Karl Hofer - The Wind

Sitting here in Brooklyn, it's hard to imagine what Karl Hofer must have experienced once the Nazis took over the German government in 1933. First he was removed from his teaching position at the Berlin Academy (Lehrverbot) as a "Judeo-Marxist destructive element" and deprived of the right to exhibit (Ausstellungsverbot). In 1938, the Carnegie International jury awarded its $1.000 first prize to Hofer's The Wind, today's post here on Fifty Two Pieces.

Joseph Goebbels, the Fährer of Nazi, took umbrage with Hofer having received this award, especially for this particular painting. Many saw the two defenseless figures huddling against the wind, the ill wind faced by non-Nazi Germans. Goebbels was so furious that Hofer was subject to the most crippling of all measure taken against artists, Malverbot (deprivation of the right to paint). Described by Grunberger, Malverbot was the worst measure taken.

"Lest the Malverbot should be circumvented in the privacy of an artist's home, the Gestapo would carry out lightning raids of inspection, checking up—as in Carl Hofer's case—on whether the paint brushes were still wet. They also placed lists of proscribed artists in the paint shops, so as to cut off their supply of materials at source."

Special note: This post was written while I helped our host Rick prepare stuffed artichokes. Chop garlic, do search on Google. Zest lemon (no zester), continue to research. "Need more garlic." Chop garlic, write post. "Need onion." Chop onion, publish post. 

Degenerate Artists

Let us not forget that it wasn't just the Nazi armed forces who are responsible for the demoralization of humanity at the time. It wasn't just the methamphetamines or the gun toting youth of brainwashed Germany. It wasn't just them and Hitler. There were over three million visitors (The National Socialist Society) that attended the blockbuster degenerate art exhibit, "Entartete Kunst". That's right, over three million people came to see the poorly hung artwork and all the graffiti and commentary about it, all the mocking and the ridicule. Laughed at their artists. Artists including Klee, Chagall, Ernst and Kandinsky. Laughed at the ones whose artwork we now pay millions to possess. If only they could know what they are worth to us now....this is the thing that bothers me about death. This is the problem with dying, what was it all worth anyway?
makes me think about this girl, listening to her records, shirt falling off one shoulder. It's just like that shirt, or just like that shoulder. It doesn't know what it means, or what it's worth, just being what it is and drawing so much attention. Just being there and being natural and not realizing how it becomes the focus. When all it wants to do is listen to the music, get that sad face to change to something more relaxed, to something that can just be a face, without an emotion, without anyone else making commentary about it. Because like a shirt, like a shoulder, like a soldier, it just is what it is what it is.

Karl Hofer - Other Paintings on the Internet

Santa Denunziata was painted by Karl Hofer in 1941. That was the year his former wife Mathide Hofer was denounced by a Gestapo informant and sent to Auschwitz where she died in 1942. Hofer was quoted as saying at the time: "When they are finished with the Jews, they will start with the artists, and with all of those who cannot defend themselves." Hofer was officially banned from painting in 1938 by the Nazi government. He painted this and a number of other works in secret between 1938 and the end of World War II in 1945. I've found the reading for this week to be very somber and chilling. That mood is seen in the other two paintings in this post; I found all three paintings on the Internet.


Night of the Dark Moon (on the left) was also painted by Hofer during the period when he was banned from the practice of his art. Finished in 1944 it preceded a particularly dark piece done in the wake of the end of the war. Dance of the Death, 1946 (on the right) shows an extremely morbid view of life even after the war. I'm feeling quite fortunate to be alive now and living in this country.

Easter on Fifty Two Pieces

It's Easter Sunday, people are feasting, eggs have been hidden and found, churches have been flooded with song and children have bitten the heads off chocolate bunnies. I spent the day driving home from Chelan, the central Washington lake town where my dad lives with his new companion the malamute seen here.

The most important thing for me in Hofer's work is the emotion it evokes. Although his figures are anatomically interesting and I call the piece "The Red Man", I am not interested in how proportion or color is handled, and don't spend time dissecting the elements of what makes a piece "good". I am a literate person, LaValle says I prefer representational art, I thought about that, I don't want to be exclusive, but what I like about art is that it feels. It has a feeling inside and I can see what that feeling is by being outside of it. And I can choose to be with it, and dissect it, take comfort from it or use it to evoke some of my own emotions. Here is a picture of my dad.

Here is the man. No luck in love. He has been The Red Man, but he doesn't feel that now. Only love pours from him for his wolf, he's moved way out to the middle of nowhere on Okanogan National Forest land, a days drive away, to give them room to be wild together. I haven't seen him so happy, that's right-this picture is of a happy man.

Two and Early Hour - Paintings Linked by Inspiration

Some of us are inspired to create poetry after we see a painting or a sculpture. Others of us use the image of another artist to create an image of our own. That is what Katie m. Berggren did in today's image, Two. As she writes on her website...

"I had this drawing completed when a friend sent me an image of Karl Hofer's painting "Early Hour" (I can't find it online). Hofer's image inspired me to work my drawing into a painting. In the end, I am pleased with how the socks on the floor draw some of the attention away from the couple on the bed."

The inspiration to write this post came to me earlier this morning. Still under the duvet and with my head on my pillow, I remembered how seeing Hofer's Early Hour had compelled me to search out more references to it. Katie Berggren's image as well as Micah Sunshower's Myspace page (Early Hour is included as one of his images) became linked during that research period. My eyes had immediately gone to Berggren's painting on the Google image page. A couple in bed, these two are in the sleep dance embrace. Together yet separate, they move in that other world we go to each day. On the other hand, in Hofer's, the man is almost a viewer, part of the scene yet removed. This separation between the man and woman made me wonder what was happening to Hofer when he painted Early Hour.

Early Hour was painted in 1935, a year after two major upheavals in Karl Hofer's life. As a result of the rise of Fascism in Germany, Hofer had been dismissed from his teaching post as a professor at the Kunstschule in Berlin-Charlottenburg in 1934. The other pivotal event in 1934 was his separation and divorce from his wife, Mathilde. Mathilde Scheinberger was a Jewish singer when they had married in 1903.

During my own early hour, I began putting stories together. Early Hour was Hofer remembering better times with his former wife. Early Hour was Hofer with a different woman, together with her but still very much part of his former life. Or maybe Early Hour was a couple Hofer had seen as he walked past a room. Perhaps only the dog at the foot of the bed really knows for certain.

A Woman and Her Dog

I can't think of another painting in the entire museum of a comparable couple. This is the pair who, when the museum closes and the guards go home, rise and run through the place like it's the garden of eden.
I wanted to see more of this subject, so I did an image search, the closest I could get to a couple in bed with their dog, was this modern stock photo.

So I narrowed my search to a woman and her dog, and this is what I got.

This is the simple relationship,the one that doesn't need interpretation. This we often overlook and take for granted. What draws us in is the relationship between people, the complicated and muddled emotional roller coaster we go through with the ones we go to bed with.
Kark Hofer painted many scenes of people in relationship, some say these are to celebrate human solidarity. His paintings are stories.
In Early Hour the dog gives the story structure.
Because he is soundly sleeping we know this is not the moment after sex, we also know that the man has not shot straight up in bed as though out of a nightmare, that he has either slowly lifted himself onto his elbow, or that he has been in that position long enough not to wake the dog. The dog is the humble servant, the loyal companion to the vulnerable woman, nude and uncovered in a bed with her lover.
The man, who seems to be in his lover's bed, with his lover's dog, is red, dark, contemplative, angular and sharp. It almost seems that he is troubled over something. Straight lipped wth his knee in the air. I wonder what he is thinking.
Who is she, who am I, who are we, what is this, emotions emotions emotions. And she sleeps, and he wonders.
But not the dog. The dog just holds her under him, waiting to see what she does when she wakes, not at all interested in thinking about what that will mean, but relaxed knowing his only task is to protect and love her. Its simple enough to induce sleep.

I get the sense that this is her home, the blue curtains are drawn, the windows blown open, her love, like a bird, has flown in. He watches over her. But who is more likely to be there tomorrow?

Early Hour - Karl Hofer

The room is saturated with red, brown and orange - a quiet morning filled with the warmth of the day before and the rhythm of the night. The walls, the blanket, the man, and the dog are enclosed in those earth tones. Outside the window we see the light of day, the crisp morning. We stand at the edge of the draped doorway and peer into this private moment. Those drapes have the same coolness of the window as do the sheets and body of the woman.

I'm always stopped by Early Hour painted by Karl Hofer in 1935. It was one of his paintings that was not destroyed by the Nazi regime when he and his art were deemed degenerate. When I first saw Early Hour in 2005, I could hear Helen Reddy singing the lyrics to I Didn't Mean to Love You.

Sunday Morning waking up and touching you 

You’re always warm at 9 a.m 

Pillows close and I can feel you wanting me 

When I go back to sleep again...