Danish Avant-Garde and World War II

Kerry Greaves is Mads Øvlisen Postdoctoral Research Fellow in Art History in the Department of Arts and Cultural Studies at the University of Copenhagen, Denmark.

• Introduction; 1 Dansk Modernisme Reconsidered; 2 "What about Culture?" Interwar Politics, Art Criticism, and Experimental Art; 3 Helhesten and the War; 4 The New Realism; 5 Spring Is Here: 13 Artists in a Tent; Conclusion: Thank You for Being with Us

"This work complicates histories of resistance activity under National Socialist occupation both in Denmark and in general through its nuanced reading of the ideology, publishing activities, and exhibition practices of the artists’ collective Helhesten. Dr. Greaves illuminates the group’s brilliant and strategic uses of Danish history, symbolism, and values, as well as the cultural aesthetics of the Nazi occupiers, in their cultural work between 1941 and 1945."--Patricia G. Berman, Wellesley College