Mixed media drawing on paper depicting, in the right foreground, a man behind barbed wire, in peasant dress, baggy blouse, boots, and a floppy hat that obscures his face, with a sack on his back. His right hand grasps a brown bread loaf and is stretched into a gap between barbed wire fences. In the left foreground stands a woman, also behind a wire fence, reaching toward the bread. She is dressed in a longsleeved brown coat, with a black hat and stockings, and 2 small children in hats, coats and pants, stand by her side. Both adults have pink-brown painted flesh, although the woman's face is brown. The children are less distinct, and the smaller is mostly a black outline. The barbed wire twists and turns, covering the entire scene and barbed wire coils on the ground between the fences. The fence posts are white painted tree trunks. In the far background are 3 buildings and several line drawn figures. The dark skyline has patches of blue with white highlights, mountain peaks and a central yellow, blue, and orange patch of paint. The artist’s signature is in the lower right corner. The drawing is adhered to brown paper, 11 by 14 inches, with handwritten text and 2 stamps on the back. front, lower left corner, pencil : „GURS” back, lower left corner, handwritten, black pencil : “GURS” II back, lower right corner, handwritten, black pencil : Wollheim back, upper right corner, stamped, black ink : Gerth Wollheim / ART GALLERY and STUDIO / 97 FORT WASHINGTON AVE. / NEW YORK 32. N.Y. / WA 7-9450 / (APPOINTMENT ONLY) back, upper right corner, stamped, black ink, with black X drawn over it : Gerth Wollheim / ART GALLERY and STUDIO / 247 WADSWORTH AVE. (crossed out) / NEW YORK 33. (crossed out) N.Y. / WA 7-9450 / (APPOINTMENT ONLY)
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Gert Heinrich Wollheim was born on September 11, 1894, in Loschwitz, Germany, to Heinrich and Gertrud Gehlert Wollheim. He had two brothers: Hasso, born October 1, 1893, and Gunther, born January 8, 1896. Gert’s father Heinrich was born in 1855 to Berthold and Rosalia Werther Wollheim. Heinrich was Jewish but converted to Protestantism in 1887. Gert’s mother Gertrud was born in 1867 to Arthur and Anna Schollkopf Gehlert. The Wollheim family was wealthy. Gert’s father Heinrich was a successful machine manufacturer. Gert’s older brother Hasso was a surgeon. From 1911 to 1913, Gert studied at the Academy of Fine Arts in Weimar. He was drafted as a grenadier in the German Army in World War I (1914-1918) and was wounded twice. In 1919, Gert moved to Berlin, then to Remels with his friend and fellow artist, Otto Pankok. In 1920, Gert moved to Dusseldorf, where he worked with other artists, including Pankok, Max Ernst, Otto Dix, and Karl Schwesig. Gert wrote and designed for theater, and also painted, drew, and sculpted. He joined the Junge Rhineland and Mutter Ey art groups and was active in the Aktivistenbund (Activist League), a radical group of liberal intellectuals and artists. In 1921, Gert married Leni Stein. In 1925, Gert and Leni moved to Berlin. Gert met and fell in love with Tatjana Barbakoff (1899-1944), a dancer who posed for his paintings. In 1927, Gert’s father Heinrich died. In January 1933, Hitler came to power and, by summer, Germany was ruled by a Nazi dictatorship. Gert's friend Karl Schwesig was arrested by the Nazi regime. Gert left Leni and fled to Paris. He was reunited with Tatjana and the couple lived together. Gert was active in the Kollektive Deutscher Kunstler (Collective German Artists), which was formed in 1935. In 1937, the Nazis held the Entartete Kunst (Degenerate Art) exhibit in Munich, Germany, featuring three of Gert’s paintings. The Nazis saw modern art as a threat to Aryan culture and displayed confiscated modern art along with criticism intended to teach the German public to hate modern art. In the fall, Gert cofounded the Freien Deutschen Kunstlerbundes (Free German Artist’s Association) in Paris. As a protest of the Degenerate Art exhibit, they held an exhibit in November 1938, which featured Gert’s art. On September 3, 1939, France declared war on Germany, due to the German invasion of Poland on September 1. On May 10, 1940, Germany invaded France. An armistice was signed on June 22. The northern and western regions, including Paris, were placed under the control of a German military administration, while the southern region was placed under the control of the Vichy Regime, which collaborated with the Germans. Gert was arrested and interned in a camp in Paris, then in Vierzon. While in the camp, Gert painted portraits of other inmates and the French guards. After several weeks, Gert was released and returned to Paris. In spring 1940, Gert was arrested and sent to Ruchard internment camp, in Avon-les-Roches. On November 1, Gert was transferred to Gurs internment camp, in Vichy France. Schwesig was also interned there from October 1940- February 1941. Gert worked as an artist in Gurs. On January 7, 1941, he was transferred to Septfonds internment camp, in southern France. In at least one camp, he worked as forced labor. Circa early 1943, Gert escaped to Nays in southern France, where he was reunited with Tatjana. The couple hid in the home of a peasant. Tatjana eventually fled to Nice on the coast, because it was occupied by the Italians and was known as a haven for Jews. Gert remained behind and stayed hidden in Nays until the region was liberated on August 1, 1944. Gert returned to Paris, which was liberated on August 24. Tatjana was arrested by the Germans in Nice in January 1944, following the German occupation of Nice in September 1943. She was sent to Drancy transit camp, then to Auschwitz concentration camp, where she was killed on February 6. Gert’s mother Gertrud died in 1944. On March 11, 1947, Gert sailed from Le Havre, France, on the SS Marine Falcon, arriving in New York on March 25. He settled in New York and married Mona Loeb. He continued working as an artist. Gert, age 79, died on April 22, 1974 in New York.
The drawing was acquired by the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum in 1988.
overall: Height: 9.375 inches (23.813 cm) | Width: 12.375 inches (31.433 cm)
Man in peasant dress giving bread to a woman with 2 small children through a barbed wire fence drawn by Gert Wollheim while a prisoner in Gurs internment camp in late 1940. The French established Gurs, the largest internment camp in France, in April 1939 to hold political refugees. In early 1940, about 4000 German Jewish refugees were interned as enemy aliens. Wolheim, who fled Nazi Germany for Paris in 1933, was arrested by the French in spring 1940 as an enemy alien. France surrendered to Germany in June 1940. Northern France was controlled by the Germans and southern France, where Gurs was located, by a collaborationist French government set up in Vichy. Wollheim's work was shown in the Nazi Degenerate Art exhibit and he was active in leftist, radical politics. In November 1941, he was sent to Gurs. Camp conditions were primitive; it was overcrowded and water, food, and clothing were scarce. Wollheim was transferred to Septfonds on January 1, 1941. He escaped and went into hiding until the region was liberated in August 1944. He left for New York in 1947.
At The Barbed Wire Drawing of a couple sharing bread through barbed wire in Gurs drawn by a German inmate