A dealer in Norway claims to have found authentic watercolors of Disney characters drawn by Hitler, the "A.H." in the lower left of the Doc drawing. Since Hitler is known to have had his own copy of "Snow White," and since the pictures were found hidden inside a previously authenticated Hitler painting, some people are thinking they might be real.Boy, there's no accounting for taste. Arafat was partial to Hanna Barbera, and Sadahm collected Boris-type fantasy art. Horowitz and Maria Callas liked Archie comics, and Einstein is said to have watched "Beany & Cecil." Maybe we shouldn't be surprised that Hitler liked Disney.
All this talk about Hitler made me curious to see his pictures again so I googled them, and here are a few of the better ones. This picture of the city street (above) is my favorite. I wonder if this is a copy of something someone else did. It's more imaginative and passionate than Hitler's average work.
Most of Hitler's pictures seem to lack passion. Take this one (above) of the dog. It's admirable but oddly aloof, and distanced from its subject. Hitler seems to be drawing an ideal dog rather than the one that was in front of him.
Hitler experimented with impressionism in this picture (above), but he didn't seem to get it. Impressionism isn't just unconventional color, it's a way of perceiving the world as being organized by light. Of course Picasso did a lot of faux impressionist pieces and he seldom got it right either, at least not in his early work.
If Hitler was foolish enough to show this (above) to the art school he was trying to get into then I can see why they rejected him. It's pure kitsch. Something about it even suggests mental disturbance. It's hard to imagine that the same artist did the nice city street near the top.
Spot on. I've a suspicion those Disney drawings may turn out to be forgeries.
ReplyDeleteI wondered if Hitler saw painting and drawing as a type of dodge from real work, or perhaps was drawn by the romantic ideal of the bohemian artist as a career, and threw himself into learning as much as he could, the result being he was a rather unimaginative and utilitarian artist, at best. It is a provocative fantasy, that on the eve of the invasion of Poland, Hitler relaxed sketching Disney characters by the firelight.
Hitler used to personally collect stuff by Eduard von Grutzner.
ReplyDeleteI like the impressionism one, the cartoons look a little rough in the construction, and I like the wisply lines of the dog portrait, but the rest seem pretty mediocre. I've seen better paintings of his. I don't detect see any significant point of view in anything of his, though. It's like he just drew what was in front of him but didn't have alot to say about any of it. There's no romance or emotion in it.
ReplyDeleteI read that Hitler made his staff get personal copies of the films he banned for him, so that would account for Snow White. His favourites were comedies (even some Jewish ones), pornography, and prisoner torture films (he would have loved the modern Saw film series). I also read he loved American football cheerleading music and some Jewish singers, though after hearing them he would remark that it was too bad they weren't Aryan.
I also read somewhere that Joseph Stalin was a big fan of The Simpsons and Family Guy. By the way, that's a true story.
I'd be curious to see the state of some of Bush's doodles.
ReplyDeleteGiven that Pinocchio was released in 1940, Adolf must have done those watercolors well after he had managed the screw up the whole world. Totally weird. I had thought he had abandoned painting and drawing early on. ... BTW, don't forget that Stalin loved American westerns, and Wittgenstein was a giant Betty Hutton fan (they tell me "it's a gay thing").
ReplyDeleteI saw a documentary about Hitler and Albert Speer his personal architect that was really great. I tried looking it up but I can't seem to track the name of it down.
ReplyDeleteWell... one thing really stood out in the documentary was that Hitler supposedly directed Speer to design buildings and monuments that would leave impressive ruins. You know any other real-estate developer who would even consider that? Shows you how consumed he was with aesthetics and what a whack job he was at the same time.
I also remember something Salvador Dali said about Hitler, that he was the greatest surrealist because he started a World War just so he could lose it heroically. I thought that was funny.
"If Hitler was foolish enough to show this (above) to the art school he was trying to get into then I can see why they rejected him."
ReplyDeleteOf course old schickelgruber blamed the so called "Jewish conspiracy" for his failure to get into the art school. You are right about his work Uncle Eddie, it dose lack a certain passion. He also had alot of trouble drawing people. That is why a majority of his work are landscapes, buildings,etc.
Dear Sir, if you do not mind Wikipedia:
ReplyDelete"[Adolf Hitler] struggled as a painter in Vienna, copying scenes from postcards and selling his paintings to merchants and tourists."
This would reasonably explain the superior city drawing.
"I can see why they rejected him. It's pure kitsch. Something about it even suggests mental disturbance."
ReplyDeleteI'll admit I know nothing of 'high art', being a humble cartoonist, but I know what I like.
What, exactly, do you find disturbing about that last picture, Eddie? Would you have even said that if you didn't know it was Hitler's, or is there something about the drawing that I'm not noticing?
Great post, btw! I was going to post these on my blog, but now there's no point because you did it better.
- trevor.
Arafat was a big "Tom and Jerry" fan, identifying with the mouse besting his feline aggressor. Hitler obtained a print of "Gone With the Wind" which he ran over and over at his aerie in Berchtesgaden. My money says he saw himself in Prissy.
ReplyDeleteCool post, Eddie!
ReplyDeleteHe'd already annexed Austria, but he felt he needed these dwarves for his portfolio.
You have to wonder. If Hitler had applied to Disney's in the 30's & got in as an inbetweener, he might have led a happy, harmless life.
The thing that gets me is that, as an artist, he's timid & tentative, can't organise a composition & overworks the details; the same qualities I might bring to the job as chancellor of Germany.
I never noticed the thinly-veiled anti-Semitism in Tom & Jerry before.
ReplyDelete>>I saw a documentary about Hitler and Albert Speer his personal architect that was really great. I tried looking it up but I can't seem to track the name of it down.
ReplyDeleteWas it called Architect of Doom?
Doesn't appear too out of character for the guy, he seems to have liked precious stuff when he wasn't frying people. At my high school there was a janitor (now retired) who met Hitler when she was a child, she used to deliver shoes to him with her friend. She said he was very kind. It makes for a very weird duality.
ReplyDeleteHis psychotic tendencies make even mundane details like his vegetarianism really bizarre. The last picture you posted is really innocuous by itself but it takes on a really weird context.
40's kitsch is really interesting! I've been in houses full of it and it's scary stuff.
I also read somewhere that Joseph Stalin was a big fan of The Simpsons and Family Guy. By the way, that's a true story.
ReplyDeleteHi, Jorge. Stalin died in 1954. I don't think Matt Groening was even born yet. You might be thinking of Saddam Hussein or someone like that.
To add to the list: Benito Musselini enjoyed Laurel and Hardy, Kim Jong Il loves Daffy Duck, and Osama bin Laden has a crush on Whitney Houston.
Artists (and especially we cartoonists) often put their own essence into their work, though usually not consciously. What I find interesting about the dog portrait is that it looks like an impression of Adolf himself: The serious, almost vacant eyes, the straight pointed nose, the tight lipped mouth, and of course the dark area of the muzzle that resembles his blocky little mustache. Compare it to this pic of Hitler to see what I mean: http://downwiththeinternet.files.wordpress.com/2007/11/hitler.jpg
ReplyDeleteMaybe it could be nicknamed: "His Master Race's Voice"...
For some reason, the end of that url got cut off. Let's try it again:
ReplyDeletehttp://downwiththeinternet.files.wordpress.com/2007/11/hitler.jpg
See, the mutt looks just like Der Fuehrer, only furrier!
"Kim Jong Il loves Daffy Duck"
ReplyDeleteAnd I'll betcha dollars to doughnuts it's Chuck's duck, and not Bob's. Kim Jong Il IS Jones's Daffy.
- trevor.
Gosh..I actually find that last painting by far the most interesting..the way the flowers are arranged in that vase is disturbingly fascinating.
ReplyDeleteThe one the guy is holding up looks like some art class mess you'd see in a thrift store for $3.99.
Cynthia
tangoland.com
Osama has a crush on Whitney? She should marry him, so we know where to find him. Osama can't be any more trouble than Bobby Brown.
ReplyDeleteI've sometimes thought that Disney and Hitler are not that far apart. They both thrived on totalitarian regimes, and were corny as hell.
ReplyDeleteAs long as we are discussing madman art, I think I prefer John Gacy's work to Hitler's, but I find the last one oddly intriguing.
@David:
ReplyDeletei thought that was jorges whole point, to put the "i've read" in context. But maybe i was seeing whit there there was just a mistake.. :)
I'm with Booo Tooons-I don't see anything mentally "distubed" whatsoever about it either. It's simply mediocre.
ReplyDeleteThis stuff is nothing special, none of it. It's all very weak draughtsmanship.
Fascinating post, and great commentary!
ReplyDeleteI really don't see that he was a bad artist. The dog is especially good, imo. I wish I could draw a dog as well as Hitler did.
ReplyDeleteCan anyone reading this blog duplicate ALL the pictures of Hitler's art represented on in this post by Eddie? I certainly couldn't. The cartoon stuff, I could ace, but the rest I don't think so.
I don't like Hitler at all; he was an evil man, but he wasn't a terrible artist. I think he gets over-scrutinized in the art department.
Wacky old Hitler!
ReplyDeleteIt would make me ill even knowing that it is Hitler's artwork to even say "It's (the art's) not bad.".
ReplyDeleteBut even when I put on my objectivity and imagine I don't know who did it and imagine I haven't read the comments, they do look amateurish. I might even guess they were copied from photos or postcards as stated. They have that feeling that the are the shell of the subject; starting with careful outlines; soulless. They remind me of those oils and acrylics copies of masters that are mass-produced in Asia. Besides the odd Mona Lisa eye being bigger than another, those, or any art copied, will be soulless compared to the original; no connection between artist and subject except an exercise in making a perfect copy. I'm afraid to an uneducated public (The type of public we see on Jay Leno's Jay-walking) who knows neither art nor Hitler that it could be a a slippery slope from saying he's not a bad artist to he was not a bad guy.
The dwarves are immediately recognizable as this "bent-wire" copy of a cartoons without any idea structure. I think they are tracings from a book that came out around the time of the movie called Walt Disney's sketchbook of Snow WHite and The Seven Dwarfs (again reprinted in the 90s). It would be interesting to find the original book and compare the size of the copies to the original illos. They apparently have pinholes in the corners to hold them steady for tracing.
I read years ago that after Idi Amin was deposed, they found a closet full of Tom and Jerry films in his palace.
ReplyDeleteNow for my input: it'd be really something if Hitler really drew those pictures from Disney. If he loved Snow White, what would he have thought of "Der Fuhrer's Facec"?
ReplyDeleteThe alley and dog pictures are actually quite good. So are the dwarves from Snow White, but to be honest: I find both Pinocchio and the flower vase thing...unsettling somehow. Don't ask.
On another note, a lot of these "evil" people seem to have tastes in art (I saw evil because we say that like they're Malificent for God's sake. They're just f#@king nuts!): one serial killer I remember hearing about on Biography did a drawing of Bambi while in prison, Hitler did these paintings, so I wouldn't be surprised that Kim Jong Il's son loves Eric Clapton or that bin Laden actually like Family Guy (I bet that if he saw that scene parodying him, he probably laughed his ass off before spitting at the TV. Wouldn't wanna look like a America-lover.)
Those are my insane rantings for today.
-J
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ReplyDelete