History of the artist group
After its founding meeting on 3 December 1918 in Berlin, the Novembergruppe published an appeal in the Expressionist journal with the title Die schöne Rarität, which was also sent out as a circular letter to artists throughout Germany on 13 December 1918, soliciting further members.[2]
The association's first office was located at 113 Potsdamer Strasse in Berlin (destroyed during the Second World War, level with today's No. 81). The house belonged to the art dealer and publisher Wolfgang Gurlitt. The artists and founding members César Klein and Max Pechstein in particular had been associated with the art dealer for some time.[3]
In the first few months, 170 artists joined the newly founded Novembergruppe: 49 of them alone came from the editorial environment of Herwarth Walden's magazine Sturm. In the beginning, the artists' group was joined by Italian Futurists, important DADA artists as well as important Bauhaus members, some of whom belonged to the older Werkbund.[4]
Weimar Republic
The artists of the November group described themselves as radical and revolutionary. Their work, like that of the similar Arbeitsrat für Kunst (Working Council for Art), aimed to support a socialist revolution in Germany. A key objective of the group was the union of art and the people. Furthermore, the group tried to influence public and cultural aspects of society.
In order to be entered in the register of associations, the association formulated the “representation and promotion of its artistic interests” as the purpose of its association in its statutes and gave itself an organisational form that endured with slight modifications in the following years. The executive committee consisted of a chairman, a secretary and a treasurer.[5] The association had itself entered in the Berlin register of associations on 20 August 1920.[5]
Characteristic of the artists of the November Group was a style syncretism that was often referred to as Cubofutoexpressionism. The neologism refers to Cubism, Futurism and Expressionism. The November Group was known for the diversity of its styles and disciplines, but is also criticised for this lack of uniformity and the resulting difficulty in classifying them stylistically. This diversity ranged from Expressionism and Cubism to Constructivism and represented “a middle ground between visionary and lyrical expressivity, constructive pictorial organisation and a sensitive and milieu-oriented objectivity.”[6]
From July to December 1920, the Novembergruppe published six issues of the journal Der Kunsttopf. The texts reflected the liberal attitude of the authors, who consisted of members of the association as well as guests. The numerous illustrations documented the heterogeneous stylistic spectrum represented by the Novembergruppe. Recurring themes were the social responsibility of art and the opening of disciplines to collaborative work.[7]
At the beginning of 1921, Raoul Hausmann attempted to take a leading role in the November Group.[8] He drafted a sketch for the redesign of the Kunstopf in January. Together with Hans Siebert von Heister, Hausmann edited a new journal entitled NG (publication of the November Group), whose cover was designed by the artist Hannah Höch. The project was discontinued after only one issue.[9]
With the dissolution of the Arbeitsrat für Kunst in spring 1921, many architects who had hitherto been organised in this association joined the November Group. In the same year,[5] artists from the left wing of the November Group called for an end to the “bourgeois development” of the artists. The declaration was signed by Otto Dix, George Grosz, Raoul Hausmann, John Heartfield, Hannah Höch, Rudolf Schlichter and Georg Scholz.
On 20 January 1922, the general assembly of the Novembergruppe decided to admit writers and sound artists.[5] In 1922, the decentralised November Group restructured away from a conglomeration of local groups and became part of the “Cartel of advanced artistic groups in Germany” (in German: Kartell fortschrittlicher Künstlergruppen in Deutschland).[10]
As well as painters, there were many artists from other disciplines such as architecture and music. The musicians became one of the driving forces under their leader Max Butting (later replaced by Hans Heinz Stuckenschmidt).
At the end of 1924, Ludwig Mies van der Rohe took over the chairmanship of the association.[11] In January 1925, the latter proposed that the management of the group must be professionalised in commercial terms. Hugo Graetz then became managing director and the association's office was moved to his gallery (Kunsthandlung Hugo Graetz), which was located at Achenbachstraße 21 (at the level of today's Lietzenburger Straße 33) in Berlin-Schöneberg.[12]
On 3 and 10 May 1925, the November Group, in cooperation with the cultural department of UFA, organised the matinée Der absolute Film (The Absolute Film) at the Ufa-Palast on Kurfürstendamm in Berlin. Abstract and surrealist avant-garde films by German and French artists, including Ludwig Hirschfeld-Mack and Francis Picabia, were presented.[13] The matinee is considered to be the first public screening of abstract film in Germany and at the same time the culmination of experiments in absolute film.[5] The artists were convinced that the experience of the accelerated movement of the technical age called for a new art, and they sought new, innovative forms of representation through film in order to create a genuine art of movement. The Berlin press strongly condemned the screening.[5]
At the beginning of 1927, all the architects except Alfred Gellhorn left the November Group and tried to represent their interests in the architects' association Der Ring (The Ring). Several visual artists and musicians also left the Novembergruppe in 1927. The loss of so many prominent comrades-in-arms plunged the association, which from this point on consisted of some 72 permanent members, into a serious crisis.[5]
The group parted company with its managing director Hugo Graetz in the spring of 1930 and moved its office to the rooms of the gallery Die Kunststube, which was located at Königin-Augusta-Straße 22 in Berlin (today Reichpietschufer, at the height of house number 48). Members had already presented their works here on several occasions, including Otto Möller and Arthur Segal. The management of the art shop was in the hands of Ludwig Hermann Schütze and Charlotte Luke.[14]
The November Group held regular art festivals, costume parties, studio visits as well as literary and musical events.
National Socialism
After the National Socialists came to power, all artists' and art associations were brought into line in the spring of 1933. This is effectively equivalent to an exhibition ban for the Novembergruppe.[4] Like all avant-garde associations, the Novembergruppe was no longer permitted to participate in public exhibitions. The association was officially deprived of its legal capacity on 24 July 1935.[15] Whether the dissolution of the Novembergruppe was requested or enforced by the Nazis themselves cannot be said with certainty due to the patchy nature of the files.[16]
The November Group was called the Red November Group[17] by the National Socialists. Because of their commitment to abstraction and atonality, their members were reviled as Bolshevik. In the diatribe Säuberung des Kunsttempels (The Cleaning of the Temple of Art) by Wolfgang Willrich, 174 former members and guests of the association were listed by name and publicly pilloried as “degenerate”. Like many avant-garde artists, former members of the Novembergruppe were dismissed from public office.[16] According to Oskar Schlemmer, the dissolution of the artists' group began as early as 1932.
