After six years of closure for renovations, the Neue Nationalgalerie will once again present major works of Classical Modernism from the Nationalgalerie collection. The Art of Society shows some 250 paintings and sculptures created between 1900 and 1945 by artists including Otto Dix, Hannah Höch, Ernst Ludwig Kirchner, Lotte Laserstein and Renée Sintenis.

The works of art assembled in the exhibition reflect the social processes of a turbulent time, among them the German Empire’s reform movements, the First World War, the Weimar Republic’s Golden Twenties, National Socialism’s ostracism of the avant-garde, the Second World War, and the Holocaust. Extending beyond a pure history of aesthetics, the collection impressively demonstrates the connection between art and social history. In the process the open floor plan of Mies van de Rohe’s iconic architecture affords different perspectives on the various currents of the avantgarde.

Exhibition Catalogue

The exhibition will be accompanied by a publication edited by Joachim Jäger, Dieter Scholz and Irina Hiebert Grun: The Art of Society, 1900 – 1945, an exhibition catalogue of the Neue Nationalgalerie, DCV Verlag, Berlin, 2021. Price: approx. 27 euros.

A collection presentation by the Nationalgalerie – Staatliche Museen zu Berlin