A Community in Transition: Painters in Munich, 1886–1924

Abstract

The idea of writing a social and economic history of Munich painters in the period between the death of King Ludwig II and the end of the German inflation evolved from earlier work on literary and theatrical censorship in the city. It soon became clear that artists, compared with writers and especially dramatists, normally ran little risk of police interference. Although pictures were occasionally removed from exhibitions, or rehung, for religious, moral, or political reasons, such cases were rare and controversial. Generally speaking, only artist-contributors to satirical papers likeSimplicissimus, or specialists in erotic book illustration, were at all likely to fall foul of the law. Most painters' principal concern was not legal but financial: how to survive economically in the uncertain market conditions which had followed theGründerzeitart boom.