RARE 1937 WOLFGANG WILLRICH ANTI- ‘DEGENERATE ART’ PHOTO BOOK

This 6-1/4 x 9 inch, 186 page hardcover book in excellent condition by Wolfgang Willrich was published in 1937 by Lehmann Verlag in Berlin. Wolfgang Willrich was one of the best known artists in Hitler-Germany. His specialty were portraits of Aryan men, women and children. He did many drawings for Walter Gross of the ‘Rassepolitisches Amt der NSDAP’, he did the drawings of heroic SS men for a portfolio that was published by Heinrich Himmler and he was hired by Reichsbauernfűhrer Walter Darre who recognized his talent and who had him draw portraits of farmers throughout the Reich. In this excellent book Willrich gives a negative overview of modern art in Germany, called ‘Entartete Kunst’ (Degenerate Art) by the National Socialists which was banned in Nazi Germany. There was even an exhibition that was supposed to show the German people that these paintings and sculptures, often by Jewish artists, were not to be regarded as art but as something only a deranged mind could come up with. ‘Degenerate Art’ was banned in Germany, often destroyed where the Nazis found it and the artists often ended up in concentration camps.