public collections . In fact, the traveling exhibition organised by Nazis on the so-called degenerate art of 1937 and entirely composed of artworks coming from requisitions, included only one painting by Grundig [39]).

Neither Hans nor Lea had public assignments in academies, and therefore were not excluded from teaching. However, they were immediately excluded from the Chamber of commerce for artists (it became therefore impossible for them to make use of exemptions on costs for the purchase of materials for painting) and were condemned in 1934 - for their communist faith - to no longer exercise their profession (it was the so-called Malverbot, the prohibition to paint, which would hit a few years later also Nolde).

Unlike colleagues like Otto Dix, Hans and Lea did not seek a (relatively) quiet life, choosing the path of internal exile. To the contrary, they continued to produce works with very clear political connotations: the Triptych of the Thousand-year Reich, painted by Hans between 1935 and 1938, stylistically recalled both Matthias Grünewald’s Isenheim Altarpiece (a work of Renaissance) and the modern War by Otto Dix (1929-1932). The theme was really burning: depicting a classic carnival day, suddenly degenerating into chaos and eventually turning into an occasion of death and suffering, was a clear reference to Nazism and to the proclamation with which Hitler had announced the birth of a new ‘Thousand-year  empire’ (not by chance, the title chosen by Grundig for his memoirs 1957 was Zwischen Karneval und Aschermittwoch, or ‘Between Carnival and Ash Wednesday’). Also the Vision of the Future (about 1935) and the Vision of a Burnt Town of 1936, both painted by Hans, as well as Lea’s etching ‘Hitler is war’ stigmatized Hitler's belligerent politics. These were, indeed, the months in which the German aviation intervened in the context of the Spanish civil war.

Not surprisingly, the two fell into the hands of the Gestapo. Already in 1936 they were three days in jail, but it was in 1938 when they were condemned for high treason: "Dear, dear mother, already from the heading of this letter you will understand where we are, Lea and me" [40]. The letter, dated 7 June 1938, was written on headed paper of the Polizeigefängnis of Dresden, the cells of the police station, where the arrested were detained before a process. "On Tuesday evening, we were suddenly arrested, without any warning. My dear mother, I should help you, but now it is the other way around. Dearest mother, I need you, much more than ever before” [41]. Hans beg his mother to go to the secret police department (in fact the Gestapo) to pick up the house keys, go to their home and send them linen, toothpaste, a comb, a small mirror, some historical novels. He also asked her to pay for the monthly rent.

Possibly, he had elements to hope they would go back home soon, like it had already happened in 1936 (to the contrary, they were imprisoned for six months) and even still trusted the legal system under the Nazi rule (he was confident his father-in-law, an Orthodox Jew, would provide him a good lawyer to prove his and his wife's arguments in court). The following letters too were all related to practical aspects (linen, the collection of credits he was due to be paid back, the payment of the rent by the father-in-law, the wish to read anew Jules  Verne’s novels during the time spent in a cell, his insurance policy). Since July 1938, his missives were no longer sent from the police station, but from a prison; the detention had therefore turned into a penalty. Hans, moreover, was now separated from his wife in different prisons and so he began again sending mails addressed to her. In the various letters, Grundig told her wife that she had composed songs for her [42], alternated despair and hope [43], thanked the spouse because the correspondence had prevented him from falling into depression and keep him healthy [44], and even inquired whether she was at least able to sketch some drawings in prison [45].

Hans was released a few months before Lea. The spouse proved to be strong, despite the forced distance. She wrote: "Are we not more united than many, who live together?” [46]. “My life, I am always here, I am not dead" [47]. Lea was worried about the illness of her husband (who got tuberculosis in prison). Hans replied, telling he was committed that she would get the deserved gratifications in the artistic field [48]. He solicited her to overcome her natural modesty and disclose her qualities of great drawer and graphic artist: "And the spectrum of your art is so wide, so rich and diverse as the one from symphonies to Lieder [translator's note: Lieder are piano compositions and solo singer voice of German classical vocal music]” [49]. Lea, on her part, was joyful that the prison experience had helped a rapprochement between father and husband (it is worth remembering that her parents were completely against this marriage) [50]; she added, she did not hope for anything else but grow old with Hans by her side [51].

The separation continued in the first months of 1939. In March Hans resumed painting. Lea wrote from prison: "The fact that you work, and how you work, seems to me wonderful. I could recommend you many images, many comparisons, many names” [52]. She urged him to go to cinema [53]. Lea recalled the panel with Carnival in the triptych painted by her husband, and made some considerations on his last works of art, which she still could not admire: "My soul, I am so sad that I cannot see your picture. I try to imagine it and I always get the big Carnival in my eyes. I see its wonderful colours shining and, on the surface, many deep spaces in the background. I remember it so well and I have the impression to see everywhere your green. Of this so reserved and serious colour you make use in all notations, from the minor to the major tonality [note of the translator: she refers to the minor and major musical tones], and you bring it to a passion and aggression that are really amazing. This picture [note of the translator: the Carnival], so fundamental in your development, seems to me to be one of the most beautiful and significant that there have ever been. And the new painting must overcome it, or at least it must be like this. Dear heart, make me a favour and bring me a sketch. I need it, to be able to at least imagine your painting. From the days of the painting on Carnival you have earned new colours. In that with the bears, you took a step forward with new powerful tones in red. My soul, my expectations are so full of joy. It is so bitter not to be able to see the new picture. In the paintings there is always something magical. Is it not true, perhaps, that what is depicted - in reality and truth - is mysteriously blended with the image that the artist makes of it, at least from the point of view of our feelings? And cannot that beautiful magic make genuinely simple people and people dream?" [54]. In the letter of March 15, Lea also told her husband that the father was ready to leave for Palestine (she regretted it, but understood that there was no alternative). On 29th March 1939, she wrote to Hans the address of his father in Haifa, adding that he would take care of making daughter and son-in-law emigrate too. In all honesty, it is difficult to understand how Lea could write so freely from prison on both painting as well as leaving Germany, without the Gestapo intervening to censor the letters (just think that only six months have passed since the Crystal Night). Was she perhaps negotiating to ensure both she and the husband be expelled to Palestine?

A few days after Lea’s release, at the end of March, Hans was imprisoned again: it was April 24, 1939. The roles were reversed: now it was he writing home from the cell, reassuring her wife, reminding her how important it was for him to bring her marriage ring on his finger [55]. In May, he addressed her a letter full of references to classical statuary, but also to Rodin, Maillol, Lehmbruck: it was a discussion among artists on how fragmentary sculpture, and in particular statues only representing torsos, could represent reality. In the same letter Hans wrote his wife: "I hope you will soon be able to give me good news on emigration" [56].

In December 1939, after the war broke out, Lea was indeed expelled from Germany: it was probably the best that could happen to her, as she avoided the Shoah. In her memoirs published in 1958 (Gesichte und Geschichte - Faces and History) she narrated the story of her trip first to Vienna, then to Bratislava and from there, together with a group of Slovak Jews, to Israel (where she arrived in 1940). Hans was instead locked up in the political prison of Oranienburg and in the concentration camp of Sachsenhausen. It does not seem that Hans and Lea were able to hear anymore from each other. What is certain is that the letters ended. Grundig instead wrote short messages to his mother until September 1944, when he was conscripted in a punitive battalion of the Wehrmacht and sent to the eastern front. There, he deserted and surrendered to the Red Army, ending the war by fighting for the Soviet Union. Only at the end of March 1946 Hans and Lea had the certainty of being both survivors.

Liberated - Letters from 1946 to 1957

Six years passed without a letter, at least judging from the correspondence published! At the end of March 1946 Hans went back to writing to his wife (who was in Palestine, at the time under English control): "Dearest Lea, I'm at home, I'm fine, and I now have only one big wish: that you too, the dearest thing than I have, can be with me soon” [57]. “The last few years have been terrible, atrocious, with no hope of being able to see home and you again, my great support. That I am still alive, is a miracle that I still cannot understand” [58]. Finally he was at home and it seemed to him, for a moment, to take a dip in the past, when he and his wife were young and cheerful. He remembered the last time he was able to meet her in the prison hall, and then to see her again from the peephole of the door as she walked away. "Do you remember the last present you gave me, the little apple you had engraved our initials on?” [59]

Hans told he was deported to the concentration camp because of a letter written by his Swiss friend Albert Merkling, a letter containing a poem strongly critical of the regime. That letter, however, also included the indication (in code) that Lea was out of danger: "Dear, dearest Lea, from that moment I was reborn: I knew you were alive and you were not in Germany anymore. You saved your life. Lea, this allowed me to endure everything and we did well to do what we did, despite all difficulties. Lea, my brunette, you would have surely died, if you had arrived in Ravensburg [editor's note: a women's concentration camp]. Lea, I saw these poor women, I saw them, I experienced it. They pushed the heaviest carts, were dragged like real beasts with dogs and lashes” [60].

The correspondence with Lea started to be frequent and regular. It included pages concerning both private and public aspects, personal and art issues. The constant tone was the desolation for the absence of the wife (loneliness, anxiety, nostalgia, sadness, impatience, pain, depression); in various attempts, the painter attempted to accelerate her return. Other letters were dedicated to the relapses of tuberculosis. Here, however, we will focus on issues relating to art: the role of Hans as new director of the Fine Arts Academy in Dresden, the new art production of Hans and Lea, the discussions in artistic circles in town, the hope for the new art to come. Often these were very long texts, sometimes true reports, to keep Lea fully informed of what was happening in Germany.

Artworks by Hans and Lea in the first post-war period

Since July 1946, Hans had resumed painting [61]: he exhibited not only in Dresden but also in Berlin and Leipzig. Picking up the brushes in his hands, after a few years, was not easy, and he felt like he was back to being a beginner [62]. Art critics, moreover, were not always generous: for a painter who grew up in full expressionist age - Hans wrote - the problem now arose of avoiding being criticized as "abstract and not sufficiently realistic” [63]. “My work is understood by very few and liked by an even more limited number of people. At first, I was saddened. I thought I was expressing myself in an understandable way. It is not so. On the picture with bears, many say, "There are no red bears and green wolves. (...) Is it only my fault? I think I asked too much from thought and feeling »” [64].  However, optimistic tones were not lacking; according to Hans, art was moving towards a new era of "peace and calm” [65] which would replace the greyness of previous years [66] and would no longer be characterized by the need to deny the present [67].

If he may have wished, perhaps, that the art of the future forgets the tragedies of the past, in concrete the most representative works that he painted around 1946 were two canvases dedicated to "the victims of fascism". And it was not by chance that Grundig specified in a letter of that year that the problem of art was ultimately that of "mourning in the work of art" [68]. On the iconography of the two canvases, the artist wrote: "I wanted to embrace this destroyed and yet marvellous humanity in what is most precious to men. I thought I should let them lie on pure gold and I did it. In this way, they now give the impression of a stubborn celebration, linked to the wild beauty of death, which is the force of nature. I am not sure to be right. I believe, however, that I have gone the right path. Everyone sees it, whether intellectual or simple person, is captured. Everyone says the same: it is overwhelming, and it is beautiful" [69].

The painter received by mail the wife’s new graphic works, whose beauty and variety he praised: "Marvellous in their expressive strength and often masterly in black and white effects” [70].

Finally, both his paintings and his wife's graphic works began to be bought. Hans, however, kept well away from the 'capitalist' market; buyers were local public bodies, the administration of Berlin, the Soviet Union, the museums of Moscow. At the end of December 1946 he wrote exultantly to his wife that he had collected fifteen thousand marks: "We never had much money” [71]. He sold his works from the 1930s, but also the portrait of Lea in 1946 (fig. 53) and a lot of graphics. "I would have never sold anything to private individuals” [72]. And in a moment of exaltation, he let himself go in these terms: "Dear, we will soon be the classics ourselves” [73].

The first post-war exhibitions in Dresden

Already in the first letter of March 1946, Hans told Lea what was happening in the artistic world of Dresden devastated by the bombings: two exhibitions were being held, one for painting and the other for graphics. The exhibition of paintings on Saxon artists at the Academy (from March 28 to June 30, 1946, organized by the Kulturbund zur demokratischen Erneuerung Deutschlands, i.e. the League of Artists for the democratic renewal of Germany) showed for the first time the forbidden canvases during Nazism, but revealed, in his opinion, the absence of an intermediate generation after the one whose activity was forbidden in 1933: "It is good what already before 1933 had quality. Instead, the spiritual value of other exposed works is shameful. All more or less associated with local circles, very limited from the point of view of the general vision of the world, and what is worse, without reflecting at all the scary years of ruin” [74].

Although the exhibition was dedicated to the artists of Dresden "victims of fascism", Hans felt to be confronted with a type of painting which he considered light, anemic, useless and often compromised with Nazism. Perhaps, he referred to painters such as Josef Hegenbarth (1884-1962), active mainly as illustrators, who were shown in that exhibition. "Lea, you and I are the only ones. ... As for me, the exhibit shows the great works: the picture of the destroyed city, flanked by the Carnival of 1935 and the image of the chaos of 1939. They are vigorous works, have a strong effect, and in them the drama of fascism is alive. And yet we are the only ones in this field. In addition to these paintings of mine, one can see the very nice one with bears [The fight of bears and wolves]; then that of the men who sleep; and, finally, my first painting to depict a destroyed city, the smallest one. I have exposed - in beautiful frames on the table - your engravings ... Your works have created many new admirers, besides those who already love you” [75].

“At the same time, there is another exhibition of graphics only, in the halls of the school for applied sciences, which has remained intact. Here too, we are the two giving the strongest impression. Previously there was a retrospective of Käthe Kollwitz. Wonderful sheets of a great woman who has been unique to the last, up to total isolation” [76]. As Hans wrote to Lea, he believed that they were the only two true heirs of the artistic and ideal message of Kollwitz (1867-1945).

A few months later, on September 30, 1946, Grundig wrote about the Allgemeine Deutsche Kunstaustellung (the art exhibition, which he organized, encompassing works from all four occupied zones of whole Germany, run by Americans, Soviets, British and French). It was the first major contemporary art exhibition held in Dresden for twenty years. "These have been weeks of hard work - he wrote to his wife - but now the exhibition exists in the rooms of the former army museum in Dresden-Neustadt. I have solicited and exposed everything that exists today in terms of positive forces in the whole of Germany. I was commissioned by the regional government, together with Dr Grohmann, to select exhibition material from the west. And so I travelled to Bavaria, Baden, Württemberg and Hesse” [77]. On the trip of Grundig together with the critic Will Grohmann in West Germany, we also read some nice letters written by Otto Dix. Both letters by Grundig and Dix thus testified that Grundig had not only been given a leading position in the academic world of the city, but also played important roles in relations with other parts of Germany.

At the end of the exhibition, held from 25 August to 31 October 1946, Grundig organized a congress: "All the issues of fine arts are discussed: form, content, theme, youth education, theatre, music, dance, architecture” [78]. “Every day there are two lectures by artists and art scholars. We give the floor to all the trends that are active today, we await guests and speakers from all parts of Germany” [79].

Fig. 4) The poster of the congress held in Dresden from 26 to 29 October 1946

In a letter dated 10 November, when the exhibition was over, the painter drew up some conclusions. "It was an exhibition that presented all the present and positive artistic forces. Klee, Kandinsky, Feininger, the artists of the Bridge, like Kirchner, Heckel and Pechstein; Lehmbruck, artists like Hofer, Kokoschka, sculptors like Marcks, Albiker - until today. The history of art of two world wars, inflation, and fascism. We, Lea, you and I, as the successors of Expressionism, as the junction point of all the previous expressions. In the middle Kretzschmar, Jüchser, Paul Berger and others” [80].

Months went by and Lea was not back yet. On 7 April 1948 Hans announced to his wife the exhibition "150 Jahre soziale Strömungen in der Bildenden Kunst" or "150 years of social currents in art", which opened in Dresden the following day (the exhibition had been held the previous year in Berlin). "It shows the historical path from the days of Goya up to today. All that has to do with this theme is represented at least with some works. Obviously, above all, the period from late impressionism up to us: Meunier, Liebermann, Menzel, Klinger, among other things with wonderful prints. It's strange that I did not appreciate Klinger as much as I do like him today. He is a great man and not by chance the master of Käthe Kollwitz. He has a strangely rigorous formal language. His love for the ancient world overlaps with themes of our time that are truly human” [81]. What followed were words of high esteem words for Käthe Kollwitz and Heinrich Zille (1858-1929), Bernhard Kretzschmar (1889-1972), Eugen Hoffmann (1892-1955) and Wilhelm Lachnit (1899-1962). The latter were not only his peers, but also the friends of Hans' entire life. Grundig was fully aware that his generation was by now the object of universal celebrations.

Fig. 5) Il poster della mostra 150 anni di correnti sociali nell’arte, tenutasi a Dresda nel 1948

End of Part Two
Go to Part Three 

NOTES

[39] Degenerate art: the fate of the avant-garde in Nazi Germany, edited by Stephanie Barron, Los Angeles County Museum of Art, 1991, 423 pages. See:

https://archive.org/stream/degenerateartfa00barr#page/246/mode/2up/search/grundig.

[40] Grundig, Hans - Künstlerbriefe aus den Jahren 1926 bis 1957. With a foreword and edited by Berngard Wächter Rudolstadt, VEB Greifenverlag, 1966, 167 pages plus sixty tables outside the text. Quotation at page 67.

[41] Grundig, Hans – Künstlerbriefe … (quoted), p. 67.

[42] Grundig, Hans – Künstlerbriefe … (quoted), p. 70.

[43] Grundig, Hans – Künstlerbriefe … (quoted), p. 71.

[44] Grundig, Hans – Künstlerbriefe … (quoted), p. 72.

[45] Grundig, Hans – Künstlerbriefe … (quoted), p. 72.

[46] Grundig, Hans – Künstlerbriefe … (quoted), p. 72.

[47] Grundig, Hans – Künstlerbriefe … (quoted), p. 73.

[48] Grundig, Hans – Künstlerbriefe … (quoted), p. 74.

[49] Grundig, Hans – Künstlerbriefe … (quoted), p. 75.

[50] Grundig, Hans – Künstlerbriefe … (quoted), pp. 75-76.

[51] Grundig, Hans – Künstlerbriefe … (quoted), p. 76.

[52] Grundig, Hans – Künstlerbriefe … (quoted), p. 76.

[53] Grundig, Hans – Künstlerbriefe … (quoted), p. 77.

[54] Grundig, Hans – Künstlerbriefe … (quoted), p. 77.

[55] Grundig, Hans – Künstlerbriefe … (quoted), p. 79.

[56] Grundig, Hans – Künstlerbriefe … (quoted), p. 82.

[57] Grundig, Hans – Künstlerbriefe … (quoted), p. 91.

[58] Grundig, Hans – Künstlerbriefe … (quoted), p. 91.

[59] Grundig, Hans – Künstlerbriefe … (quoted), p. 91.

[60] Grundig, Hans – Künstlerbriefe … (quoted), p. 92.

[61] Grundig, Hans – Künstlerbriefe … (quoted), p. 97.

[62] Grundig, Hans – Künstlerbriefe … (quoted), p. 98.

[63] Grundig, Hans – Künstlerbriefe … (quoted), p. 98.

[64] Grundig, Hans – Künstlerbriefe … (quoted), p. 111.

[65] Grundig, Hans – Künstlerbriefe … (quoted), p. 96.

[66] Grundig, Hans – Künstlerbriefe … (quoted), p. 96.

[67] Grundig, Hans – Künstlerbriefe … (quoted), pp. 100-101.

[68] Grundig, Hans – Künstlerbriefe … (quoted), p. 101.

[69] Grundig, Hans – Künstlerbriefe … (quoted), pp. 122-123.

[70] Grundig, Hans – Künstlerbriefe … (quoted), p. 110.

[71] Grundig, Hans – Künstlerbriefe … (quoted), p. 116.

[72] Grundig, Hans – Künstlerbriefe … (quoted), p. 116.

[73] Grundig, Hans – Künstlerbriefe … (quoted), p. 133.

[74] Grundig, Hans – Künstlerbriefe … (quoted), p. 93.

[75] Grundig, Hans – Künstlerbriefe … (quoted), p. 93.

[76] Grundig, Hans – Künstlerbriefe … (quoted), p. 93.

[77] Grundig, Hans – Künstlerbriefe … (quoted), p. 107.

[78] Grundig, Hans – Künstlerbriefe … (quoted), p. 112.

[79] Grundig, Hans – Künstlerbriefe … (quoted), p. 107.

[80] Grundig, Hans – Künstlerbriefe … (quoted), p. 114.

[81] Grundig, Hans – Künstlerbriefe … (quoted), p. 133.