Fault Lines: Art in Germany 1945-1955

Fault Lines offers an important and insightful account of art and artists in Germany in the wake of the Second World War, and of the reconstruction of German artistic culture in the early stages of the Cold War. Drawing on a broad range of archival and visual sources, Fault Lines examines the circumstances of destruction, defeat and division in the postwar decade, and the role played by artists during the first moments of reconstruction and occupation. How did artists respond to the destruction of Germany by Allied bombardment? What was the impact of Russian, American, French and British cultural policies during the military occupation? What were the driving forces behind British cultural policy? In the face of political division, how did artists react to German cultural traditions, symbols of a lost whole? What were the connections between East and West? Fault Lines also reveals the effects of the heritage of Expressionism and examines the postwar Catholic restoration in the West and the boom of ‘Kirchliche Kunst