Art from Third Reich dealer’s trove on show for 1st time
GENEVA — A Swiss art museum on Wednesday showcased a new exhibit of artwork deemed “degenerate art” by the Nazis, drawn from a collection of some 1,500 works found hidden in the homes of German collector Cornelius Gurlitt five years ago.
The Bern Kunstmuseum exhibit features over 200 modern art pieces confiscated in a Nazi crackdown in the late 1930s against so-called “degenerate art” — deemed inferior because they were un-German, Jewish or Communist or, in the case with impressionist and other modernist works, didn’t employ traditionally realistic forms.
But the Nazis were all too happy to sell such works to help fund their war machine.
The art on display in Bern, including Expressionist and Constructivist paintings by artists such as Otto Dix and Franz Marc, opens Thursday to the public.