Update on Paul Geissler Print

Treasures come in many forms.

In the previous post I mention buying an etching for $10 at a Berkeley yard sale. An appraiser found it to be an original engraving by the artist Paul Geissler in 1920.


After a few more days of research I learned that it is an etching of the Odeonsplatz in Munich, Germany. All the more astonishing since when I first looked upon the etching a voice in my head said, "that looks like Germany", even though I had never been to Germany nor knew anything about the Odeonsplatz. (View 360 panorama)

On the right is the Roman Catholic Theatine Church St. Cajetan (Theatinerkirche St. Kajetan) in Munich built from 1663 to 1690. It was founded by Elector Ferdinand Maria and his wife, Henriette Adelaide of Savoy, as a gesture of thanks for the birth of the long-awaited heir to the Bavarian crown, Prince Max Emanuel, in 1662.


The church was built in Italian high-baroque style after San Andrea del Valle in Rome and designed by the Italian architect Agostino Barelli. Inside are tombs of a few Bavarian Kings and Queens and a couple of Holy Roman Emperors.


St Cajetan was born at Vicenza, then part of the Republic of Venice. Cajetan's parents were Gaspar, Count of Thiene, and Maria Porto. He is the patron saint of
gamblers; job seekers and unemployed people. If there ever was a saint to pray to during the 'Great Recession', it's St. Cajetan.

To the left is the famous Feldherrnhalle (Field Marshal's hall) monument adorned with 2 lions and was designed in 1841 to honour the Bayern generals. One curious fact – on these steps (only 3 years after this etching was made) Hitler clashed with the police and was then sent to prison where he wrote Mein Kampf – (My Fight).


Munich and all of Germany at that time was experiencing a very difficult time due to the harsh penalties imposed by the Treaty of Versailles following the end of WWI. Hitler lived in Munich the same time this etching was made and could have been possibly yelling it up within earshot at one of the nearby beer halls. This all had me look a little bit harder at the artist Geissler.

Paul Geissler was born in 1881 and died in 1965. According to the web "he was one of the foremost german etchers. His plates, chiefly of the architectural beauties of old Europe, have been highly praised by many of the most discriminating critics and collectors. Yet his work appeals as strongly to the public as it does to connoisseurs."

Searching online I find that Geissler was later considered, by a few, a "Third-Reich artist". Although he apparently did not create any overt Nazi imagery, he did etch Hitler's birthplace and school in 1943 and his work was included in Hitler's EXPOSITIONS OF
THE GREAT GERMAN ART 1937-1944 MUNICH. "In 1937 the Nazis inaugurated the House of German Art and organized the first exposition of Great German Art." These exhibitions were Hitler's way of telling the German people what art he thought was appropriate for them. From the web: "Adolf Hitler was a genuine patron of the arts, with a love for painting and architecture, but only a patron of those arts of which he approved. Having been a painter in his youth, Hitler considered himself the supreme critic of what was, and was not, proper art. Modern "degenerate" art was definitely out. To promote "proper" art Hitler had the Haus der Deutschen Kunst (House of German Art) built in Munich, to be the scene of special yearly exhibits." Geissler's fine detail sketchings of architectural German buildings apparently fit that mode. It is very possible that Hitler and Geissler, at least, knew each other.

So now this etching has a history to it albeit a bit murky and possibly unsettling if the artist was indeed a nazi sympathizer. Some time ago I worked on a documentary on W. Furtwangler, the head conductor of the Berlin Philharmonic during WWII and sometimes referred to as "Hitler's Composer". But I learned that Furtwangler was very indifferent to the political climate and disliked Hitler and was mostly obsessed with the music. I suppose many artists can be so enthralled with creating beauty that they turn a blind eye to the ugly realities around them. I would like to think this is the case with our Geissler. As to how this exquisite etching wound up in a yard sale in Berkeley? Your guess is as good as mine.

Andrea and I are planning to visit the site when we are in Germany later this year and I can't help but feel that I am connected to this place for some reason but don't know why. I'll chalk it up to Victorian paranormal residue sprinkled on my brain from living in this old house.

Be on the look out for your own 'transporting' treasures. It may lead you on a fascinating, historical journey.

Any other thoughts on Geissler and his life and work would be very welcome.

-g