On November 11, 1918, the guns on the Western Front fell silent. A "new" world ensued and encapsulated daily life in Germany with Berlin and Dresden acting as the nexuses. Painters such as Otto Dix, George Grosz, Max Beckmann, and Rudolph Schlichter, all of whom served in WWI, narrated their own perspective about life in the newly formed Weimar Republic, which lasted from 1918 to 1933. Die Neue Sachlichkeit or New Objectivity was born.

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“The art historian Dennis Crockett says there is no direct English translation, and breaks down the meaning in the original German:

Sachlichkeit should be understood by its root, Sache, meaning "thing", "fact", "subject", or "object." Sachlich could be best understood as “factual”, "matter-of-fact", “impartial”, “practical”, or “precise”; Sachlichkeit is the noun form of the adjective/adverb and usually implies "matter-of-factness" …

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The artists depicted a new reality in response to their experience of The First World War, disrupting the established form of Expressionism. Through their careful strokes, realistic viewpoints, and socially engaged themes, each one of them deranged the Expressionist Movement and made it fail to continue.

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Die Neue Sachlichkeit shows facets of the "new" life after WWI, showing war cripples, rape, prostitution, misery, poverty, widowhood, violence, and death. The works about this period in human history, our history, juxtaposes a new but dark reality with a joie de vivre and the decadence of night life.

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This exhibition features works on paper by the aforementioned artists and Jeanne Mammen.