The world’s first monument to "degenerate" artists will be built in England

In the county of Cumbria in the north-west of England, the world’s first monument will be built dedicated to artists who were labeled “degenerate” in Nazi Germany. Today, according to BBC News, in the UK launched a campaign to raise funds for the construction of the memorial.

The location of the monument was not chosen by chance. It was in Cumbria for a long time that the great German artist Kurt Schwitters lived and worked (Kurt Schwitters, 1887-1948), who on January 2, 1937, after being questioned by the Gestapo, emigrated to Norway, and then, in June 1940, aboard the icebreaker Fridtjof Nansen ", Fled to Scotland. Later, the artist was interned in England.

The works of Schwitters and several dozen artists were banned by the Nazi regime. July 19, 1937 in Munich, in the gallery Hofgarten opened the exhibition "Degenerative Art" (Entartete Kunst). The exposition had about 650 works confiscated in 32 German museums. The term "degenerative" fascist propaganda defined avant-garde art, calling it also anti-classical, Jewish-Bolshevik, anti-German, and even dangerous for the nation and the Aryan race itself.

The exhibition featured the works of Marc Chagall (Marc Chagall, 1887 - 1985), Paul Klee (Paul Klee, 1879-1940), Max Ernst (Max Ernst, 1891 - 1976), Max Beckmann (Max Beckmann, 1884 - 1950), Ernst Ludwig Kirchner (Ernst Ludwig Kirchner, 1880 - 1938), Otto Dix (Otto Dix, 1891 - 1969), Oscar Kokoschka (Oskar Kokoschka, 1886-1980), Pete Mondrian (Piet Mondriaan, 1872-1944) and many others. In addition to individual artists, entire creative groups and artistic movements, such as impressionism, dadaism, cubism, Fauvism, surrealism, expressionism, many composers, including Arnold Schönberg (Arnold Schönberg, 1874-1951), Erwin were declared "degenerate" Schulhof (Erwin Schulhoff, 1894-1942) and others.

Today, Kurt Schwiters is considered one of the most prominent figures of European modernism and the forerunner of pop art. The installation of the monument, according to preliminary estimates, will cost about 30 thousand pounds. According to Professor Ute Meth Bauer (Mondriaan), Dean of the Royal College of Art in London, the main idea of the memorial is that it should become a symbol of the victory of creativity over evil, and, at the same time, the first step to creating the personal museum of Kurt Schwitters in England.

Anna Sidorova