File:Wolfgang Willrich (1897-1948) Familienbildniss (Family) GDK 1938 (1939 reproduction) Third Reich racial propaganda No known copyright restrictions.jpg

English: Wolfgang Willrich: Familienbildniss (‘Family’). Depicted in Westermanns Monatshefte, 1939, and in Velhagen & Klasings Monatshefte, 1939. Displayed at the GDK (Die Große Deutsche Kunstausstellung) 1938, room 33. Wolgang Willrich send this work ‘Familienbildniss’ also to the 1938 Rosenberg Exhibition ‘Das Familienbild’.

germanartgallery.eu:

Wolfgang Willrich went to the Dresden Academy of Art. He strongly rejected the abstract and surreal fashions of the period, and concentrated on realistic portrait work, for which he later became famous. Around 1934 he started working for the department of Walter Darre, the Minister responsible for the Blood and Soil aspect of NS politics. At that time Willrich produced mainly studies of German peasants and country-folk. Within the art world he strongly represented anti-Semitic and racial ideas. Wolfgang Willrich did not join the NSDAP, but between 1935 and the outbreak of war in September 1939 he produced a massive amount of portraiture that was appreciated by the Nazis, and which was used in books, posters, postcards and reproduced in magazines and newspapers. Willrich depicted ‘models of the German race’: modest, upright, diligent people who have respect for women, the family, the nation and Fatherland, tied to the soil and to their traditions.’ From 1937 to 1942 Willrich displayed 28 paintings and drawings in the Great German Art Exhibitions. These were mainly portraits of farmers, soldiers, officers and party leaders.

In 1937 the Reichskammer der Bildende Künste published the guideline ‘Die Kunst hilft der Bevölkerungspolitik’, in which artists were required to show at least four children when a family was depicted. The exhibition ‘Das Familienbild’ was planned and executed by the Rechsleitung NSDAP, the highest political level. Alfred Rosenberg, the Chief Nazi Party ideologist, was ultimately responsible for the organization. Co-organisers were the culture department of Kraft durch Freude (KdF), the Reichsbund der kinderreichen Deutschlands e.V. and the culture section of the Deutschen Arbeiterfront (DAF).