German masterworks from the Neue Galerie features highlights from the museum’s extensive collection of German art from the period 1890 to 1940. Simultaneous with the Austrian Expressionist movement, avant-garde initiatives occurred in Germany in the Brücke (Bridge) and Blaue Reiter (Blue Rider) groups with groundbreaking results realized vis-à-vis the use of color and form.

Prominent examples of work by Brücke artists will be on view, including Ernst Ludwig Kirchner’s Tightrope walk (1908-10), Max Pechstein’s Young woman with red fan (ca. 1910), and Karl Schmidt-Rottluff’s 1910 Landscape with houses and trees (Dangast before the storm).

For the Blaue Reiter, Vasily Kandinsky’s Murnau: street with women of 1908 and August Macke’s 1912 Strollers at the lake II are especially noteworthy.

The Neue sachlichkeit (New objectivity) movement is also addressed with prominent selections, such as Otto Dix’s 1929 Portrait of Johann Edwin Wolfensberger and Georg Scholz’s 1922 Of things to come.

The diversity of the artwork associated with the Bauhaus is vividly illustrated in the canvases of Lyonel Feininger, such as his 1925 The blue cloud, Paul Klee’s 1925 Mystical-ceramic (in the manner of a still-life), and László Moholy-Nagy’s A XI of 1923. In the decorative arts, iconic designs by Bauhaus artists, such as Theodor Bogler, Marianne Brandt, Marcel Breuer, Ludwig Mies van der Rohe, and Wilhelm Wagenfeld confirm the prestigious legacy of the school, its faculty, and its students.

Finally, Felix Nussbaum’s haunting 1940 Self-portrait in the camp serves as witness to the terrible tragedy that unfolded under the National Socialist regime.