Barlach's "Singing Man": Sculpture, Drawings, and Prints by Ernst Barlach, Circuited by the Museum of Modern Art, New York, June 16-30, 1941

Ernst Heinrich Barlach was a German expressionist sculptor, medallist, printmaker, and writer. Although he was a supporter of the war in the years leading to World War I, his participation in the war made him change his position, and he is mostly known for his sculptures protesting against the war. This created many conflicts during the rise of the Nazi Party, when most of his works were confiscated as degenerate art. Stylistically, his literary and artistic work would fall between the categories of twentieth-century Realism and Expressionism.

He was born January 2, 1870 in Wedel, Holstein and spent his early childhood in Schoenberg (Mecklenburg), where his father was a physician. In fall 1876, the family moved to Ratzeburg, where Barlack attended primary school. When his father died in early 1884, the family returned to Schoenberg where Barlach attended secondary school. He studied from 1888 to 1891 at the Gewerbeschule Hamburg. He continued his art studies at the Royal Art School Dresden under Robert Diez from 1891 to 1895. He created his first major sculpture during this time, Die Krautpflückerin (The Herb Plucker). He continued his studies for one more year in Paris at the Académie Julian, from 1895 to 1897.

After his studies, Barlach worked for some time as a sculptor in Hamburg and Altona, working mainly in an Art Nouveau style. He produced illustrations for the Art Nouveau magazine Jugend and made sculptures, including some ceramic statues. Afterwards, he also worked as a teacher at a school for ceramics. His first solo exhibition took place at the Kunstsalon Richard Mutz, Berlin, in 1904. However, the lack of commercial success of his works depressed Barlach. He decided to travel for eight weeks with his brother Nikolaus to visit his brother Hans in Russia. This trip to Russia in 1906 was one of the greatest influences on him and his artistic style. Also during his travels in Russia his son was born.

After returning from Russia, Barlach's financial situation improved considerably, as he received a fixed salary from the art dealer Paul Cassirer in exchange for his sculptures. The formative experiences in Russia and the financial security helped him to develop his own style, focusing on the faces and hands of the people in his sculptures and reducing the other parts of the figures to a minimum. He also began to make wood carvings and bronzes of figures swathed in heavy drapery like those in early Gothic art. He also worked for a German journal and started to produce some literature. His works were shown in various exhibitions and he spent ten months in Florence, Italy in 1909, afterwards settling in 1910 in Güstrow in Mecklenburg, where he spent the rest of his life.

In the years before World War I, Barlach was a patriotic and enthusiastic supporter of the war, awaiting a new artistic age from the war. His awaited new artistic age came for him when he volunteered to join the war between 1915 and 1916 as an infantry soldier. After three months of service he was discharged due to a heart ailment, returning as a pacifist and a staunch opponent of war. The horror of the war influenced all of his subsequent works. Barlach's fame increased after the war, and he received many awards and became a member of the prestigious Prussian Art Academy in 1919 and the Munich Art Academy in 1925. In addition to his sculpture, Barlach also wrote eight Expressionist dramas, two novels, as well as an autobiography published in 1928. He had a distinguished oeuvre of woodcuts and lithographs from about 1910 onwards, including illustrations for his own plays, some of which were shown at the Legion in 1941.

From 1928 onward Barlach also generated many anti-war sculptures based on his experiences in the war. This pacifist position went against the political trend during the rise of Nazism, and he was the target of much criticism. He was commissioned by the city of Megdeburg to create a memorial to World War I and it was expected to show heroic German soldiers fighting for their glorious country. Barlach, however, created a sculpture with five figures bearing marks of the horror, pain and desperation of the war. This naturally created a controversy with the pro-war population and the sculpture was removed. Friends of Barlach were able to hide the sculpture until after the war, when it was returned to the Magdeburg Cathedral. Yet the attacks on Barlach continued until his death. The Fighter of the Spirit, commissioned by the University Church of Kiel in northern Germany, was intended to be a memorial to humanistic and intellectual ideals in the aftermath of World War I. The Nazis, angered by its anti-war message, removed it in 1937 and sawed the angel in parts, intending to melt it down. Instead, it was saved and in 1953, following World War II, it was repaired and installed outside the Church of St. Nicholas in Kiel.

In 1936, Barlach's works were confiscated during an exhibition together with the works of Käthe Kollwitz and Wilhelm Lehmbruck, and the majority of his remaining works were confiscated as "degenerate art." Barlach himself was prohibited from working as a sculptor, and his membership in the art academies was canceled. As a result of Nazi propaganda, Barlach was shunned by his fellow townspeople and was falsely condemned as a Jew and as a Bolshevik. This rejection is reflected in his final works before his death on October 24, 1938 in Rostock, Mecklenburg, Germany. Despite the false rejection of his art in Nazi Germany, this posthumous exhibition at the Legion of Honor sought to honor his legacy as an artist of the early twentieth century.

Source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ernst_Barlach