Contemporary German Art

Boston: The Institute of Modern Art, 1939. First edition. Softcover. g to vg+. Quarto. 40pp. textured white wrappers, with blue lettering on the front cover. Catalog from the exhibition of the same name, held in 1939, at the The Institute of Modern Art in Boston, now known as the Institute of Contemporary Art (ICA). This historically important exhibition was the American equivalent of the infamous Entartete Kunst ("Degenerate art") exhibition held in Munich in 1937, and was organized primarily by German-Jewish art dealer Curt Valentin (1902-1954), who was noted for dealing primarily this this type of art.

Whereas the Nazis organized their exhibition to denigrate Modern Art, which they saw as anti-German and in opposition to the ideals of the party, this exhibition extolls and promotes Modern German Art and Sculpture and the work of many of those same artists including Max Beckmann, Otto Dix, Lyonel Feininger, George Grosz, Wassily Kandinsky, Paul Klee, Franz Marc, Otto Mueller, Emil Nolde, Ernst Barlach, Kaethi Kollwitz, Renee Sintenis and many others. Each artist featured includes a short biography and list of works shown. There are a number of b/w photographic reproductions after some of the original artwork, included throughout.

Wrappers with some sunning and light stains. Minor stains to the interior covers and endpapers. Front free endpaper with the name of the previous owners in pencil. All other pages clean. Book block tight. Wrappers in good, interior in very good+ condition overall.