War exhibition during the war

The art historian Dr Luise Straus-Ernst was an established figure in Cologne’s art scene. Her impressive life’s work began at the Wallraf-Richartz-Museum with the 1917 exhibition ‘Alte Kriegsdarstellung. Graphic images of war from the 15th to 18th centuries’ – a comment on the still raging First World War – which included Jacques Callot’s print ‘The Punishment’ (1633), known internationally as ‘The Hanging’.

Despite the topicality of this subject, the impact of her only exhibition was limited. However, in the early 1920s she began a successful career as a cultural journalist that was forcibly ended when the National Socialists came to power.