Festival exhibition features painting slashed by Hitler’s guards

An exhibition of art that Hitler tried to ban is to go on show at a Norfolk festival.

The Holt Festival, in North Norfolk, is hosting a collection of works titled German Expressionists & The Third Reich from this weekend.

It features paintings that were deemed “degenerate” by the Nazi dictator, and includes an artwork owned by Stephen Fry’s mother, Marianne.

The painting was damaged when her stepmother’s family fled Austria as border guards using bayonets stabbed the packing case to check people were not being smuggled out of the country.

James Glennie, co-curator, said: “Not only is it an exhibition with some spectacular pictures in it by some of Europe’s most important and expensive artists, it tells a slightly grim story.

“But there are some colourful highlights, that allow one to enjoy that grim story.”

Mr Glennie showed two catalogues promoting touring exhibitions staged by Hitler. One promoted works he approved of; the other featured art he considered “degenerate”.

Mr Glennie added: “You’ll notice that the degenerate [catalogue] one is thinner, has more modern stuff in it.

“The key thing is that around five million people went to this [the degenerate exhibition] and well under half a million people went to this [the art Hitler was promoting].”

Central to the collection in the hall at St Andrew the Apostle is an image owned by Marianne Fry, mother of the actor, author and broadcaster Stephen Fry.

Her stepmother, Claire Grabscheid, was a young lawyer in Vienna during the Anschluss, when Hitler’s regime annexed Austria. Her family fled, paying fees to take some of their possessions with them to England.

At the border, guards stabbed the packing case with a bayonet, checking no people were being smuggled out of the country, damaging the painting of a Dutch girl.

Mr Glennie added: “It’s extraordinarily unusual in the sense that many people would have thought it’s a damaged painting and either disposed of the painting because it’s not the greatest work of art ever, but also it might have been something that made them unhappy.

“They don’t celebrate it, but being thinking people they decided the best thing to do was to keep it so that it showed the aggression of the Anschluss.”

Nic Stratton Tyler, co-curator, said: “Hitler had very strong views on art. He was a failed artist himself and architecture student.

“He didn’t like the German expressionists. They were avant-garde. They were gregarious. They were saying all the wrong things. He liked classical art and realist art.”

Of the Holt exhibition, she added: “I hope that it will be a very informative exhibition. We hope it’s going to ask a lot of questions. Answer and ask perhaps, but I always think art that makes people think is really important.”

The exhibition, which features graphic images of war and violence, opens on Saturday 13 July and is open every day until Sunday 27 July.

The festival organisers say children aged under 12 should be accompanied by an adult.