Landscape with Lofty Sky, 1937

About the Work

In his early twenties, Ewald was considered one of the great talents of contemporary art in Germany. The Städel acquired paintings by the native of Hanau from 1914 onwards, among them ‘Mother and Child’. To rescue that work, which the National Socialists had labelled ‘degenerate art’, the museum proposed an exchange to the artist. The threatened work was removed from the museum inventory and hidden. It was replaced by a more recent and less offensive work of Ewald’s – namely this atmospheric painting with rain clouds that have pushed their way in front of the sun.