July 01, 2008
Gregory Maertz, Ph.D., Professor in the Department of English
in St. John’s College of Arts and Sciences, was awarded a
fellowship from National Humanities
Center (NHC) for the academic year 2008-9. Dr. Maertz,
whose proposal was entitled “House of Art: Cultural History of Nazi
Germany,” was one of 42 leading scholars from across the nation
selected from more than 400 applicants for this honor.
Since 1978, the National Humanities Center has devoted its
energy and ethos to advanced studies in the humanities. The
Center awards more than $1.6 million in fellowship grants to enable
scholars to pursue their research. To date, this endeavor has
resulted in the publication of more than 1,000 books in all fields
of the humanities.
Maertz was also awarded a fellowship from the American Council of Learned
Societies for the same project. The two fellowships
combined with support from St. John’s Provost Julia Upton, RSM,
Ph.D., will allow him to devote 2008-2010 to this landmark
research.
The research and writing Maertz will conduct over the next two
years will form the basis for two forthcoming books, The Invisible
Museum: Unearthing the Lost Modernist Art of the Third Reich and
House of Art: A Cultural History of Nazi Germany, both of which
will be published by Yale University Press.
“These two books will radically alter our understanding of
officially sanctioned art—its production, patronage, and exhibition
history—and offer the missing evidence needed to support the work
of scholars who are rethinking how Modernism and modernity relate
to Nazi art, architecture, film, and design,” said Maertz.
Maertz was the first scholar permitted to enter and photograph
the previously sealed archives of the former House of German Art museum,
where he uncovered Adolf Hitler's art purchases from 1939-44, the
identity of the 15,000 artists who submitted work for the Great
German Art Exhibitions, the correspondence of the post-war
Processing and Settlement Office to artists, and purchase records
of Nazi-era exhibitions.
After discovering 10,000 Nazi-era paintings that were
confiscated by the US Army in 1946 and then returned to the Federal
Republic of Germany in 1951 and 1986, Maertz received permission
from Chris Dercon, Director of the House of German Art, to
photograph its archives’ contents.
Opened in 1937, the House of Art was the first building
commissioned by Adolf Hitler after he came to power in 1933. Its
purpose was to showcase the finest and most acceptable art
according to National Socialist aesthetics. “Degenerate Artists,”
such as Matisse, van Gogh, Paul Klee, and Franz Marc were banned
that same year.
“Art was central to the Nazi political and cultural
agenda,” explains Maertz. “They saw how culture could be
manipulated to serve different political functions.”
After Hitler was defeated, much of the Nazi-supported artwork
was believed to be lost, destroyed, or confiscated by the United
States military. However, in 2002, Maertz discovered nearly 10,000
works of art which had never been seen before. A vast amount of
documentation related to these works of art remained locked in the
archives of the House of German Art until Maertz’s discovery.
“I didn’t anticipate the richness of the material I found in the
House of Art archives. The master narrative of twentieth-century
art history insists that Nazi art was in binary opposition to
classical modernism. My research reveals this assumption to be
overly simplistic. Nazi art was not as monolithically neo-classical
or anti-Modernist as Nazi propaganda would have us believe,” Maertz
comments.
Dercon has been restoring the House of German Art to the
original architecture designed by the Nazis because he believes
that the past and history must be learned and remembered despite
its gravity. In an April 13, 2008 New York Times article,
“Munich Redux: Germany’s Hot Spot of the Moment,” Dercon was quoted
as saying, “We’re constantly working with the meaning of the
building and the past of the building.”
Because Maertz’s objectives to uncover art commissioned by the
Third Reich coincide with Dercon’s goals, he was permitted to be
the first to enter the archives and to publish all that he found
there.