Rethinking Postwar Europe

Artistic Production and Discourses on Art in the late 1940s and 1950s

Contributions by Elisabeth Ansel Contributions by Éva Forgács Contributions by Hildegard Frübis Contributions by Regine Heß Contributions by Dirk Hildebrandt Contributions by Barbara Lange Contributions by Petro Lapa Contributions by Agata Pietrasik Contributions by Simon Vagts Contributions by Regina Wenninger Contributions by Tanja Zimmermann Edited by Barbara Lange Edited by Dirk Hildebrandt Edited by Agata Pietrasik

Book cover: Rethinking Postwar Europe

Extent: 268 pages

Publisher: Böhlau Verlag Köln

Subjects: Art & Art History, Cultural Studies

Language: English

Hardback (Published)

(December 2019)

ISBN: 9783412514006

6.3 x 9.33 inches

Price: $62.00

In stock

Instead of assessing the postwar period in the traditional way as divided by the Iron Curtain, the contributions investigate processes of contact, interaction, dissemination, overlapping, and networking. Consequently, the analysis of a diversified European modernism in both its aesthetic and its socio-political dimension resonates with all the different case studies. In particular, the volume looks at how artists developed, designed and (re)negotiated identities and discourses, and sheds new light on the power of art – and creative powers in general – in a postwar setting of mutilations, losses, and devastations.


The book “Rethinking Postwar Europe” offers an in-depth insight into the largely unexplored topic of artistic practices in the 1940s and 1950s in Europe which until recently had been obscured by ideologies of the Cold War. Thanks to the authors’ diverse methodological backgrounds, the volume presents – for the first time – a comprehensive multilayered narrative, focusing on the complexities and entanglements in the artistic field. Instead of assessing the postwar period in the traditional way as divided by the Iron Curtain, the contributions investigate processes of contact, interaction, dissemination, overlapping, and networking. Consequently, the analysis of a diversified European modernism in both its aesthetic and its socio-political dimension resonates with all the different case studies. In particular, the volume looks at how artists developed, designed and (re)negotiated identities and discourses, and sheds new light on the power of art – and creative powers in general – in a postwar setting of mutilations, losses, and devastations.

  • Contributions by Elisabeth Ansel
  • Contributions by Éva Forgács
  • Contributions by Hildegard Frübis
  • Contributions by Regine Heß
  • Contributions by Dirk Hildebrandt
  • Contributions by Barbara Lange
  • Contributions by Petro Lapa
  • Contributions by Agata Pietrasik
  • Contributions by Simon Vagts
  • Contributions by Regina Wenninger
  • Contributions by Tanja Zimmermann
  • Edited by Barbara Lange
  • Edited by Dirk Hildebrandt
  • Edited by Agata Pietrasik