Paintings by Hitler?

[toque]

I believe that the art academy that Hitler applied to was destroyed, along with all its records, in the time leading up to the war, possibly by Nazi thugs who were trying to obliterate all traces of his non-military life leading up to 1933. So we don't know on what grounds he was not selected.

Actually, we do. He 'failed to include enough heads' in his portfolio.

[Max]

I believe that the art academy that Hitler applied to was destroyed, along with all its records, in the time leading up to the war, possibly by Nazi thugs who were trying to obliterate all traces of his non-military life leading up to 1933. So we don't know on what grounds he was not selected.

Actually, we do. He 'failed to include enough heads' in his portfolio.

I would be interested to see a reference for this assertion.
Cheers
Max

[toque]

I would be interested to see a reference for this assertion.

Unfortuantely, that I don't now recall, although I do remember thinking at the time that the source was reliable. As the portfolio would have been returned to Hitler, it's quite likely that he kept it, and it ended up in an archive somewhere.

[Sheldrake]

In 2009 I visited an exhibition in London by the Chapman Brothers. One of tjhe main pieces was a collection of 13 Hitler watercolours which they had defaced with smiley faces

http://whitecube.com/exhibitions/jake_d ... yard_2008/

While this may be clever conceptual art, and Hitler and nazi philosophy may be fair game, I left the exhibition feeling that some of what I had seen might also be described as vandalism of WW1 trench art produced by a soldier of the Great War.

[Geoff Walden]

I believe that the art academy that Hitler applied to was destroyed, along with all its records, in the time leading up to the war, possibly by Nazi thugs who were trying to obliterate all traces of his non-military life leading up to 1933. So we don't know on what grounds he was not selected.

The Vienna Academy of Fine Arts (Akademie der bildenden Künste Wien) is still there, at Schillerplatz 3 in Vienna. Same building as when Hitler tried to get in.

I believe that the art academy that Hitler applied to was destroyed, along with all its records, in the time leading up to the war, possibly by Nazi thugs who were trying to obliterate all traces of his non-military life leading up to 1933. So we don't know on what grounds he was not selected.

Actually, we do. He 'failed to include enough heads' in his portfolio.

I would be interested to see a reference for this assertion.
Cheers
Max

Max, I believe this is quoted in most of the standard Hitler biographies (none of which I have in front of me just now) - Kershaw, Lang, Bullock. I'm sure I've seen it in more than one of those sources.

Geoff

[Max]

Max, I believe this is quoted in most of the standard Hitler biographies (none of which I have in front of me just now) - Kershaw, Lang, Bullock. I'm sure I've seen it in more than one of those sources.

Geoff

Thanks Geoff
More reading required by me.
Cheers

[Annelie]

toque

Actually, we do. He 'failed to include enough heads' in his portfolio.

You have heard of landscape artists? Comes to mind Gainsborough and Stubbs amongst others.

Do we actually know that it is a requisite to enter and pass the entrance to the Wien art school during that time?

https://www.akbild.ac.at/portal_en/akbild_startpage

tried to find any pertinent info but?

[toque]

In 2009 I visited an exhibition in London by the Chapman Brothers. [...] I left the exhibition feeling that some of what I had seen might also be described as vandalism of WW1 trench art produced by a soldier of the Great War.

That was my feeling also.

[toque]

Do we actually know that it is a requisite to enter and pass the entrance to the Wien art school during that time?

Art schools do look for a breadth as well as depth of ability. His omission meant that he had failed to demonstrate competence in one particular area - in this case, the human form.

Rejection wouldn't necessarily mean that he was no good, just that they didn't get the chance to assess him properly. Examiners dealing with large numbers of applications can't waste time.

That said, having looked at a great deal of his work, I am inclined to think that it would have made no difference had he included more sketches - architecture was clearly more his thing. Where they do appear, his human figures are for the most part only included to give scale.

He did do some Still Life, and the occasional landscape, but these represent only a small proportion of his output.