Georg Scholz (October 10, 1890 – November 27, 1945) was a German painter, member of the

New Objectivity The New Objectivity (in german: Neue Sachlichkeit) was a movement in German art that arose during the 1920s as a reaction against expressionism. The term was coined by Gustav Friedrich Hartlaub, the director of the ''Kunsthalle'' in Mannheim, wh ...

movement. Scholz was born in

Wolfenbüttel Wolfenbüttel (; nds, Wulfenbüddel) is a town in Lower Saxony, Germany, the administrative capital of Wolfenbüttel District. It is best known as the location of the internationally renowned Herzog August Library and for having the largest ...

and had his artistic training at the Karlsruhe Academy, where his teachers included Hans Thoma and Wilhelm Trübner.Schmied 1978, p. 129. He later studied in Berlin under

Lovis Corinth Lovis Corinth (21 July 1858 – 17 July 1925) was a German artist and writer whose mature work as a painter and printmaker realized a synthesis of impressionism and expressionism. Corinth studied in Paris and Munich, joined the Berlin Sec ...

. After military service in

World War I World War I (28 July 1914 11 November 1918), often abbreviated as WWI, was one of the deadliest global conflicts in history. Belligerents included much of Europe, the Russian Empire, the United States, and the Ottoman Empire, with fightin ...

lasting from 1915 to 1918, he resumed painting, working in a style fusing

cubist Cubism is an early-20th-century avant-garde art movement that revolutionized European painting and sculpture, and inspired related movements in music, literature and architecture. In Cubist artwork, objects are analyzed, broken up and reassemble ...

and

futurist Futurists (also known as futurologists, prospectivists, foresight practitioners and horizon scanners) are people whose specialty or interest is futurology or the attempt to systematically explore predictions and possibilities abo ...

ideas. In 1919 Scholz became a member of the Communist Party of Germany, and his work of the next few years is harshly critical of the social and economic order in postwar Germany.Michalski 1994, p. 100. His ''Industrial Farmers'' of 1920 is an oil painting with collage that depicts a Bible-clutching farmer with money erupting from his forehead, seated next to his monstrous wife who cradles a piglet. Their subhuman son, his head open at the top to show that it is empty, is torturing a frog. Perhaps Scholz' best-known work, it is typical of the paintings he produced in the early 1920s, combining a controlled, crisp execution with corrosive sarcasm. Scholz quickly became one of the leaders of the

, a group of artists who practiced a cynical form of realism. The most famous among this group are

Max Beckmann Max Carl Friedrich Beckmann (February 12, 1884 – December 27, 1950) was a German painter, draftsman, printmaker, sculptor, and writer. Although he is classified as an Expressionist artist, he rejected both the term and the movement. In the 1920s ...

, George Grosz and

Otto Dix Wilhelm Heinrich Otto Dix (; 2 December 1891 – 25 July 1969) was a German painter and printmaker, noted for his ruthless and harshly realistic depictions of German society during the Weimar Republic and the brutality of war. Along with George ...

, and Scholz's work briefly vied with theirs for ferocity of attack. By 1925, however, his approach had softened into something closer to neoclassicism, as seen in the ''Self-Portrait in front of an Advertising Column'' of 1926 and the ''Seated Nude with Plaster Bust'' of 1927. In 1925, he was appointed a professor at the Baden State Academy of Art in Karlsruhe, where his students included Rudolf Dischinger. Scholz began contributing in 1926 to the satirical magazine '' Simplicissimus'', and in 1928 he visited

Paris Paris () is the Capital city, capital and List of communes in France with over 20,000 inhabitants, most populous city of France, with an estimated population of 2,165,423 residents in 2019 in an area of more than 105 km² (41 sq mi), ma ...

where he especially appreciated the work of

Bonnard Bonnard is both a surname and a given name. Notable people with the name include: * Abel Bonnard (1883–1968), French poet, novelist and politician * (18881959), Swiss scholar and translator of classical Greek * Jean-Louis Bonnard (1824&ndas ...

. With the rise to power of

Hitler Adolf Hitler (; 20 April 188930 April 1945) was an Austrian-born German politician who was dictator of Nazi Germany, Germany from 1933 until Death of Adolf Hitler, his death in 1945. Adolf Hitler's rise to power, He rose to power as the le ...

and the

National Socialists Nazism ( ; german: Nazismus), the common name in English for National Socialism (german: Nationalsozialismus, ), is the far-right totalitarian political ideology and practices associated with Adolf Hitler and the Nazi Party (NSDAP) in Na ...

in 1933, Scholz was quickly dismissed from his teaching position. Declared a

Degenerate Art Degenerate art (german: Entartete Kunst was a term adopted in the 1920s by the Nazi Party in Germany to describe modern art. During the dictatorship of Adolf Hitler, German modernist art, including many works of internationally renowned artists, ...

ist, his works were among those seized in 1937 as part of a campaign by the

Nazi Nazism ( ; german: Nazismus), the common name in English for National Socialism (german: Nationalsozialismus, ), is the far-right totalitarian political ideology and practices associated with Adolf Hitler and the Nazi Party (NSDAP) in ...

s to "purify" German culture, and he was forbidden to paint in 1939. In 1945, the French

occupation Occupation commonly refers to: *Occupation (human activity), or job, one's role in society, often a regular activity performed for payment *Occupation (protest), political demonstration by holding public or symbolic spaces *Military occupation, th ...

forces appointed Scholz mayor of Waldkirch, but he died that same year, in Waldkirch.

Gallery

File:Georg Scholz, Kriegerverein, 1922.jpg, ''War Veterans' Association'', 1922 File:Arbeit schändet - Georg Scholz.jpg, ''Newspaper Carriers (Work Disgraces)'', 1921 File:Georg Scholz - Landschaft bei Berghausen - 2861 - Staatliche Kunsthalle Karlsruhe.jpg, ''Landschaft bei Berghausen'', 1924–25

Notes

References

* Michalski, Sergiusz (1994). ''New Objectivity''. Cologne: Benedikt Taschen. * Schmied, Wieland (1978). ''Neue Sachlichkeit and German Realism of the Twenties''. London: Arts Council of Great Britain.

External links

Ten Dreams Galleries
{{DEFAULTSORT:Scholz, Georg 1890 births 1945 deaths People from Wolfenbüttel 20th-century German painters 20th-century German male artists German male painters Academic staff of the Academy of Fine Arts, Karlsruhe German military personnel of World War I