Hitler's drawings on sale in Britain
Sketches submitted by one of most infamous men in history to art school go on sale in Britain. Had sketches been accepted by Vienna Art Academy, perhaps course of European history would have been different, claims art expert in Daily Telegraph report
Sketches that apparently were created by the Nazi leader have gone on sale in Britain. The drawings at hand are believed to have been submitted by a young Adolph Hitler to the Viennese Academy of Art in an unsuccessful attempt to be accepted to a study program.
The 12 pictures in the portfolio, which includes sketches of nudes, human figures, and various landscapes, will be sold at Mullock's auction house in Ludlow, Shropshire. Each sketch is expected to fetch a price of up to £6,000 (about $9,000).
One of the pictures in the portfolio (Photo: Daily Telegraph website)
British newspaper The Daily Telegraph reported on Wednesday that the items will be put up for auction. Most of them are dated from the year 1908, the same year Hitler's application to the Vienna academy was rejected for a second time.
Hitler moved to Vienna in 1905 at the age of 16 and led a bohemian lifestyle. He earned money selling sketches he copied from postcards. Later, he was forced to move into a homeless hostel. Hitler claimed that it was in Vienna that he first adopted a hatred of the Jewish people.
Hitler applied to the Vienna Academy of Art on two separate occasions. On the second time around, during which he submitted the 12 sketches currently being up for auction, he was flatly rejected and not even allowed to sit for exams.
Michael Liversidge, Emeritus Dean of Arts at Bristol University and an art expert, reviewed the sketches and deemed them merely "mediocre" and did not display any "latent genius" behind the works.
"So if they are part of a portfolio submitted with an application to study at a major European art academy, the selectors were right to reject him - they just don't suggest he was more than pretty marginal and mediocre for a potential art school entrant then or now," Liversidge said. "Now, of course, they have an altogether different historical interest for us, but sadly that isn't one that has anything to do with art."
Richard Westwood-Brookes, who is selling the archive, said, ”It is possible that Hitler's rejection from the Vienna Academy of Art was something that helped shape his character and turn him into the monster he became."
Many speculations have been made that Hitler's rejection from art school contributed to the development of his hateful worldview. Many historians have even raised the possibility that had he been accepted, he would never have entered politics.
