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1920s Berlin

20
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It was the decade of daring Expressionist canvases, the Bauhaus total work of art, drag balls, Metropolis, and Marlene Dietrich. From cutting-edge kino to crowded jazz bars, come and roam the daring, freewheeling spirit of 1920s Berlin with this vivid cultural portrait of the age through painting, design, fashion, film, and more.
Hardcover8.3 x 10.2 in.1.30 lb96 pages
1920s Berlin

1920s Berlin

20

Zeitgeist

The roaring twenties in Berlin

It was the decade of daring Expressionist canvases, of brilliant book design, of the Bauhaus total work of art, of pioneering psychology, of drag balls, cabaret, Metropolis, and Marlene Dietrich’s rising star in theater and silent film. Between the paroxysms of two world wars, Berlin in the 1920s was a carpe diem cultural heyday, replete with groundbreaking art, invention, and thought.

This book immerses readers in the freewheeling spirit of Berlin’s Weimar age. Through exemplary works in painting, sculpture, architecture, graphic design, photography, and film, we uncover the innovations, ideas, and precious dreams that characterized this unique cultural window. We take in the jazz bars and dance halls; the crowded kinos and flapper fashion; the advances in technology and transport; the radio towers and rumbling trams and trains; the soaring buildings; the cinematic masterworks; and the newly independent women who smoked cigarettes, wore their hair short, and earned their own money.

Featured works in this vivid cultural portrait include Hannah Höch's The Journalists; Lotte Jacobi’s Hands on Typewriter; Otto Dix's Portrait of the Journalist Sylvia von Harden; Peter Behrens's project of theAlexanderplatz; and Josef von Sternberg’s The Blue Angel, starring Dietrich as cabaret performer Lola Lola. Along the way, we explore both the utopian yearnings and the more ominous economic and political realities which fueled the era's escapist, idealistic, or reactionary masterworks. Behind the bright lights and glitter dresses, we see the inflation, factory labor, and fragile political consensus that lurked beneath this golden era and would eventually spell its savage end with the rise of National Socialism.
The editor

Rainer Metzger studied art history, history, and German literature in Munich. In 1994, he earned his Ph.D. on the subject of Dan Graham, and subsequently worked as a fine arts journalist for the Viennese newspaper Der Standard. He has written numerous books on art, including volumes on van Gogh and Chagall. Since 2004, he has worked as Professor of art history at the Academy of Fine Arts in Karlsruhe.

1920s Berlin
Hardcover21 x 26 cm0.59 kg96 pages

ISBN 978-3-8365-5059-8

Edition: French

ISBN 978-3-8365-5050-5

Edition: English
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Born back in 1985, the Basic Art Series has evolved into the best-selling art book collection ever published. Each book in TASCHEN’s Basic Art History series features: approximately 100 color illustrations with explanatory captions a detailed, illustrated introduction a selection of the most important works of the epoch, each presented on a two-page spread with a full-page image and accompanying interpretation, as well as a portrait and brief biography of the artist

5

/5

3 Ratings

Fantastic

Paul,October 27, 2021
This is a nice short fantastic overview

Typically Taschen

John,October 27, 2021
Ordered a stack of quality books in a sale and they arrived promptly in tiptop condition. It’s what I’ve come to expect and wasn’t disappointed

Klassiker

Peter,October 29, 2021
Die weiße Reihe in Bestform. Informativ, ansprechend, anregend.