ABSTRACT
This chapter explains the early organization and raison d’être of the Departement van Volksvoorlichting en Kunsten (Ministry of National Information and the Arts), or DVK, and the Nederlandsche Kultuurkamer (Dutch Chamber of Culture), or NKK, just following the German Occupation of The Netherlands in 1940. Beginning with the reaction among Dutch art critics to the Degenerate Art exhibition in Munich in 1937, this chapter establishes the currency of both “degeneracy” and “volkism” in the cultural discourse of The Netherlands, while framing the paintings of the Neorealists as counterweights to these concepts by virtue of their ambiguity. It then takes into consideration the multivalent nature of their work, laying out the very mixed and increasingly polarized critical reception of the Neorealists’ work among right- and left-wing journalists. Following the emerging roles of Tobie Goedewaagen (DVK leader), Ed Gerdes (Art guild leader), this chapter posits that the painter Pyke Koch played an important and influential role in cultivating the tastes of these two men, leading them to view Neorealism as a viable form of modernism for the regime.
