HOFER - HATZFELD (Adolf von). Liebesgedichte.... - Lot 765 - Les ventes Damien Voglaire SRL

HOFER - HATZFELD (Adolf von). Liebesgedichte. Mit zehn Lithographien von Karl Hofer. Düsseldorf, Galerie Flechtheim, 1922. 4°, full cloth with gold titling on the upper cover. First edition printed at 125 copies, numbered 1/25, Chinese style paperback, signed by the author and the artist. Includes 10 original full-page black lithographs, all signed in pencil. Karl Hofer (1878-1955) is a German expressionist painter. After the dramatic experience of the First World War, Hofer's work was filled with symbols and distortions very close to the expressionist painting and black realism represented by the artists from Karlsruhe. By the time Hitler came to power, Karl Hofer was a well-known artist and a respected teacher. However, his anti-Nazi stance, which was clearly stated in numerous texts and publications, and his painting, which contradicted the glorifying naturalism of the German nation promoted by the Hitler regime, made him suspect in the eyes of the Nazi government. Considered a degenerate, he lost his teaching position and was banned from creating and exhibiting. After the surrender, Karl Hofer regained the esteem of his countrymen, both for his work and for his stance against the Third Reich. In 1945 he was appointed director of the Berlin School of Art, was co-editor of the magazine "Bildende Kunst" and co-founder of artists' associations (Jentsch, Illustrierte Bücher des deutschen Expressionismus, 121).