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| Der Sturm (magazine) | |
|---|---|
| Title | Der Sturm |
| Editor | Herwarth Walden |
| Category | Art, Literature |
| Publisher | Herwarth Walden |
| Firstdate | 1910 |
| Finaldate | 1932 |
| Country | Germany |
| Language | German language |
Der Sturm (magazine) was a German monthly avant-garde periodical founded in 1910 that became a nexus for Expressionism, Cubism, Futurism, and later Constructivism and Dada. Under the direction of Herwarth Walden, it operated as a magazine, gallery, and publishing house, promoting works by leading European and international artists and writers such as Wassily Kandinsky, Pablo Picasso, Marcel Duchamp, Paul Klee, and August Macke. The publication linked visual arts, poetry, and drama, influencing networks in Berlin, Paris, Moscow, and Zurich while engaging with movements around Franz Marc, Gustav Klimt, Egon Schiele, and Blaise Cendrars.
Der Sturm began in Berlin in 1910 amid the cultural ferment of the Wilhelmine Period, emerging contemporaneously with exhibitions by the Berlin Secession and debates involving the Blaue Reiter. Founded and edited by Herwarth Walden (born Paul Schumann), the magazine quickly aligned itself with Expressionist artists such as Die Brücke members Ernst Ludwig Kirchner and Karl Schmidt-Rottluff, while publishing translations and reproductions from Pierre Bonnard and Henri Matisse. During the 1910s Der Sturm cultivated international ties to Paris, Moscow, Amsterdam, and New York City, exchanging manifestos and reviews with journals like La Révolution surréaliste and groups around Gino Severini and Umberto Boccioni. World War I and the subsequent German Revolution of 1918–1919 altered the cultural landscape; Walden sought out Constructivist and Dadaist correspondents including Vladimir Mayakovsky, Hannah Höch, and Kurt Schwitters. Through the 1920s the magazine chronicled avant-garde developments up to the rise of National Socialism in the early 1930s, ceasing regular publication in 1932 as political pressures and censorship intensified.
Walden’s editorial policy was explicitly internationalist and polemical: he prioritized avant-garde innovation and actively solicited contributors across disciplines and nations. Key literary contributors included Georg Trakl, Gottfried Benn, Rainer Maria Rilke, Else Lasker-Schüler, and Paul Celan; visual contributors and correspondents ranged from Alexej von Jawlensky and Otto Dix to Marc Chagall and Naum Gabo. The editorial staff organized translations of manifestos by Filippo Tommaso Marinetti, publications by André Breton, and critical essays by Walter Gropius and László Moholy-Nagy on architecture and design. The magazine maintained a practice of pairing reproductions with critical texts, arranging dialogues between figures like Henri Rousseau, Max Beckmann, Paul Signac, and Ilya Ehrenburg. Walden also collaborated with patrons and institutions such as the Kunsthalle networks and private collectors in Berlin and Munich to fund exhibitions and editions.
Visually, Der Sturm published woodcuts, lithographs, etchings, and early photomontage reproductions by artists including Ernst Barlach, Oskar Kokoschka, Käthe Kollwitz, and Georges Braque. It presented early German-language encounters with Cubism and Futurism through works by Picasso, Georges Braque, and Giacomo Balla. Poetically the magazine printed Expressionist verse, manifestos, drama excerpts, and surreal prose by figures like Georg Heym, Alfred Döblin, and Bertolt Brecht. Its typographic experiments and page layouts anticipated later avant-garde periodicals; collaborations with typographers and designers such as El Lissitzky and Henry van de Velde introduced readers to Constructivist spatial concepts and De Stijl aesthetics involving Piet Mondrian and Theo van Doesburg. The magazine also serialized plays and translations that connected theatrical innovations from Max Reinhardt to European avant-garde theaters.
Der Sturm operated a gallery in Berlin that mounted over a hundred exhibitions between 1912 and the 1920s, introducing German audiences to works by Kandinsky, Picasso, Marc Chagall, Robert Delaunay, and Frantisek Kupka. The gallery staged landmark shows such as early Kandinsky solo exhibitions, retrospectives involving Paul Klee and Otto Freundlich, and thematic exhibitions of Futurist and Cubist art. These exhibitions fostered exchanges with institutions like the Staatliche Museen zu Berlin and drew collectors including Alfred Flechtheim and patrons associated with the Buchheim Museum circle. Touring exhibitions and loans extended Der Sturm’s reach to Prague, Vienna, and Zurich, while the gallery published catalogues featuring critical essays by contributors such as Theodor Däubler and Carl Einstein.
Der Sturm helped shape the reception of avant-garde art in the German-speaking world and beyond, influencing collectors, curators, and younger artists associated with the Bauhaus, New Objectivity, and postwar modernist currents. Its promotion of interdisciplinary collaboration anticipated later journals including De Stijl, Merz, and Matisse’s contacts across Europe. The magazine’s printed archive, gallery catalogues, and manifestos became primary sources for scholars examining links among Expressionism, Constructivism, and Surrealism; figures such as Arnold Schoenberg and Alfred H. Barr Jr. drew upon its material. Artists displaced by the rise of Nazism referenced Der Sturm’s networks in émigré circles in London, Paris, and New York City.
Der Sturm’s advocacy of radical aesthetics provoked critics in conservative and nationalist circles, including public disputes with traditionalists linked to the Prussian Academy of Arts and polemics involving critics like Ludwig Justi. The magazine also courted controversy by publishing manifestos by Marinetti and printing works by politically engaged artists such as George Grosz and John Heartfield, leading to accusations during the late Weimar period. The political polarization of the early 1930s, intensified by censorship and hostile press campaigns from Nazi Party affiliates, constrained exhibitions and distribution; Walden’s gallery faced boycotts and legal pressures, and the magazine suspended regular publication in 1932, with final sporadic issues and publications ceasing as many contributors went into exile or were persecuted under Gleichschaltung.
Category:German art magazines Category:Expressionism Category:Avant-garde magazines