Exhibiting Postwar German Art in the 1950s: The Politics of Exclusion

Exhibitions mounted during the Cold War frequently advanced ideological messages, yet the cultural initiatives of the divided Germany have received little attention. The first major postwar surveys of German modernism held in English-speaking countries – A Hundred Years of German Painting at London’s Tate Gallery (1956) and German Art of the Twentieth Century at the Museum of Modern Art in New York (1957) – offered West German curators opportunities to convey important cultural and political messages to foreign audiences. Both exhibitions concentrated on Expressionism, but also included a sampling of postwar abstraction from West Germany. Politically engaged examples of German modernism, however, were almost entirely excluded. Positioning these exhibitions within the context of West Germany’s postwar cultural reconstruction, this article considers the curatorial motivations for these artistic choices and examines the exhibitions’ critical reception. Basing this study on documents from both museums’ archives, I contend that these exhibitions, which were sponsored by the West German government, functioned as mediums for cultural diplomacy.