Wolfgang Willrich - Porträt Hans F. K. Günther, 1930

Artist and art writer; organized Nazi "Degenerate Art" exhibition 1937. Willrich's father, Hugo Willrich (1867-1950), was a professor of Hellenistic studies at the gymnasium in Göttingen. Willrich himself studied studio art in Berlin at the Kunsthochschule between 1915-16. Already strongly conservative because of his father's traditional Prussian views, the younger Willrich resisted the new art styles being taught there. The first World Ward cut short his art training. Willrich served in the 251st infantry regiment in 1916 seeing action at the eastern front. He was captured and interned in a Orleans prisoner-of-war camp. In 1920 Willrich resumed his art studies, this time at the Academy in Dresden under Richard Mueller, Georg Luehring and the anatomist Hermann Dittrich. He studied at Dresden until 1924, when he made a tour of northern art cities. He moved to Berlin where the newly empowered Nazi government gave him a position in the Ministry of Culture. However, a former association with General Ludendorf cast dispersions on him and he was forced to leave the post. A chance encounter with the head of the state agricultural farms, R. Walther Daré gained him a commission portraying German peasants of Nordic physiognomy. He ironically he gained disfavor with local Nazi Party leaders over his conception of "Nordic".