Christian Schad (21 August 189425 February 1982) was a German painter and photographer. He was associated with the

Dada Dada () or Dadaism was an art movement of the European avant-garde in the early 20th century, with early centres in Zürich, Switzerland, at the Cabaret Voltaire (Zurich), Cabaret Voltaire (in 1916). New York Dada began c. 1915, and after 192 ...

and the

New Objectivity The New Objectivity (in german: Neue Sachlichkeit) was a movement in German art that arose during the 1920s as a reaction against expressionism. The term was coined by Gustav Friedrich Hartlaub, the director of the ''Kunsthalle'' in Mannheim, who ...

movements. Considered as a group, Schad's portraits form an extraordinary record of life in Vienna and Berlin in the years following

World War I World War I (28 July 1914 11 November 1918), often abbreviated as WWI, was one of the deadliest global conflicts in history. Belligerents included much of Europe, the Russian Empire, the United States, and the Ottoman Empire, with fightin ...

.CHRISTIAN SCHAD AND THE NEUE SACHLICHKEIT, March 14-June 9, 2003

Neue Galerie New York The Neue Galerie New York ( German for "New Gallery") is a museum of early twentieth-century German and Austrian art and design located in the William Starr Miller House at 86th Street and Fifth Avenue in New York City. Established in 2001, ...

Life

Schad was born in

Miesbach Miesbach () is a town in Bavaria, Germany, and is the capital of the Miesbach district. The district is at an altitude of 697 metres above sea level. It covers an area of approximately 863.50 km² of alpine headlands and in 2017 had a popu ...

Upper Bavaria Upper Bavaria (german: Oberbayern, ; ) is one of the seven administrative districts of Bavaria, Germany. Geography Upper Bavaria is located in the southern portion of Bavaria, and is centered on the city of Munich, both state capital and seat o ...

, to a prosperous lawyer who supported him for nearly half his life.

Michael Kimmelman Michael Kimmelman (born May 8, 1958) is the architecture critic for ''The New York Times'' and has written about public housing, public space, landscape architecture, community development and equity, infrastructure and urban design. He has repor ...

(March 28, 2003)
Uneasy Intimations of Disaster
''

The New York Times ''The New York Times'' (''the Times'', ''NYT'', or the Gray Lady) is a daily newspaper based in New York City with a worldwide readership reported in 2020 to comprise a declining 840,000 paid print subscribers, and a growing 6 million paid ...

''. He studied at the art academy in

Munich Munich ( ; german: München ; bar, Minga ) is the capital and most populous city of the States of Germany, German state of Bavaria. With a population of 1,558,395 inhabitants as of 31 July 2020, it is the List of cities in Germany by popu ...

in 1913. A

pacifist Pacifism is the opposition or resistance to war, militarism (including conscription and mandatory military service) or violence. Pacifists generally reject theories of Just War. The word ''pacifism'' was coined by the French peace campaign ...

, he fled to

Switzerland ). Swiss law does not designate a ''capital'' as such, but the federal parliament and government are installed in Bern, while other federal institutions, such as the federal courts, are in other cities (Bellinzona, Lausanne, Luzern, Neuchâtel ...

in 1915 to avoid service in

, settling first in Zurich and then in

Geneva Geneva ( ; french: Genève ) frp, Genèva ; german: link=no, Genf ; it, Ginevra ; rm, Genevra is the List of cities in Switzerland, second-most populous city in Switzerland (after Zürich) and the most populous city of Romandy, the French-speaki ...

.Michalski 1994, p. 42. Both cities were centers of the

Dada movement Dada () or Dadaism was an art movement of the European avant-garde in the early 20th century, with early centres in Zürich, Switzerland, at the Cabaret Voltaire (Zurich), Cabaret Voltaire (in 1916). New York Dada began c. 1915, and after 192 ...

, and Schad became a Dadaist. In Zurich, he met Dadaists like Hans Arp and

Hugo Ball Hugo Ball (; 22 February 1886 – 14 September 1927) was a German author, poet, and essentially the founder of the Dada movement in European art in Zürich in 1916. Among other accomplishments, he was a pioneer in the development of sound poetry. ...

, and also Walter Serner, with whom he launched ''Sirius'', a literary review. He was witness of the foundation of the famous Cabaret Voltaire. Beginning in 1918, while living in Geneva, Schad created his own version of the ''

Photogram A photogram is a photographic image made without a camera by placing objects directly onto the surface of a light-sensitive material such as photographic paper and then exposing it to light. The usual result is a negative shadow image th ...

'' (which later was named "Schadographs" by

Tristan Tzara Tristan Tzara (; ; born Samuel or Samy Rosenstock, also known as S. Samyro; – 25 December 1963) was a Romanian and French avant-garde poet, essayist and performance artist. Also active as a journalist, playwright, literary and art critic, comp ...

) where a contour picture is developed on chloride printing-out paper. From 1920 to 1925, he spent some years in

Rome , established_title = Founded , established_date = 753 BC , founder = King Romulus (legendary) , image_map = Map of comune of Rome (metropolitan city of Capital Rome, region Lazio, Italy).svg , map_caption ...

and

Naples Naples (; it, Napoli ; nap, Napule ), from grc, Νεάπολις, Neápolis, lit=new city. is the regional capital of Campania and the third-largest city of Italy, after Rome and Milan, with a population of 909,048 within the city's adminis ...

. Having married Marcella Arcangeli, the daughter of a Roman professor, he settled in Naples where he attended painting and drawing courses at the art academy. In 1927 the family emigrated to

Vienna en, Viennese , iso_code = AT-9 , registration_plate = W , postal_code_type = Postal code , postal_code = , timezone = CET , utc_offset = +1 , timezone_DST ...

. His paintings of this period are closely associated with the

movement. In the late twenties, he returned to

Berlin Berlin ( , ) is the capital and largest city of Germany by both area and population. Its 3.7 million inhabitants make it the European Union's most populous city, according to population within city limits. One of Germany's sixteen constitue ...

and settled there. Schad's art was not condemned by the

Nazis Nazism ( ; german: Nazismus), the common name in English for National Socialism (german: Nationalsozialismus, ), is the far-right totalitarian political ideology and practices associated with Adolf Hitler and the Nazi Party (NSDAP) in Na ...

in the same way that the work of

Otto Dix Wilhelm Heinrich Otto Dix (; 2 December 1891 – 25 July 1969) was a German painter and printmaker, noted for his ruthless and harshly realistic depictions of German society during the Weimar Republic and the brutality of war. Along with George ...

, George Grosz,

Max Beckmann Max Carl Friedrich Beckmann (February 12, 1884 – December 27, 1950) was a German painter, draftsman, printmaker, sculptor, and writer. Although he is classified as an Expressionist artist, he rejected both the term and the movement. In the 1920s ...

, and many other artists of the

movement was; this may have been because his work appeared superficially more conventional. He became interested in Eastern philosophy around 1930, and his artistic production declined precipitously. After the crash of the New York stock market in 1929, Schad could no longer rely on his father's financial support, and he largely stopped painting in the early 1930s In 1937, unknown to him, the

Museum of Modern Art The Museum of Modern Art (MoMA) is an art museum located in Midtown Manhattan, New York City, on 53rd Street between Fifth and Sixth Avenues. It plays a major role in developing and collecting modern art, and is often identified as one of ...

showed three Schadographs, given by

, in a show about Dada and Surrealism. The same year, the Nazis included Schad in the ''Great German Art'' exhibition, their ''antidote'' to the ''

Degenerate Art Degenerate art (german: Entartete Kunst was a term adopted in the 1920s by the Nazi Party in Germany to describe modern art. During the dictatorship of Adolf Hitler, German modernist art, including many works of internationally renowned artists, ...

'' show. Schad lived in obscurity in Germany through the war and after it. After the destruction of his studio in 1943 Schad moved to

Aschaffenburg Aschaffenburg (; South Franconian: ''Aschebersch'') is a town in northwest Bavaria, Germany. The town of Aschaffenburg is not part of the district of Aschaffenburg, but is its administrative seat. Aschaffenburg belonged to the Archbishopric ...

. The city commissioned him to copy

Matthias Grünewald Matthias Grünewald ( – 31 August 1528) was a German Renaissance painter of religious works who ignored Renaissance classicism to continue the style of late medieval Central European art into the 16th century. His first name is also given ...

's Virgin and Child (Stuppach, parish church), a project on which he worked until 1947. When his Berlin studio was destroyed in aerial bombing, his future wife Bettina saved the artworks in a spectacular action and brought them to him to Aschaffenburg. An initially provisional arrangement turned into a stay of four decades. Schad continued to paint in the 1950s in the Magic Realist style and would return in the 1960s to experiments with photograms. Schad's reputation did not begin to recover until the 1960s, when a couple of shows in Europe dovetailed with the rise of

Photorealism Photorealism is a genre of art that encompasses painting, drawing and other graphic media, in which an artist studies a photograph and then attempts to reproduce the image as realistically as possible in another medium. Although the term can be ...

. Schad died in

Stuttgart Stuttgart (; Swabian: ; ) is the capital and largest city of the German state of Baden-Württemberg. It is located on the Neckar river in a fertile valley known as the ''Stuttgarter Kessel'' (Stuttgart Cauldron) and lies an hour from the ...

on 25 February 1982.

Work

Schad's works of 1915–1916 show the influence of

Cubism Cubism is an early-20th-century avant-garde art movement that revolutionized European painting and sculpture, and inspired related movements in music, literature and architecture. In Cubist artwork, objects are analyzed, broken up and reassemble ...

and

Futurism Futurism ( it, Futurismo, link=no) was an artistic and social movement that originated in Italy, and to a lesser extent in other countries, in the early 20th century. It emphasized dynamism, speed, technology, youth, violence, and objects such ...

. During his stay in Italy he developed a smooth, realistic style that recalls the clarity he admired in the paintings of

Raphael Raffaello Sanzio da Urbino, better known as Raphael (; or ; March 28 or April 6, 1483April 6, 1520), was an Italian painter and architect of the High Renaissance. List of works by Raphael, His work is admired for its clarity of form, ease of ...

. Upon returning to Berlin in 1927 he painted some of the most significant works of the New Objectivity. They are characterized by "an artistic perception so sharp that it seems to cut beneath the skin", according to Wieland Schmied, who calls Schad the "prototypical possessor of the 'cool gaze' which distinguishes this movement from earlier forms of realism". In 1918 Schad began experimenting with cameraless photographic images inspired by Cubism. This process had been first used, in the years 1834 and 1835, by

William Henry Fox Talbot William Henry Fox Talbot FRS FRSE Royal Astronomical Society, FRAS (; 11 February 180017 September 1877) was an English scientist, inventor, and photography pioneer who invented the Salt print, salted paper and calotype processes, precursors t ...

who made cameraless images, that is, prints made by placing objects onto photosensitive paper and then exposing the paper to sunlight. By 1919 Schad was creating photograms from random arrangements of discarded objects he had collected such as torn tickets, receipts and rags. He is probably the first to do so strictly as an art form, preceding

Man Ray Man Ray (born Emmanuel Radnitzky; August 27, 1890 – November 18, 1976) was an American visual artist who spent most of his career in Paris. He was a significant contributor to the Dada and Surrealism, Surrealist movements, although his t ...

and

László Moholy-Nagy László Moholy-Nagy (; ; born László Weisz; July 20, 1895 – November 24, 1946) was a Hungarian painter and photographer as well as a professor in the Bauhaus school. He was highly influenced by constructivism and a strong advocate of the i ...

by at least a year or two.Rosenblum 1997, p. 393. Photograms created from these arrangements were published in 1920 in the magazine '' Dadaphone'' by

, who called them 'Schadographs'.

Recognition

Schad's works are now part of the collections of, among others, the

, New York; the

Tate Tate is an institution that houses, in a network of four art galleries, the United Kingdom's national collection of British art, and international modern and contemporary art. It is not a government institution, but its main sponsor is the U ...

, London; and the

Neue Nationalgalerie The Neue Nationalgalerie (New National Gallery) at the Kulturforum is a museum for modern art in Berlin, with its main focus on the early 20th century. It is part of the National Gallery of the Berlin State Museums. The museum building and its ...

, Berlin. The first retrospective dedicated to him in the United States was held at the Neue Galerie, New York, in 2003. In 2002 Bettina Schad founded the Christian Schad Foundation in

. The holdings consist of over 3,200 works, which will be exhibited in a changing selection and in a breadth that is unique worldwide. The Christian Schad Museum in

was planned to open in 2018.

Notes

References

*Michalski, Sergiusz (1994). ''New Objectivity''. Cologne: Benedikt

Taschen Taschen is a luxury art book publisher founded in 1980 by Benedikt Taschen in Cologne, Germany. As of January 2017, Taschen is co-managed by Benedikt and his eldest daughter, Marlene Taschen. History The company began as Taschen Comics, pu ...

. * Rosenblum, Naomi (1997). ''A World History of Photography'', 3rd edition. Abbeville Press *Schmied, Wieland (1978). ''Neue Sachlichkeit and German Realism of the Twenties''. London: Arts Council of Great Britain. *Stremmel, Kerstin, & Grosenick, Uta. (2004). ''Realism''. Koln: Taschen.

External links