In the foreword to this catalogue for the exhibition that opened at the Staatliche Kunsthalle Berlin in November 1981, the working group writes: “We are happy to be able to expand the familiar image of Radziwill as a painter of gloom and disaster to include his love of life.” During their research, they came across many unknown aspects of the life of this artist who was known internationally at the time above all as a “magic realist” based on his work of the 1920s and ‘30s. During the Nazi period, Franz Radziwill (1895–1983) was a member of the Nazi Party and taught at the Düsseldorf Art Academy, but he was dismissed in 1935 on the grounds of “pedagogical incompetence.” From 1937, many of his early works were declared “degenerate.” Alongside an index of works, a bibliography, and plates in black-and-white and color, the catalogue contains many essays on Radziwill’s life and on his landscape painting, his still lifes, and the historical and critical elements of his pictures.

Ed.: nGbK

Work group: Rainer Civegna, Jürgen Hoffmann, Mechthild Kempkens, Reiner Klingebiel, Brigitte Sonnenschein, Ernst Volland, Marion Wächter