World War I and World War II
The outbreak of World War I in 1914 not only ruptured the Cubist experiments in art but resulted in Kahnweiler, of German origin, being considered by the French as an alien; and being forced to live in exile in Switzerland. Many German nationals living in France had their possessions sequestered by the French state, and as a result, Kahnweiler's collection was confiscated in 1914 and sold by the government in a series of auctions at the Hôtel Drouot between 1921 and 1923.
During the years of exile (until 1920) he studied and wrote on his experiences. He wrote works such as the Der Weg Zum Kubismus and Confessions esthétiques. Writing becoming a passion he continued over his lifetime, creating hundreds of books and major articles. The second period of enforced writing was the internal exile which occurred during World War II where as a Jew, the Nazis forced him to flee Paris. He remained in France in hiding; where as he put it under the clouds of the gas chambers he wrote the seminal work on Juan Gris.
Read more about this topic: Daniel-Henry Kahnweiler
Famous quotes containing the words world and/or war:
“During the first World War women in the United States had a chance to try their capacities in wider fields of executive leadership in industry. Must we always wait for war to give us opportunity? And must the pendulum always swing back in the busy world of work and workers during times of peace?”
—Mary Barnett Gilson (1877–?)
“[Veterans] feel disappointed, not about the 1914-1918 war but about this war. They liked that war, it was a nice war, a real war a regular war, a commenced war and an ended war. It was a war, and veterans like a war to be a war. They do.”
—Gertrude Stein (1874–1946)