Venus, Vanishing by Rebecca Birrell review – art, desire and the rise of the Third Reich

This portrait of a Jewish painter in bohemian Berlin is filled with insightful observations In the summer of 1937, two exhibitions sponsored by the Nazis opened in Munich. For the Degenerate Art exhibition, hundreds of confiscated works by banned modern artists – including Paul Klee, Wassily Kandinsky, Pablo Picasso – were gathered: a derisive demonstration of the supposedly anti-German spirit of contemporary culture. The show was also meant as a counterpoint to the first Great German Art Exh...

By Gabrielle Schwarz