Naked Truth: Approaches to the Body in Early Twentieth-Century German-Austrian Art

Middlebury, VT: Middlebury College Museum of Art, 2015. 111 pages, illustrations (colour); 24 cm. Published on the occasion of the exhibition "Naked Truth: Approaches to the Body in Early-Twentieth-Century German-Austrian Art," on view at the Middlebury College Museum of Art from September 11 through December 6, 2015. Firm binding, clean inside copy. "In 1899 Gustav Klimt's painting 'Nuda Veritas' shook up the Austrian public with what many deem to be the painter's most political exploration of the nude female body. Klimt's provocative allegory challenged viewers to consider their own beliefs about the relationship between the nude (female) body and contemporary morality; this "naked truth" was shocking. Transcending accusations of pornography, Klimt's work paved the way for artistic examinations of the nude body as the site through which questions of freedom, desire, beauty, nature, culture, power, and their antonyms could be represented and negotiated. Taking these ideas as one critical point of departure, this volume and the accompanying exhibition feature selected prints, drawings, and watercolors by Klimt, Egon Schiele, Otto Dix, George Grosz, Max Beckmann and Kathe Kollwitz, among others. It explores the conceptions of the human body and the manner of its visualization in the period leading up to and following the First World War, which changed the world's notions of flesh and blood forever." - Publisher. CONTENTS: Introduction: a sketch of early-twentieth-century German and Austrian prints and drawings, by James A. van Dyke; Body matters: approaches to the human body in early-twentieth-century German discourse and practice, by Bettina Matthias; States of the body in the work of Georg Grosz and Otto Dix, by Eliza Garrison; On the grotesque body in a double-sided drawing by Otto Dix, by James A. van Dyke; Checklist of the exhibition and artist biographies, by Peter Moore.. 1st. Paperback. Fine. 4to. Collectible.