Georg Scholz

Paul I. Landmann and Martha Landmann, Mannheim (acquired in the 1920s and thence by descent)

Mannheim, Kunsthaus, Georg Scholz, Gemälde, Graphik, Aquarelle, 1924

Illustrierte Rundschau, no. 40, Mannheim, 1925/26, illustrated p. 48

Georg Scholz was one of the leading members of Die Neue Sachlichkeit (The New Objectivity), a politically-infused artistic movement founded in the 1920s by Scholz and Otto Dix in Germany. In contrast to the highly abstracted German Expressionist painting of the prior decade, Die Neue Sachlichkeit was characterized by pictorial realism, presenting its subjects in a manner that was easily accessible to the public. These pictures were vehicles for social criticism, and depicted recognizable characters or events of contemporary or political significance. Founded during one of the most highly-charged periods of modern German history, Die Neue Sachlichkeit provided a candid view of the growing unrest of the nation's intellectuals. For Scholz, this was the most important period of his career, and this picture is a fine example of his production during that era.

 

The present composition depicts a group of important men discussing some sort of business agenda in front of an assemblage of factories - the ultimate symbol of industrial progress.  The cast of characters includes: a beady-eyed, American opportunist with an absurdly sharpened pencil on the left, the Communist leader Vladimir Lenin looking like an overfed capitalist dandy in the center, and the famous politician, Walter Rathenau, grossly stereotyped, on the right.  As a leading industrialist and director of the national electric company (AEC), Rathenau played an integral role in the shaping of German foreign policy, and was a figure of great importance in the German-Jewish community.   During the First World War,  he served as the head of the German KRA (economic war management), and later as Minister of Reconstruction between 1919-21 and Foreign Minister in 1922.  Rathenau was murdered by right-wing extremists in Berlin in 1922, the same year that this painting was completed.  Von Kommenden Dingen (Of Things to Come) shares its title with a popular book of political musings that Rathenau wrote in 1917.  With this picture, Scholz provides his own commentary on the state of political affairs, which was highly influenced by the subjects that he has chosen to depict.

 

Around the time it was first exhibited in Mannheim in 1924, this painting was purchased by Paul I. Landmann and Martha Landmann, German Jews who escaped from Germany in 1939.  Like many of their contemporaries, the Landmanns were admirers of Rathenau, and no doubt were intrigued by Scholz's composition.  This picture survived a raid on the Landmann's home during Kristallnacht in 1938, and has remained in their family until the present day. Von Kommenden Dingen has not been exhibited or published since the 1920s, and this is the first time it has appeared in public in nearly eighty years.