Lovis Corinth died in 1925. The Nazi’s declared his work degenerate and put it on display as a bad example in 1936.

Lovis Corinth (1858-1925) was a German artist and writer whose whose work fused impressionism & expressionism into a brutal concoction all his own. His nudes expose his style perfectly. They’re not pretty, they are visceral meat. But they are honest and real and wonderful.

Corinth studied in Paris & in Munich joined the Berlin Sucession group, later becoming the group’s president. His early work was naturalistic in approach. Corinth was initially antagonistic towards the expressionist movement, but after a stroke in 1911 his style loosened and took on many expressionistic qualities. His use of color became more vibrant, and he created portraiture & landscapes of extraordinary vitality and power. Corinth’s subject matter also included biblical scenes. And nudes, and biblical scenes with nudes.

Perhaps his finest accolade came after he died. During the Third Reich, Corinth’s work was declared “degenerate art” by the regime and, in 1937, Nazi authorities rounded up and removed 295 of his works from public collections, and transported seven of them to Munich and displayed them as examples in the now famous Degenerate Art Exhibition of March 1937. Let’s start with 2 of Corinth’s paintings we know were in the “degenearte” exhibition; Self portrait with Model (1903) and Innocence (c. 1890).