Max Beckmann, Otto Dix, George Grosz and Oscar Kokoschka, among others, produce anti-Nazi art in Germany; suppression or exile rewards their efforts.

Beckmann, a German painter, draftsman, printmaker, sculptor, and writer, had in the 1920s been associated with the New Objectivity (Neue Sachlichkeit), an outgrowth of Expressionism that opposed its introverted emotionalism.

In the Weimar Republic of the Twenties, Beckmann had enjoyed great success and official honors.

In 1927 hehad received the Honorary Empire Prize for German Art and the Gold Medal of the City of Düsseldorf; the National Gallery in Berlin had acquired his painting The Bark and, in 1928, had purchased his Self-Portrait in Tuxedo.

In 1925 he had been selected to teach a master class at the Städelschule Academy of Fine Art in Frankfurt.

Some of his most famous students include Theo Garve, Leo Maillet and Marie-Louise Von Motesiczky.

Beckmann’s fortunes change with the rise to power of Adolf Hitler, whose dislike of Modern Art quickly leads to its suppression by the state.

In 1933, the Nazi government bizarrely calls Beckmann a "cultural Bolshevik" and dismisses him from his teaching position at the Art School in Frankfurt.