Socialist Realism in Art

Abstract

Socialist Realism in Art is a term primarily associated with the Cold War period and the ideological connection with the Soviet Union, specifically the Communist Party visual ideology. Socialist Realism murals or paintings were placed in public space or used to decorate the interiors of public buildings to remind and teach, to deliver the socialist message. This section features two monumental murals by prominent DDR Socialist Realism artists, Walter Womacka’s Our Life on the façade of the iconic building House of Teachers at Alexanderplatz, former East Berlin’s central square, and Max Lingner’s Construction of the Republic mural on the rear wall of the portico of the Federal Ministry of Finance in Berlin (former House of Ministries during the DDR era). This unit also includes the monumental larger than life bronze statue of Marx and Engels, the work of the Ludwig Engelhardt art collective from the early 1980s and a symbol of the East German regime, and Television Tower by Hermann Henselmann and Jörg Streitparth, built as the pinnacle of the New International architecture of the Alexanderplatz area in the 1960s.