Neue Sachlichkeit - Design Term

This article forms part of the Decorative and Applied Arts Encyclopedia, a master reference hub providing a structured overview of design history, materials, movements, and practitioners.

The New Objectivity (in German: Neue Sachlichkeit) was a movement in German art that arose during the 1920s as a reaction against expressionism.

Neue Sachlichkeit was a term coined in 1923 by Gustav Hartlaub, director of the Kunsthalle, Mannheim, as the title of an exhibition he organised to demonstrate the progress of post-war painting in Germany. Instead of being abstract, such art was figurative and was marked by a world-weary cynicism without the idealistic expectations of many pre-war movements. Otto Dix and Georg Grosz were its most prominent exponents. In the 1930s, Neue Sachlichkeit was denigrated and swept away by the ideologically inspired art of National Socialism.

Source

Clarke, M. (2010). The concise dictionary of art terms. Oxford University Press.

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