Biographical/Historical Information

The art historian, author, and collector Paul Westheim was born in Eschwege, Germany into an orthodox Jewish family in 1886. After studying art history in Frankfurt and Berlin, he established himself as a professional writer and became the editor of the illustrated art periodical ‘Das Kunstblatt’ in 1917. His own collection of mainly expressionist artworks was a major witness of German art in Weimar Germany. In 1933, Westheim escaped to Paris, and after having been interned in French camps in Les Milles and Gurs, he escaped to Lisbon and then settled in Mexico. On his first post-war visit to Germany, Paul Westheim died in Berlin in 1963.

Ludwig Meidner was a German expressionist painter and printmaker born in Bernstadt, Silesia in 1884. After studies in Breslau and in Paris, he created a series of paintings, the "Apocalyptic Landscapes," which marked a radical departure in style and built his reputation. After WW I, he created religious portraits and increasingly turned to writing, producing several books of dense expressionist prose. In 1935, he moved to Cologne where he was an art teacher at a Jewish School. In 1939, he escaped with his family to England and was interned as an enemy alien on Isle of Man; he returned to Germany in 1953. In 1963 he had his first major exhibition since 1918 in Recklinghausen and Berlin. Ludwig Meidner died on May 14, 1966, in Darmstadt.

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Citation

Paul Westheim / photograph of a chalk drawing by Ludwig Meidner , 1928 [?], Leo Baeck Institute, F 3778A.