These artists felt that Germany’s defeat in the First World War and the social, political and economic crises of the Weimar Republic (1919-1933) left no place for the early Expressionists’ utopian vision of life. This was replaced by a detached…

The painter and printmaker Otto Mueller (1874-1930) was born in Liebau, Silesia. Before studying painting at the Dresden Academy of Art between 1896 and 1898 he had been a lithographer in Görlitz. In 1898, he moved away from the big city life to…

Franz Marc (1880-1916) was a German painter and printmaker born in Munich, where he also studied. During visits to Paris in 1903 and 1907 he discovered French Impressionism and from 1907 onwards he began animal studies, including anatomy and…

Gabriele Münter (1877-1962) was born in Berlin. She moved to Munich and became pupil and partner of Kandinsky in 1902 after he and further members of the “Phalanx” group had opened an art school. Münter and Kandinsky travelled through France between…

Ludwig Meidner (1884-1966) was born in Bernstadt in Silesia and worked as a plasterer and fashion designer before he studied art in Breslau from 1903-05. From 1906-07, he studied in Paris where he befriended Amedeo Modigliani. After his return to…

Max Pechstein (1881-1955) was born in Eckesbach and joined the Dresden “Brücke” in 1906. After visiting Italy and Paris, where he met Kees van Dongen, he moved to Berlin in 1908 and became president of the “Neue Sezession” in 1910. He was expelled…

Otto Dix (1891-1969) studied in Dresden from 1910-1914 and was a painter of wall-decorations until he taught himself painting. Like many artists, Dix was initially enthusiastic when the First World War broke out and was a soldier throughout the war.…

Extract from the article: Despite his untimely death on the battlefields of Verdun in 1916, Marc was a prolific painter, especially between 1911 - when he helped farm he Blaue Reiter group - and the outbreak of the First World War, when he produced…

Ernest Neuschul was born in Aussig, a small town in what is now the Czech Republic. He studied in Prague and later Vienna, where he was fascinated by the paintings of Klimt and Egon Schiele and the expressionistic works of Oskar Kokoschka. At the…

Many ex-soldiers returning home from the First World War had terrible injuries, lost limbs or were blind. This poor man has to resort to selling small trinkets or matches on the streets, a bleak and lonely existence. His head raises up, as if he is…