Minneapolis Institute of Art

Near Ghent (Bei Gent) (recto) and Mountain Goats (Bergziegen) (verso), page from Der Bildermann

Erich Heckel (recto); August Gaul (verso); Publisher: Galerie Paul Cassirer; Printer: M.W. Lassaly

Date

November 1916

Medium

Lithographs

Department

European Art

Institution

Minneapolis Institute of Art

In 1916, publisher Paul Cassirer started a new periodical, Der Bildermann [The Picture Man], to bring a broad public directly in touch with art. It featured original lithographs that sought to offer beauty as a form of relief from the grinding brutality of World War I. Leo Kestenberg, a pianist and pacifist, ran the journal while Cassirer served in the army. Max Slevogt designed the vignette on the masthead, which shows a man peddling broadsheets to eager soldiers and civilians of all ages and stations. Der Bildermann embraced the art of impressionists (such as Max Slevogt), expressionists (Erich Heckel and Ernst Ludwig Kirchner), and naturalists (August Gaul). Dwindling subscriptions, increasing difficulties with censors and the bureaucracy, led to Der Bildermann’s demise after only eighteen issues. Germany, Europe

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