"The difficult case of Painter Emil Nolde" Lecture by Aya Soika, September 3, 2020

Aya Soika, Professor of Art History at Bard College Berlin, speaks about the German Expressionist Emil Nolde, arguably one of the most prominent victims of the Nazis' art politics. No other painter had so many works confiscated, or was presented as prominently in the show „Degenerate Art,“ which opened in Munich in July 1937. Yet, his position differs fundamentally from that of many other artists who will be presented in the Fritz Ascher Society's lecture series "From Flight to Fight": Nolde was not just a victim but also a loyal supporter of the regime whose world views were radicalized by antisemitic propaganda in the early 1940s. Despite of the fact that his pictorial oeuvre was attacked by many traditionalists he did not give up hope that the Nazi leadership would ultimately acknowledge his role as a pioneer of 'pure' German art (which did not happen). On the occasion of the Nolde exhibition in Berlin's National Gallery in 2019 Soika and her co-curators Bernhard Fulda and Christian Ring took a fresh look at the 'legendary' artistic persona of Nolde, focussing on the complex dynamics between Nolde's biography and his own writings, his art and his reception up until today. The findings presented in the show triggered an international public debate on how to deal with one of the icons of early twentieth century German Expressionism.

This lecture is part of "Flight of Fight. stories of artists under repression," a monthly series organized by the Fritz Ascher Society for Persecuted, Ostracized and Banned Art: https://fritzaschersociety.org.

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Видео "The difficult case of Painter Emil Nolde" Lecture by Aya Soika, September 3, 2020 канала Fritz Ascher Society