These four painters of the Lost Generation embraced modernism early on. Yet they made art history, only to be caught up in history later in a bitter way.
Image gallery
Ölgemälde von Erich Buettner: Hallensportfest 1914
Spiro, Büttner, and Lauber were part of the Berlin Secession; Ahlers-Hestermann was a co-founder of the Hamburg Secession.
The Weimar years were turbulent but fruitful. Then came the Nazi seizure of power and the ostracism of so-called “degenerate art.”
Ahlers-Hestermann’s works were confiscated and destroyed, from the Kunsthalle Hamburg to the Kunstmuseum Stettin. In 1938, while in exile in Paris, Spiro organized a major exhibition of such banned art. For this generation, it was not just individual works that were destroyed, but their homeland itself.
Opening reception: June 10 at 6 p.m.
Exhibition: June 12 – July 18, 2026
