This catalogue celebrates a gift from the German Art Dealers Association of more than 200 post–World War II drawings and prints by German artists born before 1945. It provides a detailed introduction to a wide range of artistic personalities, many of whom are little known in the English-speaking world, and surveys key trends in both West and East Germany during the decisive decades of their cultural revitalization. Among the topics it addresses are varieties of figuration, Informel (an expressive mode of abstract painting), and drawings and prints by sculptors, and it includes a selected bibliography of related publications in English. The book accompanies an exhibition of forty works organized by Emilie Norris at the Busch-Reisinger Museum (July 18–September 27, 1998).

Erika Költzsch, a 1993–94 curatorial intern at the Busch-Reisinger Museum, is director of the Michael Werner Gallery in Cologne. Yule Heibel, who received her PhD from Harvard in 1991, is an independent art historian. Emilie Norris is assistant curator of the Busch-Reisinger Museum.