In the summer of 1937, two Nazi-sponsored exhibitions opened in Munich: the Degenerate Art exhibition, displaying confiscated works by banned modern artists like Klee, Kandinsky, and Picasso, and the first Great German Art Exhibition, featuring state-sanctioned Aryan art. The latter showcased traditionalist neoclassicism with idealized nudes, pastoral landscapes, and heroic battle scenes, purchased by Hitler himself. Rebecca Birrell's debut novel imagines a Jewish artist secretly working under a pseudonym within this oppressive regime.
Plot and Setting
Hannah Sherman, a fictional Jewish artist, comes of age in Berlin during the Weimar Republic's final days. Working as a seamstress, she flees an arranged marriage, adopts the Christian name Schmidt, and pursues her artistic ambitions. She takes two lovers: Saul, a museum curator, and Charlotte, a dancer at a lesbian bar where Hannah sketches. As history unfolds, the worsening economic and political situation engulfs her story. When the Great Depression hits, Hannah seeks mending work from former client Elke Grese, a glamorous older woman who offers patronage with hidden strings.
Art Historical Insight
Birrell, an art historian who published This Dark Country in 2021, brings deep understanding of artists and their work. Hannah's thoughts and conversations are filled with observations on old master paintings in the Kaiser Friedrich museum (destroyed by fire in 1945) and postcard reproductions she trades. While painting her mother, she reflects on Rembrandt's portraits of an elderly woman: “In my favourite, his mother’s ageing skin resembles wax, the wrinkles etched into her flesh echoed in the detail of her embroidered cloak, life weighing so heavily upon her she can hardly keep her eyes open.”
Narrative Style
Hannah sees the world through an artist's eye: “From the windows of the taxi, the clouds were zinc white, paint fresh from its tube.” However, her emotional landscape is less vivid. She often resorts to abstract nouns like “fear stirred in my chest” and “shock gave way to shame.” Her motivations remain unclear; she admits, “I didn’t interrogate why I wanted a role,” when inserting herself as a background figure in a painting. This realism—she is a painter, not a novelist—can frustrate readers.
Climactic Shift
Toward the end, Birrell shifts perspective, entering the mind of Elke Grese. Elke, previously distant, sits in a car in Munich, about to visit the 1942 Great German Art Exhibition. This moment of strangeness echoes Birrell's quirky nonfiction style, reminding us that literature, like art, excels when embracing invention.
