Memories of art education in West Germany before and after 1945: My mother’s experience

The art education movement in Germany before 1933 exerted a crucial influence on various areas of school education within the framework of progressive education. Drawing and painting were geared to the forms of experience typical of the stages of childhood development. Moreover, the emphasis on the fine arts became a principle of education in general. However, the Nazis’ education policy abused art education just as it abused many other fields by subordinating these to the fundamentals of National Socialist ideology. Consequently, the educational policy of the 1920s was revived and refined under the term art education in the Federal Republic of Germany after 1945. The revival of this form of art education was a challenging experience for the researcher’s mother, Ursula Jagtiani, who was born in 1937 during the period of National Socialism. Employing oral history as a method, guided by Jagtiani’s memories, this article draws connections between Jagtiani’s childhood experience of art education as a female student, the practice of her art education instructor Otto Holz, and the historical proceedings in West Germany before and after 1945.