Hans Baluschek, the painter or the working class

Hans Baluschek (1870-1935) was a German painter, illustrator and writer. A prominent representative of Critical Realism, he sought to portray the life of the common people. His paintings centered on the working class of Berlin. He belonged to the Berlin Secession movement, a group of artists interested in modern developments in art. Yet during his lifetime he was best known for his illustrations of popular children's books. He was an active member of the Social Democratic Party and belonged to its left wing, close to the communists.

The nazis classified him as a « degenerate artist » and he was forbidden to practice his craft, as was the case of many others painters.

Baluschek doesn’t belong to the best known artists from the 1920s and he was for a long time forgotten. But not in the German Democratic Republic (the communist East Germany), where exhibitions of his works were often staged.