GALLERY OF MIRACLES AND MADNESS THE

‘A riveting tale brilliantly told' Philippe SandsThe little-known story of Hitler’s war on modern art and the mentally ill.In the first years of the Weimar Republic the German psychiatrist Hans Prinzhorn gathered a remarkable collection of works by schizophrenic patients that would astonish and delight the world.The Prinzhorn collection as it was called inspired a new generation of artists including Paul Klee Max Ernst and Salvador Dali. What the doctor could not have known however was that these works would later be used to prepare the ground for mass-murder.Soon after his rise to power Hitler―a failed artist of the old school―declared war on modern art. The Nazis staged giant ‘Degenerate Art’ shows to ridicule the avant-garde and seized and destroyed the cream of Germany's modern art collections. This action was mere preparation however for the even more sinister campaign Hitler would later wage against so-called degenerate people and Prinzhorn's artists were caught up in both. Bringing together inspirational art history genius and madness and the wanton cruelty of the fanatical artist-Führer this astonishing story lays bare the culture war that paved the way for Hitler's first extermination programme the psychiatric Holocaust.