Critical Reception
Today, Willi Baumeister’s work still attracts a lot of attention, particularly in Germany, France, Italy, and Spain. In contrast to the “French classics” of Modernism, or the important American artists of the second half of the twentieth century, Baumeister receives only a scant amount of attention in the Anglo-Saxon world. The quality of his work is undisputed.
It is clear that while working in “domestic emigration” during the Nazi dictatorship, he had no influence on the vital artistic environment. After 1945 Willi Baumeister played an important role in the development of German and European art. Among the German painters who remained in the country despite the persecution by the National Socialists from 1933 to 1945, only a few succeeded in achieving such pioneering strides toward new contents and forms. Following World War II, he became a spokesman in the debate on Modernism. Regarded as an advocate of “abstract” painting, he was highly regarded by some, while strongly condemned by others.
An important collection of Willi Baumeister’s works is preserved in the Willi Baumeister Archive, which is part of the Kunstmuseum Stuttgart, and in the Sammlung Domnick (Domnick Collection) in Nürtingen.
Read more about this topic: Willi Baumeister
Famous quotes containing the words critical and/or reception:
“If our entertainment culture seems debased and unsatisfying, the hope is that our children will create something of greater worth. But it is as if we expect them to create out of nothing, like God, for the encouragement of creativity is in the popular mind, opposed to instruction. There is little sense that creativity must grow out of tradition, even when it is critical of that tradition, and children are scarcely being given the materials on which their creativity could work”
—C. John Sommerville (20th century)
“He’s leaving Germany by special request of the Nazi government. First he sends a dispatch about Danzig and how 10,000 German tourists are pouring into the city every day with butterfly nets in their hands and submachine guns in their knapsacks. They warn him right then. What does he do next? Goes to a reception at von Ribbentropf’s and keeps yelling for gefilte fish!”
—Billy Wilder (b. 1906)