Splendor and Misery: New Objectivity in Germany

This richly illustrated catalog accompanies the Leopold Museum’s landmark exhibition, Splendor and Misery: New Objectivity in Germany, the first comprehensive showcase of German New Objectivity (Neue Sachlichkeit) in Austria. The exhibition, held from May 24 to September 29, 2024, featured approximately 150 works, including paintings, works on paper, photographs, and archival materials from renowned international museums and private collections.

Emerging in the 1920s as a response to the trauma of World War I, the New Objectivity movement offered a stark, unsentimental portrayal of reality, capturing both the hardships and the hopes of the Weimar Republic’s “Golden Twenties.” Artists such as Max Beckmann, Otto Dix, George Grosz, Christian Schad, Lotte Laserstein, and Felix Nussbaum depicted the era’s social realities with unflinching clarity, addressing themes ranging from urban life and technological progress to the changing roles of women and the looming threats of political extremism.