a ‘hymn singer’
The Berlin painter Paul Kleinschmidt (1883–1949) – called a ‘hymn singer’ by the influential art historian Julius Meier-Graefe in 1932.
Opulent city scenes become his trademark in the 1920s. Kleinschmidt devotes himself enthusiastically to the cabarets, theatres, circus arenas and bars of his home town. Though reminiscent of Max Beckmann, his style is unmistakeable, and contemporaries are fascinated by the originality and expressive power of his compositions. As well as exuberant figural scenes – especially with female ‘gods of today’ (Kleinschmidt) – he paints landscapes and urban environs from Upper Swabia via the South of France to New York, as well as staging magnificent still lifes: ‘What has to be accomplished is to give the thing something grand but uncanny. Isn’t “pleasure” what most people adore?’ he asks.
Paul Kleinschmidt is primarily known and appreciated in his adopted home of Swabia, where he relocated in the early 1930s. The National Socialist defamation of his work as ‘degenerate’ drives him into exile a little later. Many of his paintings are destroyed during the war.
Following substantial exhibitions at Schloss Achberg and the Städtische Galerie Bietigheim-Bissingen in 2023/24, we are now bringing Paul Kleinschmidt to Hamburg with 40 works from the Arthouse Collection – it is his Hanseatic premiere. So curtain up and step right in for the hymn-singing pleasure painter!
