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Starting from 1905 and working up to a crescendo in the 1920s, German art saw an incredible flowering of brilliance in the early decades of the last century. The art movement which encapsulates the work of many different artists and smaller aesthetic cross-currents is called German Expressionism. The formation of the Br�cke artists� group in Dresden by Ernst Ludwig Kirchner, Erich Heckel, Karl Schmidt-Rottluff and Fritz Bleyl in 1905 is usually seen as the starting pistol for the whole Expressionist movement. Things developed very quickly from there. Emil Nolde and Max Pechstein joined Br�cke the following year, and Vassily Kandinsky and Oskar Kokoschka began working in a similar vein. Karl Schmidt-Rottluff, Elbhafen Lithograph, 1907 Wassily Kandinsky, Orientalisches Woodcut, 1911 Wassily Kandinsky, Motif aus improvisation 25: The Garden of Love Woodcut, 1911 Oskar Kokoschka, Madchenbildnis Lithograph, 1920 Lists of the major artists of German Expressionism usually include all the arti

In 1937, 1,052 of his works were removed from German museums by the Nazis, more than by any other artist. 29 choice canvases were selected for the infamous exhibition of Degenerate Art; and no doubt many others were destroyed. In 1941 he was expelled from the Reichskunstkammer, the German Artists� Association, and forbidden not just to exhibit or sell his work, but even to paint. However he continued creating art in secret, stockpiling hundreds of little watercolours, his �Unpainted Pictures�, which sing with vibrant colour.          So he must be a hero, right?          If only it weren�t for the inconvenient fact that this persecuted artist was also a keen, fully paid-up member of the Nazi party. He only joined the party in 1934, after Hitler had been elected Chancellor, and it may have been that this was a pragmatic, opportunistic move. Or perhaps he was seduced by Nazi dreams of a renewal of pure German folk culture. Or maybe he was an out-and-out fascist, who had supported the N