Volker Böhringer (1912-1961)

Volker Böhringer was an important figure in the Neue Sachlichkeit movement, dealing with socially critical themes in the same manner as his contemporaries George Grosz and Otto Dix. As a youth, he was a member of the Swingjugend, a group admiring the Anglo-American way of life, defining themselves in swing and jazz music and opposing the National-Socialist ideology. Böhringer refused to join The League of German Painters (VBKD) and was thus banned from exhibiting his work. Despite his secluded life, he gained critical recognition and his work was shown in major public exhibitions of German modern art at the Kunstmuseum Basel in 1937 and in Zurich in 1949. His first solo exhibition took place in Esslingen in 1960, the same year he exhibited with Otto Dix at Kunstverein Heilbronn.