Tuesday Art ATTACK- Georg Schrimpf "Portrait Oskar Maria Graf (1918)"

By Christian Franzen

Georg Schrimpf was born in Munich, Germany on February 13th 1889. Schrimpf's stepfather forced him to leave home as young child and he found refuge in a Bakery several towns over. For several years he apprenticed as a baker until 1905, when he began to wander through Western Europe living off of odd jobs and his baking skills. Throughout his travels he had a lot of down time in which he began to draw things around him from observation. 

World War 1 erupted in 1914 and Schrimpf did everything he could to avoid enlistment. His efforts detrimentally affected his health in the long run leaving him often sickly. Through the duration of the war Schrimpf worked a freelance artist taking whatever jobs he could and always painting. The famous German publicist  Herwarth Walden took a liking to Schrimpfs work and held a small exhibition  showing a small selection Schrimp's pieces in 1916. His paintings received a lot of attention due to its war torn subject matter and its stylistic difference from the other movements occurring in Germany at the time.

In the beginning of the 1920s Schrimpf became one of the leading members in the New Objectivity movement. This movement focused on rejecting the ways of German Expressionism/Abstraction and embracing representation. This Movement lasted up until the 1930 with the take over of the Nazi Regime. At first Schrimpfs art was tolerated by the Nazi's because of its representational nature and he was given a teaching position at there Munich Academy and later the Academy of Berlin.  In 1937, Schrinpf was stripped of his teaching positions and his work was banned from public exhibition. He died the following year of unknown causes.