Degenerate Art Exhibition Munich 1937

Degenerate Art Exhibition Munich 1937, entrance to Galeriestraße. The “Degenerate Art” exhibition opened in the Hofgarten Arcades in Munich on 19 July 1937. The photo shows the entrance to the exhibition in Galeriestraße.

The “Degenerate Art” exhibition in Munich in 1937 was a key event organised by the Nazi regime to stigmatise modern art. It took place from 19 July to 30 November and showed over 650 works of art confiscated from German museums, including works by well-known artists such as Emil Nolde, Ernst Barlach, Kurt Schwitters, Ernst Ludwig Kirchner, Paul Klee and Wassily Kandinsky. The aim of the exhibition was to ridicule and denounce avant-garde art styles such as Expressionism, Dada and Surrealism as corrupt, un-German and degenerate. It attracted over two million visitors and reflected the regime’s efforts to control and manipulate forms of cultural expression and promote its idea of Aryan purity.