Expressive realism does not refer to a uniform style of art, but to a generation of German painters born around the turn of the century whose art was already judged as degenerate by the National Socialists at the beginning of their careers and thus prevented the artists from creating. Since they were not known to a broad public, the representatives of expressive realism were forgotten for a long time and were only rediscovered in the 1980s by the art historian Rainer Zimmermann as the "lost generation". The term "expressive realism", which was deliberately formulated as an umbrella term, unites many styles in individual form and links the artists only in their basic artistic attitude.
