Historic collection of rare books on German Expressionist art to be unveiled

A unique collection of books on German Expressionism from the library of art historian and critic Dr Frank Whitford has been acquired by our University.

Dr Frank Whitford was an authority on art of the period, and a senior member of Wolfson College, Cambridge.

The collection includes over 1,000 volumes on and by German and Austrian artists of the Expressionist and Bauhaus periods, including Beckmann, Dix, Grosz, Kandinsky, Klee, Klimt, Nolde and Schiele, and many original and rare exhibition catalogues from Berlin and Munich published between 1910 and 1940.

It also contains items of interest to historians of the interwar period, and includes a complete set of Karl Kraus’ Die Fackel magazine (1900-1936).

The collection will be officially unveiled on Wednesday 2 March by Sir Richard Evans, who will deliver an illustrated lecture entitled “Art and Architecture in Nazi Germany”.

The lecture is at 6pm in the Peter Williams Lecture Theatre and free tickets are available to the general public.

The Whitford Collection is housed in the University Library, and a selection of books will be on display before and after the lecture.