Concept of the New Objectivity 1925

Gustav Friedrich Hartlaub was born on March 12, 1884 to a merchant family in Bremen, where he also went to school. (1 Gustav Friedrich Hartlaub) After leaving school, he studied art history, archaeology and philosophy in Freiburg, Berlin, Vienna, Munich and Göttingen. In 1910, he received his doctorate summa cum laude and became assistant to the art historian Gustav Pauli at the Kunsthalle in Bremen. (2 Hartlaub around 1910) In 1912 he married Félicie, with whom he had three children. His son Felix was born in Bremen in 1913; his children Genoveva and Michael in Mannheim. In 1914, Hartlaub became Fritz Wichert's assistant at the Mannheim Kunsthalle (3), which was built in 1907 for the city's 300th anniversary and inaugurated in 1909, and the family moved to Richard-Wagner-Straße in Mannheim. In 1923, Wichert moved to the Städelschule in Frankfurt as director and Hartlaub became his successor. (4 Hartlaub in front of the Kunsthalle)

Hartlaub observed the turning away from emotional expressionism that began immediately after the First World War and the move towards an emphatically objective depiction of reality that was as accurate and true to reality as possible. Popular motifs include still lifes (5 Alexander Kanold. Still Life with Cactus, 1923), landscapes, bridges such as the Mannheim Rhine Bridge by Xaver Fuhr and depictions of people, such as the Portrait of Mrs. Tube by Max Beckmann (6 Kunsthalle Mannheim). The pictures have a clear composition and are limited to the essentials. Nevertheless, this new style does not represent a uniform art movement. The only thing it has in common is its simultaneous emergence in the artistically very creative period of the Weimar Republic, a time full of unrest and upheaval, high inflation and unemployment, but also many innovations. These include, for example, the bulldog designed by Fritz Huber in 1921, Otto Feick's Rhönrad, the Stotz contact, which has ensured safety since 1924, and Europe's first industrially used high-pressure system, which went into operation at the large power plant in Mannheim in 1928, to name just a few of the innovations honored on the Mile of Innovation.

In 1922, the magazine "Das Kunstblatt" asked Hartlaub for an assessment of the new naturalism in contemporary art. In his analysis, he distinguished between two wings:

"I see a right wing and a left wing. One wing, conservative to the point of classicism, rooted in the timeless, wants to re-sacralize the healthy, the physical and plastic in pure drawing according to nature, perhaps with an exaggeration of the earthy, the roundly grown... The other wing, garish, contemporary, because less faithful to art, rather born out of the negation of art, seeks to uncover the chaos, the true feeling of our time, with a primitive desire for observation and nervous self-exposure"

(Das Kunstblatt, vol. 6, 1922, p. 390).

While the works of the representatives of the conservative wing, such as Georg Schrimpf's "Lesende am Fenster" (7 "Lesende am Fenster", 1925 Kunsthalle Mannheim), which opens up a view of an untouched landscape, and Alexander Kanoldt's Stilleben IV (8 Stilleben IV, 1925 Kunsthalle Mannheim) appear contemplative and peaceful and their classicist-like images contrast a world out of joint with order and harmonious calm, the left wing pursues a veristic, socially critical direction, often using images distorted to the point of caricature to denounce the social conditions and social ills of the Weimar Republic and aim to shake up the viewer.

Otto Dix, one of the most important representatives of the verist movement alongside George Grosz, Rudolf Schlichter, Georg Scholz (9 Georg Scholz, newspaper carrier 1921) and Wilhelm Schnarrenberger, is convinced "that it is important to see things as they are". Even when they are ugly. They do not shy away from depicting social outsiders such as prostitutes and criminals, but also the sick. His madwoman wears an open dress that reveals her emaciated chest. Her distorted face, twisted eyes and cramped hands show her inner turmoil. The grimaces above her widow's veil spring from the imagination of the mentally ill.

Many paintings accusingly process the traumatic experiences of the First World War, such as Gert Wollheim's painting "The Wounded Man" from 1919.

Hartlaub was so taken with the new art movement that he planned an exhibition on it as soon as he became director of the Kunsthalle. On May 18, 1923, he invited 52 artists from both wings to exhibit their works in Mannheim and used the term "New Objectivity" for the first time in his letter. But the exhibition could not be realized so soon after the end of the world war. High inflation, unemployment, poverty and housing shortages prevailed in Germany. Due to unpaid reparations, the Rhineland and parts of Mannheim were occupied by French troops. In view of this difficult economic and, above all, politically heated situation, the response to his invitation was rather muted. The works of Georg Grosz and Georg Scholz are not available and Otto Dix declines, as Hartlaub wants to select the paintings himself for fear of the reaction of an "unprepared public" to overly daring depictions. However, Hartlaub did not want to do without these artists and canceled the exhibition at the beginning of September 1923.

In March 1925, Hartlaub again issued an invitation to Mannheim and wrote (10 letters of invitation)

"The municipal art gallery has long been planning a comprehensive exhibition of those German painters who are striving to overcome the expressionist style in favor of a compositionally bound, but at the same time representational style. Both the more veristically oriented and the more idealistically creative artists come into question."

And this time, under the title (11 exhibition poster "Die Neue Sachlichkeit" 1925) "Die Neue Sachlichkeit. German Painting since Expressionism" from June 14 to September 18, 1925. September 1925 at the Kunsthalle, around 130 paintings by 32 artists, including works by Max Beckmann (12 Max Beckmann Tanzbar in Baden-Baden), Otto Dix, Alexander Kanoldt (13 Alexander Kanoldt San Gimignano), Rudolf Schlichter, Georg Scholz (14 Georg Scholz "Von kommenden Dingen" 1922), Georg Schrimpf (15 Georg Schrimpf "Ausschauende" 1924) and George Grosz, to name just the best-known artists of this new style.

Although works in the New Objectivity style were also created in Austria, Switzerland, the Netherlands and Italy, the exhibition is limited to German artists. And no work by a woman is represented, as most female artists only began to develop their art at the beginning of the 1920s.

The brief economic boom of the Weimar Republic came to an abrupt end with the stock market crash on October 24, 1929, and the "New Objectivity" soon lost its significance during the global economic crisis. The strengthened right-wing and left-wing parties strictly rejected this art. When the National Socialists came to power in January 1933, "purges" began.

Just two months later, Hartlaub was one of the first German museum directors to be removed from office. Although his exhibitions also included Renaissance and English painters from the 18th and early 19th centuries, the new rulers disliked the fact that Hartlaub also exhibited and promoted modern art. Above all, however, they were suspicious of Hartlaub's extensive purchases of contemporary art, which was now considered "degenerate".

Many of these works were confiscated in 1937 as "degenerate art". The Kunsthalle loses more than 500 works of art. The paintings "Christ and the Sinner" (16), "Pierrette and Clown" (17), "Portrait of Mrs. Tube" and "Still Life with Cacti" (18) by Max Beckmann alone fall victim to the purge. While the "Portrait of Mrs. Tube" ended up in the depot and remained in the Kunsthalle and "Pierrette and Clown" returned to the Kunsthalle as a gift in 1950, "Christ and the Sinner" is now in the possession of the Saint Louis Art Museum, and the "Still Life with Cactus" remains lost.

Otto Dix's paintings "Witwe" and "Arbeiterjunge", which can be admired today in the Städtische Galerie Stuttgart, are taken away. The painting "Widow" remains missing to this day.

The painting "Metropolis" by Georg Grosz is confiscated. It is now exhibited in Madrid. However, his portrait of the dwarf writer and publicist Max-Herrmann Neiße, which was also confiscated, was bought back in 1949.

Georg Scholz's portrait H. Kahnheimer at his Desk (19) from 1924 and Georg Schrimpf's Resting Boy, also from 1924 (20), were also lost, and Alexander Kanoldt's Olevano III from 1925 (21) could no longer be found. His Olevano I (22) from 1924 is one of the seven works that are considered destroyed.

Of a further twenty works, the titles of the paintings and the names of the artists are only known from the 1925 exhibition catalog. What they looked like and whether they still exist is not known. This has caused irreparable damage to the Kunsthalle and to art history.

After the seizure of power, the works of many "New Objectivity" artists, especially those of the Verists, which were now considered "degenerate", were no longer allowed to be exhibited. Max Beckmann and George Grosz leave Germany and go into exile, others go into internal emigration or change their painting style.

After his expulsion, Hartlaub works as a freelancer for the "Frankfurter Zeitung" and as a private scholar. He is no longer allowed to publish specialist articles or give lectures. His daughter Geno is not allowed to study because of him. She later became a writer like her older brother Felix.

In 1939, Hartlaub moved to Heidelberg to Schloss-Wolfsbrunnenweg 68, where he was a welcome guest at the Sunday "Jour Fixe" of legal philosopher and women's rights activist Marianne Weber (23), Max Weber's widow (Marianne Weber, Lebenserinnerungen. 2004, p. p. 221 ff.). This private discussion group in Weber's villa in Ziegelhäuser Landstraße became the center of intellectual life in Heidelberg during the National Socialist era, where many important personalities such as Karl Jaspers and Walter Jellinek exchanged ideas despite the censorship. Hartlaub, who was condemned to silence, was also able to give lectures here and met the legal philosopher Gustav Radbruch (1878-1949). Radbruch had also been dismissed from the civil service by the Nazis in 1933 for being politically unpopular. The two men soon became lifelong friends. (Gustav Radbruch and Gustav Friedrich Hartlaub. A scholarly friendship in dark times. In: Neue Juristische Wochenschrift, NJW 11/2016, pp. 755-759). (24 Card from Gustav Friedrich Hartlaub to Gustav Radbruch dated 27.04.1944.