Self Portrait - Julius Hüther (1946)

This impressionist portrait of the artist in an apocalyptic Germany of 1946 is filled with sadness, anger, bewilderment and fear. The devastation to life, culture and environment brought by the Nazis left everything Huther saw in tatters. Probably painted earlier, and only released after the Nazi’s were out of power for fear of being sent to a death camp.

Nazis are known to burn books, but they also set fire to 1,004 paintings and sculptures and 3,825 watercolors, drawings, and prints in 1939 alone because no one would buy the art they stole from the walls of art museums and Jewish homes. They did it to simply demonstrate their willingness. Later over the next month Swiss representatives arrived with 50,000 Franks to save what they could. Unfortunately, their burning accomplished exactly its intent, and the Nazi war machine began producing unprecedented numbers of instruments of death.

Over the next 7 years, as Nazi Germany invaded more of Europe, they would take art at their leisure. Many French masterpieces were removed and sent back to Germany, some were set to be shown in Hitler’s idealized art museum, some given to other high-ranking officials for their private collections.

Since 1946 a huge effort has been underway to return stolen Nazi art, but there are still many pieces unaccounted for.