The artist Georg Baselitz demands that the Pinakothek der Moderne in Munich take down a painting by the Nazi artist Adolf Ziegler.
It is about the three-part work “Four Elements” with blonde naked women as allegories of fire, water, air and earth. “The triptych insults those around it! It’s shocking that Nazi propaganda is possible in this dingy way in a Munich museum,” Baselitz wrote to the general director of the State Painting Collections, Bernhard Maaz, and to the Minister of Art, Markus Blume (CSU). The “Süddeutsche Zeitung” had previously reported on the letter, which is also available to the German Press Agency.
The museum is aware of the history of the picture and explains it, together with Ziegler’s Nazi past (1892-1959), in the wall text of the exhibition and on the internet. The Pinakothek could not initially be reached for comment.
The four elements Baselitz in the SZ
