New Objectivity - 905

Narrator (f):

Otto Griebel’s large-format painting The Internationale of 1929 is considered an outstanding example of the proletarian, revolutionary art of that era. A dense crowd of workers of mixed nationality is singing “The Internationale” together.

Narrator (m):

Griebel, a member of the Communist Party of Germany from 1919 and in 1929 a cofounder of the Association of Revolutionary Fine Artists of Germany in Dresden, illustrates here the ideal of a united international proletariat seeking to address the dominant social injustices and depicted himself on the right, wearing a white shirt in the second row. Griebel understood painting as a means to convey social and political messages.

Narrator (f):

The weaknesses of this propagandistic painting were noted already in 1930 when it was first exhibited in Dresden as “a diversity without internal or external movement, an inexpressibly diligently painted but rigid, unmotivated large painting,” but even today it represents the political commitment of leftist artists. The painting was confiscated by the National Socialists and was returned to the painter only after 1945. A copy by his daughter-in-law Ingrid Griebel-Zietlow 1989 after the original is seen in the exhibition.