Fundatie Collectie: 80 years of freedom

In 2024 and 2025, we will celebrate the 80th anniversary of the end of World War II. In the Netherlands, we regained our freedom then, but in many places around the world, war is still being waged today. In a thematic presentation of the Fundatie Collection, we show the impact of World War II on art through two aspects: the freedom of art and the freedom of people. The exhibition focuses on the art politics of the Nazis on the one hand and on the life of Paul Citroen in hiding during World War II on the other.

In Nazi Germany, the term Entartete Kunst was used to designate art that did not conform to Hitler's ideas about art. This included almost all art that deviated from a naturalistic representation, in other words the entire avant-garde of the time, such as abstract art and expressionism. In 1937, a large travelling exhibition began in Munich with 650 works that were seen as examples of Entartete Kunst. All the works were placed interchangeably and the purchase price was listed with each work, along with the museum that had acquired the work and the year of purchase. In the exhibition rooms, slogans were written on the walls mocking the art on display. All with the aim of arousing public disgust for these works and the large sums spent on them. At the same time, the Große deutsche Kunstausstellung in Munich in 1937 showed art that did appeal to the Nazis.

After Munich, the Entartete Kunst exhibition travelled around Germany and Austria for four years in different line-ups. Eventually, about three million people saw the exhibition. After this, the works were sold, exchanged or destroyed. Artists labelled ‘entartet’, whose works were shown at the 1937 exhibition, included Käthe Kollwitz, Max Pechstein and Otto Dix, whose works are in Museum de Fundatie's collection. We will introduce our audience to the works of these creators, each of whom actually caused great and important changes in art.

Paul Citroen
Paul Citroen is one of the most important makers in the Overijssel collection, which is on long-term loan to Museum de Fundatie. Besides the works that Citroen collected from other makers, it also includes a large number of his own works, from his estate. For Paul Citroen, who was of Jewish descent, the Second World War was a very difficult period in his life. In 1943, he went into hiding in Wassenaar. In early 1944, he moved to another hiding address in Laren. He continued to work, however. As he was alone a lot, these mainly became self-portraits. After D-Day in June 1944, he joined his wife Lien and daughter Paulien, who were in hiding at Henri Methorst's publishing house De Driehoek in ‘s Graveland.

The Overijssel Province collection contains several works, portraits, self-portraits and landscapes, which Paul Citroen made while in hiding.

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