Degenerate Art" exhibition: the trial of modern art under Nazism at the Musée Picasso - photos

An open window on"degenerate" art... From February 18 to May 15, 2025, the Musée Picasso hosts the exhibition L'art dégénéré : le procès de l'art moderne sous le nazisme (Degenerate art: the trial of modern art under Nazism). The exhibition looks back at the ideological and methodical offensive waged by the Nazi regime againstmodern art, notably through the infamous Entartete Kunst exhibition held in Munich in 1937. By shedding light on this dark chapter in art history, the exhibition offers an enriched reflection on the attacks on the artistic avant-garde, through emblematic works and an in-depth historical context.

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Curated by Johan Popelard, head of the conservation and collections department, and François Dareau, researcher at the Musée Picasso, this exhibition recalls the scale of the Nazi regime's persecution of the arts. More than 20,000 works, including those by figures such as Vincent Van Gogh, Marc Chagall and Pablo Picasso, were confiscated, destroyed or sold.

The exhibition is based on an analysis of the " Entartete Kunst " (Degenerate Art) propaganda exhibition held in Munich in 1937. The exhibition featured over 600 works by some one hundred modern artists, including Otto Dix, Ernst Ludwig Kirchner, Vassily Kandinsky, Emil Nolde, Paul Klee and Max Beckmann, in a setting designed to provoke visitors' disgust.

The exhibition at the Musée Picasso immerses visitors in this dark period in art history. We discover emblematic works confiscated from German museums, testifying to the diversity of aesthetics targeted by the Nazi regime. Highlights include works by George Grosz, Paul Klee, Oskar Kokoschka and Vassily Kandinsky, as well as paintings by Vincent Van Gogh and Pablo Picasso himself.

An area is also dedicated to Jewish artists, who were among the most violently attacked. Around two paintings by Marc Chagall, exhibited in 1937, are works by Jankel Adler, Ludwig Meidner, Hanns Katz and Otto Freundlich, who was murdered in 1943.

The exhibition puts into perspective the concept of "degeneracy", used by the Nazi regime to discredit modern art. This term, emerging in the XIXᵉ century in various disciplines, was hijacked to serve as a vehicle for racist and anti-Semitic theories within art history.

By choosing the Musée Picasso, this exhibition takes on a special resonance. " The painter of Guernica emblematically embodied, in the Thirties, the figure of the so-called "degenerate" artist ", stresses the museum. This framework allows us to place these persecutions in a broader intellectual and historical context, shedding essential light on one of the most tragic moments in the history of modern art. An exhibition not to be missed if you want to grasp the lasting impact of this dark period on artistic creation.

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