In 1925, an exhibition at the City Art Gallery of Mannheim brought a previously unknown art movement – the New Objectivity – to the attention of the public. The art shown varied widely, but had a basic formal and conceptual perspective in common. They works were naturalistic, and reaffirmed the importance of academic drawing and painting techniques while sharing an alienated view of their subjects. The way this new movement was introduced to the public, however, was unusual. Since at least 1900 in the German art world, new movements had been conceived and organized by the artists themselves. The art scene had, in fact, been characterized by the existence of highly visible groups of artists who shared common ideas and formal concerns. After the initial fervor of group activity among Expressionist artists after the end of World War I, Expressionism began to wane as an active and progressive force in modern art. However, strangely, there were no major artists’ initiatives pushing for the establishment of a new style or movement to take its place. It is under these circumstances that the idea of the New Objectivity was first conceived. Unlike the common model for modern art groupings in Germany, where the artists formed themselves into groups and generally determined their own programs, the New Objectivity was created by art critics and museums to fill what they saw as a void left in the contemporary art scene by the waning of Expressionism.
    But what was their motivation? Why should they go to the trouble of forging a new movement? The director of the museum in Mannheim, Gustav Hartlaub, had been repeatedly attacked in the press by reactionary cultural groups for Expressionist acquisitions he had made. He wanted to avoid future conflicts where possible, in order to continue to pursue his progressive exhibition and acquisition policies unimpeded. In turning to a neo-Naturalist art he was pursuing a strategy to promote modern art while placating his critics.
    It makes little sense to discuss the unusual nature of the formation of the New Objectivity grouping by museums and the press without an understanding of the basic characteristics of artists’ groups that preceded it in the German art scene. I will therefore begin with an examination of some of their common features. There are a number of conceptual similarities between Expressionist artists’ groups that demonstrate an established set of norms, within which modernist artists organized and defined their ideas and artistic interests. It is in contrast to these norms that the New Objectivity and its definition as a grouping by the art critics and museums is striking and unusual. All of the major groups, such as the Blue Rider, the Bridge, the working Council for Art and the November Group produced programmatic statements that helped to define the ideas and ideals that motivated their artist members.
    The prevalence of these statements suggests that the groups were formed to provide a forum for the discussion and support of these shared perspectives. However, it is precisely the absence of such statements and manifestoes within the scope of the New Objectivity that indicates the peculiarity of the so-called movement. This absence is also an indication of the fact that the group was not formed by friends or colleagues, but by institutions and extra-artistic forces working in the public sphere. While names such as the Bridge or the November Group, coined by the artists, were intended as indicators of the programs or allegiances of the Expressionist groups, the term New Objectivity, coined by a museum director, was intended to codify a style, or at the very least a shared perspective. In this case it served as a sometimes unwelcome label placed on the widely varying work of many artists, rather than the public posture of artists subscribing to common views and ideals.
    The Expressionism exemplified by these groups had dominated the field of modern German art for over ten years by the time critics and museum officials started signaling its demise. People were accustomed to thinking of the contemporary scene in terms of artists’ groups and art styles. With the news that Expressionism, Germany’s answer to modernism, was in its death throes, the art world perceived a void. This was partly to be filled with Dadaism, however the more socially critical of the Dada artworks were often seen as inappropriate for public art collections. One of the reasons for this was that socially critical art was frequently and aggressively attacked in the conservative press. This brought extraordinary pressure to bear on Hartlaub’s acquisition and exhibition choices, and is demonstrated by the fact that he avoided showing overly violent or sexual works in his 1925 exhibition. Therefore, a new direction was required, one in particular that could guide museum directors in choosing contemporary artworks for purchase. It was thus in response to the sea change in the art world that critics and museum directors began to recognize and conceptualize a new trend in art that was later codified as the New Objectivity.
    Under these circumstances Paul Westheim, the editor of the national art magazine Das Kunstblatt, sent out a letter to prominent artists, museum officials and critics asking their opinion on the new Naturalism. It is interesting to note that he assumed that his correspondents would also recognize the trend that he named, almost as if he treated the establishment of this new force on the artistic scene as a foregone conclusion. The most important participant in the discussion for the future of the New Objectivity was Gustav Hartlaub. He, like Westheim, saw the new movement as a foregone conclusion, saying that a return to objective reality was the natural reaction to the idealistic utopianism of the Expressionists. He recognized the need for something new, and agreed that Naturalism was the road to fulfilling it. He also hinted at the vehicle for fulfillment, saying that nothing more remained but to affirm the new movement – an affirmation that he was to pursue in his exhibition project.
    This discussion seems to have spurred Hartlaub to action. He had spoken little if at all of the desirability of Naturalism as the successor to Expressionism before 1922. Thus, we may assume that this call for commentary by Westheim was a catalyst for him, encouraging him to formulate his opinion on the subject. And the fact that other art experts, along with the highly intelligent and respected Westheim, viewed this trend as a vital and viable one, one that merited a special magazine issue of its own, must have encouraged him to promote the idea of Naturalism as a movement. Thus Das Kunstblatt played a key role in the formation of the idea that neo-Naturalism was a movement or trend – one that had not been widely recognized before, and which was formed without the input or consent of the artists it claimed to represent.
    After letting the idea percolate for a little while, in the spring of 1923 Hartlaub took up the idea of an exhibition of Naturalist art. On May 18, 1923 he sent out a letter to museum directors, art dealers, and critics requesting recommendations for inclusion in the show. It is in this letter that he first used the term "New Objectivity". He explicitly stated his intention that the rubric should include both left wing, "Veristic" artists and right wing, "Neo-Classicist" artists. He sent a similar letter to artists requesting works, however here he expressed concern over the reception of the exhibition. He requested art of "quality", painted in a "clear style", thus creating a situation where, "art- and cultural-political considerations of a general sort shouldn’t require the expulsion of those pieces, which with respect to the circumstances appear all too risky, and would only arouse misunderstanding in an unprepared public." He clearly wanted to avoid the public outcry, led by the reactionary German Art Society, that had accompanied so many of his exhibitions and acquisitions of Expressionist art. Although he invented a title for the exhibition here, he was careful not to take sides in any contentious debates over the relative merits of artistic styles. He explicitly stated that he in no way wanted to work against earlier movements (read: Expressionism), nor propagandize for a new one. This desire to avoid conflict may also be seen as a motivating factor in mounting the show in the first place. That is, in demonstrating the general trend toward objectivity and the interest in reality, he hoped to find a way of supporting contemporary, modernist art without attracting the damaging criticism that had haunted his activities in the past.
    The exhibition ultimately failed to come to fruition in the fall of 1923 due to the rapidly deteriorating economic situation caused by hyper-inflation and the French occupation of the Ruhr valley, the site of the museum. Even if the funding had been available, the Ruhr occupation meant that artworks from the rest of Germany would have been prevented from crossing the border into the occupied territory. However, Hartlaub had set the parameters for what would later be perceived as a movement, and had laid the groundwork for the 1925 show.
    Once again on March 27, 1925, Hartlaub sent a letter to artists requesting works, and in the end 124 works by 32 artists were shown. The show ran from June 14-September 13, 1925. In the catalogue essay, he reiterated his desire not to demonstrate a cross-section of contemporary art, but to show exclusively art that had its basis in reality. Thus, he intentionally and explicitly excluded key contemporary movements (he named Constructivism in particular), leaving the reader with the impression, intentional or not, that this exhibition was to be understood as the demonstration of a new direction.
    Hartlaub’s advocacy of the new direction requires examination. What was his motivation for working to promote – in spite of his protests to the contrary – a new direction in art? Why not just wait until the artists worked it out on their own? Although it is not possible here to go into a full examination of his motivations, there is a key factor that suggests that he had a stake in the acceptance of the art. The museum in Mannheim, under his direction, was one of the first contemporary art museums in Germany to turn from acquiring Expressionists to acquiring works by the new Naturalists. As early as 1919 Hartlaub had acquired two works by Beckmann, and others by artists who would eventually appear in the 1925 show followed, including a 1924 purchase of Grosz’s Metropolis, and the 1925 purchase of works by Dix, Scholz, Kanoldt, Mense and Babijs.
    The acquisition of contemporary art by public museums was a very new possibility, made feasible by the fall of the imperial government and its restrictive policies in 1918. The initial acquisition activities of contemporary museums across Germany focused almost exclusively on Expressionist art. When Hartlaub began to branch out beyond this initial focus on Expressionism, he was certainly sticking his neck out. He could no longer cite the example of other museums across the country as support for his actions when purchases were challenged by government authorities or the press. This was complicated by conservative cultural groups like the German Art Society, who worked tirelessly to stymie his efforts to introduce the newest art into the museum’s collections. Their virulent defamation campaigns were a major stumbling block for Hartlaubs’s progressive exhibition and acquisition policies. Thus he had to find another way to justify his purchases to the people who funded his museum. By mounting a major exhibition of the works of these and other artists, he presented them as a vital new direction in art and the future of the contemporary scene. Being careful to avoid selecting controversial works, he gave the impression of a return to reason and reality after the utopian flights of fancy of the Expressionists. In addition, by forging links between these artists he made them appear not as independent agents but as a part of a vital cultural force. This force could be seen as an expression of the return to economic and political stabilization that Germany experienced from 1924-1928. It was thus a way of promoting modernism while trying to calm the fears of the conservatives who had opposed Expressionism partly on the grounds of its political radicalism.
    The New Objectivity had an impact far beyond the intentions of its organizer. Although the initial attendance figures were hardly spectacular, due to the fact that the press extensively covered the show, and the fact that it traveled to six other cities, its title quickly became synonymous with the Naturalist style. Major national art magazines and regional newspapers carried reviews that described it as a style as early as August, 1925 – that is, while it was still running at its original venue in Mannheim. For example, in the magazine German Art and Decoration, Wilhelm Michel declared that, "the establishment of a new world of facts is underway". And in volume 1 of the Badische Presse, of August, 1925, W.E. Oeftering characterized it quite explicitly as a "movement". Therefore the name that Hartlaub had coined as a mere descriptive term in a letter of 1923 had come to designate a broad, ill-defined, and varied style or movement (depending on the critic). The movement’s national impact was assured when the exhibition traveled in the following year to Dresden, Chemnitz, Erfurt, Dessau, and in an altered form to Halle and Jena.
    However, the fact that it had come to be seen as a style was to prove problematic. As mentioned earlier, the grouping encompassed a wide range of art, from the sharp social critique of George Grosz to the cool, alienated works of Alexander Kanoldt. Its genesis as a group defined by art critics and a museum director, rather than by the artists themselves, necessarily meant that there was a high degree of ideological ambiguity about the political implications of the movement. This was exacerbated by the inclusion of both the "left" and "right" wings. Artists did not articulate what the movement meant for them as a group, and Hartlaub carefully avoided programmatic statements about the political implications in order to avoid attacks by the German Art Society. Thus critics and art theorists were allowed to fill that void with the ideas that best suited their own goals. The vague, amorphous, and ultimately malleable definition of the movement allowed reactionary critics and art theorists, including National Socialists, to co-opt certain artists of the classical wing of the movement in their efforts to promote a racially pure, national German style. Therefore the ideological ambiguity inherent in the movement as the result of the fact that it was defined by an institution and not the artists themselves, was precisely the weakness that allowed it to be exploited by the National Socialists.