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Description
‘Tiroler Gemeinderatssitzung’ (‘Tiroler City Counsel Meeting‘)
‘Tiroler Gemeinderatssitzung’ by Paul Matias Padua. Depicted in the magazine ‘Jugend’, 1937, number 33. Again depicted in ‘Jugend’, 1938, number 27; a special about the ‘Tag der Deutschen Kunst 1938’ (the ‘Day of German Art’, 1938).
Also depicted in Velhagen & Klasings, Monatshefte, Juni 1938, and August 1940.
Left: ‘Tiroler Gemeinderatssitzung’, depicted in Velhagen & Klasings, Monatshefte, August 1940.
Right: ‘Tiroler Gemeinderatssitzing’, depicted in ‘Jugend’, 1938, number 27.
| – condition | : II |
| – size | : 238 x 125 cm, excluding frame |
| – signed | : right, under. Dated 1936 |
| – type | : oil on canvas |
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BIOGRAPHY: PAUL MATHIAS PADUA
Left: Paul Matias Padua, ‘Der Führer Spricht’. Depicted in ‘Die Kunst im Deutschen Reich’, 1940, and in ‘Das Bild’, August 1940. GDK 1940, room 15.
Right: Joseph Goebels visiting the Grosse Deutsche Kunstausstellung 1940. Next to Goebbels on his right Gerdy Troost, Rudolf Hess and Prof. Karl Kolb, director of the Haus der Deutschen Kunst. ‘Der Führer Spricht’ at the background, left (photo: Österreichische Nationalbibliothek).
Paul Mathias Padua, 1941, in conversation with his neighbour, the man who stood model in ‘Der Führer Spricht’. Photo: Bayerische StaatsBibliothek.
Paul Mathias Padua in uniform -still wounded- at the GDK, July 1941. At the right his wife, the actress Ingeborg Wittmann; at the back Prof. Karl Kolbe, Director of the Haus der deutschen Kunst. A few minutes before, Padua had a conversation with Rudolf Hess and Joseph Goebbels, -photographed by Heinrich Hoffmann. 
Paul Mathias Padua, ‘Der 10. May 1940’, poster, 90 x 60 cm. GDK 1941, room 1; depicted in the exhibition catlogue. The 10th of May 1940 celebrates the German’s opening of the western offenses. The leader of the 15 men crossing the Rhine (to the French side) was depicted as someone who was beckoning the whole nation to follow him with an almost religious gesture; he was the leader, but also their comrade. Padua, engaged as a war artist as a part of the Propagandakompagnie, was wounded when he was painting this scene. Later he finished the painting in his atelier in Munich.
‘Der 10. May 1940’ is the ‘Washington Crossing the Delaware’ of World War II, according to Monuments Man Lincoln Kirstein in ‘Magazine of Art’, New York October 1945.
The Washington Crossing the Delaware is an 1851 oil-on-canvas painting by the German-American artist Emanuel Leutze. It commemorates General George Washington’s crossing of the Delaware River with the Continental Army on the night of December 25 to 26, 1776, during the American Revolutionary War. That action was the first move in a surprise attack and victory against Hessian forces at the Battle of Trenton in New Jersey on the morning of December 26. The original painting from 1851 was acquired by the Kunsthalle in Bremen, Germany, and was destroyed in a bombing raid at 5 September 1942, during World War II. Leutze painted two more versions, one of which is now in the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York City. The other was in the West Wing reception area of the White House in Washington, D.C., but in March 2015, was put on permanent display at the Minnesota Marine Art Museum in Winona, Minnesota.
‘10th of May, 1940. It became the Washington Crossing the Delaware for the Germans of this war’, Monuments Man Lincoln Kirstein in ‘Magazine of Art’, New York, October 1945.
Three times Benito Mussolini…
Paul Mathias Padua portrayed Benito Mussolini three times, he told Der Spiegel in an interview in 1965 (i.a. in 1937 and in 1945). In February 1945 Italian dictator Benito Mussolini sat for a Padua portrait. ‘When I finished the picture of Il Duce he looked long and hard at it, then at me. He told me it was the best portrait if himself he’d ever seen, but that he was afraid it was also his last… He was killed two months later’, Padua said in an interview with the ‘La Crosse Tribune’ (Wisconsin), on 3 October 1965.
Left: Paul Mathias Padua, ‘Portrait of Benito Mussolini’, created during the state visit to Germany of Mussolini from 25 to 29 September 1937.
Right: Paul Mathias Padua, ‘Portrait of Benito Mussolini’, signed right-under ‘1944’. Size: 83 x 60 cm. Sold in 2004 by a German auction house. Depicted in ‘Paul Mathias Padua, Maler zwischen Tradition und Moderne’, 1988.
Below: Mussolini visiting the atelier of Paul Mathias Padua in 1937
(foto’s: Bayerische StaatsBibliothek).
Paul Mathias Padua, ‘Generaloberst von Reichenau’ (‘Colonel General von Reichenau’). Signed 1937.
Left: ‘Generaloberst von Reichenau’ by Padua, depicted in ‘Velhagen & Klasings Monatshefte’, 1940.
Right: ‘General Walter von Reichenau’ by Padua, displayed at the ‘Münchener Jahres Ausstellung’, Neue Pinakothek, 1937. Depicted in the exhibition catalogue.
Left: Paul Mathias Padua, ‘Südtiroler Mädchen mit Katze’ (‘Girl from South Tyrol with Cat’). Displayed at the ‘Grosse Münchener Kunstausstellung’, 1934 (Glaspalast-Ausstellung in der neuen Pinakothek). Depicted in the exhibition catalogue.
Right: Paul Mathias Padua, ‘Schlafende Diana’ (‘Sleeping Diana’). Depicted in ‘Velhagen & Klasings Monatshefte’, 1940.
Paul Mathias Padua, ‘SS- Untersturmführer’ (Untersturmführer was the first commissioned SS officer rank, equivalent to a second lieutenant in other millitary organizations). Displayed at the ‘Münchener Kunstausstellung’, Maximilianeum, 1938. Depicted in the exhibition catalogue.
Paul Mathias Padua. ‘Leda mit dem Schwan’. GDK 1939, room 22. The painting ‘Leda and the Swan’ created quite a scandal when it was exhibited in the GDK 1939 because of its salaciousness. Gauleiter and Minster Adolf Wagner strongly disapproved of the painting and Padua feared being sent to a concentration camp. However, his painting was bought by Hitler himself -for his spare bedroom- for 5.000 Reichsmark; Padua became famous and lived until 1981. As model, Padua bought for 25 Reichsmark a large swan from the Munich zoo. Later, at 3 October 1965, Padua wrote in the newspaper ‘La Cosse Tribune’ (Wisconsin): ‘The Americans conficated it (the painting) when they took the Obersalzberg retreat. I heard later that the it had been auctioned off and have no idea tot his day who has it’.
Paul Mathias Padua and a version of ‘Leda mit dem Schwan’, shown on German television on 7 September, 1965.
The picture is from the documentary ‘Die Zeit unter der Lupe 815/1965‘ (at 2.55).
Paul Mathias Padua at home. Notice the stuffed swan on the wall. Depicted in the magazine Signaal, 2 July 1941
Left: Paul Matias Padua, ‘Flammenwerfer’ (’Flamethrower‘). GDK 1941, room 1.
Right: Paul Mathias Padua, ‘Muschelfischer’ (‘Shellfischer’). Displayed at the ‘Münchener Kunstausstellung’, 1939, Maximilianeum; also depicted in the exhibition catalog.
Panzerführer Rothenburg
Paul Matias Padua, ‘Der Panzerführer’ (‘Tank Commander‘). Displayed at the exhibition ‘Maler an der Front’ (‘Painters at the Front’), organized by the ‘Oberkommando des Heeres‘ (Supreme High Command of the German Army) in combination with the ‘Hauptstelle Bildende Kunst in der Dienstelle des Reichsleiters Rosenberg’ (‘Amt Rosenberg‘) and the ‘Reichsminsterium für Volksaufklärung und Propaganda‘, April 1941, Berlin. Again displayed at the exhibition ‘Deutsche Künstler und die SS’, Breslau, 1944.
Depicted under the name ‘Panzerführer Rothenburg’ in ‘Feuer und Farbe, -155 Bilder vom Kriege’, 1943. Also depicted in ‘Die Kunst im Deutschen Reich‘, 1941, in ‘Die Kunst im Dritten Reich’, 1976, by Reinhard Müller Mehlis, in ‘Das Bild’, 1942, and in ‘Velhagen & Klasings Monatshefte’, 1942.
Depicted is the highly decorated Panzer Regiment Commander Karl Rothenburg
Karl Rothenburg (8 June 1894 – 28 June 1941), who served in both World Wars, was the commander of a Panzer Regiment of the 7th Panzer Division during World War II. He was a recipient of the ‘Pour le Mérite’ (World War I) and the ‘Knight’s Cross of the Iron Cross’ of Nazi Germany. Rothenburg, killed six days after the invasion of the Soviet Union on 28 June 1941 near Minsk, was posthumously promoted to Generalmajor.
For the creation of the painting, a tank was placed in the front garden of the house of Paul Mathias Padua.
Photo: Bayerische StaatsBibliothek.
The exhibition ‘Maler an der Front’, 1941. In the middle Alfred Rosenberg, at the left ‘Der Panzerführer’ by Padua.
Paul Mathias Padua, ‘Sturmbootangriff im Osten’ (‘Assault-baot attack in the East’). Depicted in ‘Feuer und Farbe, -155 Bilder vom Kriege’, 1943.
‘Sturmbootangriff im Osten’ by Padua, depicted on a postcard. Displayed at the ‘Grossen Internationalen Kriegsausstellung Wien, 1942’.
Paul Mathias Padua, ‘SS Gebirgsjäger’ (‘SS-Mountain Trooper’). Size and date unknown.
Left: Paul Mathias Padua, ‘Alte Gebirgler’ (‘Old Man from the Mountains’), GDK 1943 room 35. Bought by Joseph Goebbels for 5,000 Reichsmark.
Right: Paul Mathias Padua, ‘Südtiroler Bauer‘ (‘Farmer from South Tyrol’). Size 69 x 58 cm.
Left: Paul Mathias Padua, ‘Prinz Eugen nach einer Schlacht’ (‘Prinz Eugen after a Battle’). Wall painting in the Officers’ Mess of an Airbase. Depicted in ‘Velhagen & Klasings Monatshefte’, 1940.
Right: Paul Mathias Padua, ‘Tiroler Bauern’ (‘Farmers from Tyrol’). Size 238 x 125 cm. Depicted in ‘Velhagen & Klasings Monatshefte’, Juni 1938, and again in 1940. Also in the magazine ‘Jugend’, 1937, number 33 and again in ‘Jugend’, 1938, number 27, a special about the ‘Tag der Deutschen Kunst 1938’ (the ‘Day of German Art’, 1938).
Paul Mathias Padua, ‘Der Urlauber’ (‘On Holiday’), created in 1944. Displayed at the exhibition ‘Deutsche Künstler und die SS’, Breslau, 1944. Size 194 x 154 cm. In the possession of the Deutsches Historisches Museum.
Left: ‘Der Urlauber’ by Padua, also displayed at the exhibition ‘Artige Kunst, Kunst und Politik im Nationalsozialismus‘ (‘Compliant Art, Art and Politics in the National Socialist era’) held at Museum Situation Kunst, Bochum (November 2016 – April 2017), Kunsthalle Rostock, Rostock (April – June 2017) and at Kunstforum Ostdeutsche Galerie, Regensburg (July – October 2017); depicted in the exhibition catalogue.
Right: ‘Der Urlauber’ by Padua, postcard. On the back is printed: ‘Ausstellung Deutsche Künstler und die SS, – Herausgegeben im Auftrag: der Reichsführer-SS, SS-Hauptambt Berlin (‘Exhibition German Artists and the SS, -Published by order of the Reichsführer-SS, SS-Headquarter Berlin’).
Deutsche Künstler und die SS (‘German Artists and the SS‘)
‘Deutsche Künstler und die SS’ was an exhibition organized by the Reichsführer SS and the SS Supplementary Office of the Headquarter, held in the first quarter of 1944 in the Museum der Bildende Künste in Breslau. In total 589 works of art were displayed, of which 63 were depicted in the exhibition catalogue, published by Wilhelm Limpert Verlag in Berlin. The 72-pages catalogue had a prologue by SS Obergruppenführer Gottlob Berger and a prologue by Heinrich Himmler.
Three months later -from June to July 1944- the exhibition was held in the Alte Residenz in Salzburg (Salzburg Residenz Palace); a separate catalog was issued with 20 depictions.
Paul Mathias Padua, two monumental wallpaintings on the facade of a Kaserne in Oberammergau. Height 8 meters. Depicted in ‘Velhagen & Klasings Monatshefte’, 1940.
Left: Paul Mathias Padua, ‘Schlafende Diana’ (‘Sleeping Diana’). Created 1942/43. GDK 1943 room 15. Bought by the Deutsche Arbeitsfront Berlin for 25.000 Reichsmark. Size 265 x 200 cm. Depicted in ‘Paul Mathias Padua, Maler zwischen Tradition und Moderne’, 1988.
Paul Mathias Padua, ‘Fischer in der Adria’ (‘Fisher in the Adriatic Sea’). Displayed at the Münchener Kunstausstellung 1940, Maximilianeum; depicted in the exhibition catalog.
Left: Paul Mathias Padua, ‘Mars und Venus’ (‘Mars and venus’). Displayed at the ‘Grosse Berliner Kunstausstellung’, 1940. Depicted in the exhibition catalog.
Right: Paul mathias Padua, ‘Tanzendes Bauernpaar’ (‘Dancing Peasant-couple’), 1938. Depicted in ‘Velhagen & Klasings Monatshefte’, 1940. The text below the picture reads: ‘Im Besitz der Haderbräu-Aktiëngesellschaft’.
Left: Paul Mathias Padua, ‘Danae’, 1944. In Greek mythology, Danaë was an Argive princess and mother of the hero Perseus by Zeus. She was credited with founding the city of Ardea in Latium during the Bronze Age. Size 135 x 97 cm. Depicted in ‘Paul Mathias Padua, Maler zwischen Tradition und Moderne’, 1988.
Right: Paul Mathias Padua, ‘Seitlicher Rückenakt mit Buch’ (‘Nude on the Back with Book’), 1940. Size 100 x 82 cm. Depicted in ‘Paul Mathias Padua, Maler zwischen Tradition und Moderne’, 1988.
Left: Paul Mathias Padua, ‘Bauern beim Bier’ (‘Farmers drinking beer’). Depicted in Westermann Monatshefte, 1935.
Right: ‘Bauern beim Bier’, showed on German televison on 7 September 1965.
The same work depicted under the name ‘Die Vier Charaktere, Rieser Bauern’ (‘The Four Temperaments, Farmers from Ries’) in ‘Paul Mathias Padua, Maler zwischen Tradition und Moderne’, 1988. Size 165 x 140 cm. Signed ‘Nördlingen 1931’.
Left: Paul Mathias Padua, ‘Selbstportrait’, 1928. Size 57 x 48 cm. Depicted in ‘Paul Mathias Padua, Maler zwischen Tradition und Moderne’, 1988.
Right: Paul Mathias Padua, ‘In der Küche’ (‘In the Kitchen’), 1941. Size 127 x 102 cm. Depicted in ‘Paul Mathias Padua, Maler zwischen Tradition und Moderne’, 1988.
Left: Paul Mathias Padua, ‘Ramsauer Bauer’ (‘Farmer from the Ramsau’). Postcard. Date of creation unknown.
Right: Paul Mathias Padua, ‘Alte betender Bäuerin’ (‘Praying old Farmer’). Depicted in ‘Das Bild’, 1935.
Left: Paul Matias Padua, ‘Dorfmeier und Keiler’ (‘Mayor and Merchant’). Displayed at the Grosse Münchener Kunstausttellung in the Glaspalast, 1924.
Right: Paul Mathias Padua, ‘Zwei Bauern’ (‘Two Peasants’). Created in 1933. Sold by a German auction house in 2014. Size 56 x 49 cm.
Left: Paul Matias Padua, ‘Junges Paar’ (‘Young Couple’). Displayed at the the Grosse Münchener Kunstausttellung in the Glaspalast, 1927. Depicted in ‘Velhagen & Klasings Monatshefte’, 1930/31.
Right: ‘Junges Paar’, showed on German television on 7 September 1965.
Paul Mathias Padua, ‘Zwei niederbayerische Bauern’ (‘Two Bavarian Peasants’). Postcard. Date of creation unknown.
Paul Mathias Padua, ‘Die Südtiroler’ (‘Peasants of South Tyrol’). Signed 1930. At the back: ‘Albrecht-Dürer Stiftung 1931’, and ’P. Padua Nymphenburger Str. 41’. Size 124 x 104 cm. Oil on wood. Sold by a German auction house in 2020. Also printed on postcards.
Paul Mathias Padua, ‘Bauern aus Ruhpolding’ (‘Peasants from Ruhpolding’), 1928. Depicted in ‘Westermanns Monatshefte’, 149. Band, 1930/31, and in ‘Arts of the Third Reich’, by Peter Adam.
Left: Paul Mathias Padua, ‘Im Gespräch’ (‘Conversation’). Depicted in ‘Das Bild’, May 1935, as well as in ‘Das bäuerliche Jahr, Ein Buch vom Bauerntum in Bildern deutscher Maler’, 1939.
Right: Paul Mathias Padua, ‘Sarntaler Bauer’ (‘Farmer form the Sarntal’), created 1929. Size 80 x 25 cm. In private possession.
‘Sarntaler Bauern’ (‘Farmers from the Sarntal, descendents of the Goths’)
At the end of the 1920s/ beginning of the 1930s, Padua created a series of portraits of ‘Sarntaler Bauern’ (‘Farmers from the Sarntal’). The magazine ‘Das Bild’, April 1935, in which the exhibition ‘Kollektiv-Ausstellung der NS-Kulturgemeinde Berlin’ is described (with works by Ferdinand Spiegel and Joseph Thorak), writes about the ‘Rest eines königlichen, Germanischen Stammes’ in the region of Bolzano, the capital city of South Tyrol: the ‘Sarntalern’, descendants of the Goths, ‘die Gotensöhne’.
In 1931/32 Padua met Leni Riefenstahl in the Sarntal, when she was creating the movie ‘Das Blaue Licht’ (‘The Blue Light’).
Left: Paul Mathias Padua, ‘Zwei Sarntaler Bauern’ (‘Two peasants from the Sarntal in Süd Tirol’). Signed 1934. Sold by a German auction house in 2008 and again by the same house in 2018. Size 81 x 63 cm.
Right: a detail from ‘Zwei Sarntaler Bauern’ depicted in ‘Das Bild’, May 1935.
Left: Paul Mathias Padua, ‘Die Wildschützen’ (‘The Poachers’). Created in 1929. Sold by a German auction house in 2014. Size 86 x 70 cm. The artist has possibly depicted himself in the middle.
Right: Paul Mathias Padua, cut-out of ‘Die Wildschützen’. Depicted in ‘Das Bild’, October 1935.
Left: Paul Mathias Padua, ‘Rieser Bauernkopf’ (‘Head of Farmer from Ries’). Displayed at the ‘Ausstellung Münchner Kunst in der Neuen Pinakothek’, 1935. Depicted in ‘Das Bild’, 1935.
Right: Paul Mathias Padua, ‘Bauern am Tisch’ (‘Farmers at Table’). Depicted in ‘Das Bild’, 1935.
Paul Mathias Padua, ‘Der Trommler’ (‘The Drummer’). GDK 1944 room 22; depicted in the exhibition catalogue. Bought by the Mitteldeutsche Landesbank, Halle, for 12.000 Reichsmark. Displayed at the permanent exhibition ‘Moderne Eins, 1900-1945’ of the Kunstmuseum Moritzburg, Halle, 2017.
The extreme scarcity of National Socialistic art
Massive, systematic destruction of Nazi art since 1945: the Potsdam-Agreement
From 1933 to 1949 Germany experienced two massive art purges. Both the National Socialist government and OMGUS (the U.S. Military Government in Germany) were highly concerned with controlling what people saw and how they saw it. The Nazis eliminated what they called ‘Degenerate art’, erasing the pictorial traces of turmoil and heterogeneity that they associated with modern art. The Western Allies in turn eradicated ‘Nazi art’ and forbade all artworks military subjects or themes that could have military and/or chauvinist symbolism from pictorial representation. Both the Third Reich and OMGUS utilized the visual arts as instruments for the construction of new German cultural heritages.
The Potsdam Agreement of 2 August 1945, subparagraph 3, Part III, Section A stated that one purpose of the occupation of Germany was ‘to destroy the National Socialistic Party and its affiliated and supervised organizations and to dissolve all Nazi and militaristic activity or propaganda.’ In accordance with Allied Control Council laws and military government regulations, all documents and objects which might tend to revitalize the Nazi spirit or German militarism would be confiscated or destroyed. For example, Title 18, Military Government Regulation, OMGUS stated that: ‘all collections of works of art related or dedicated to the perpetuation of German militarism or Nazism will be closed permanently and taken into custody.’ As a consequence, thousands of paintings –portraits of Nazi-leaders, paintings containing a swastika or depicting military/war sceneries– were considered ‘of no value’ and destroyed. With knives, fires and hammers, they smashed countless sculptures and burned thousands of paintings. Around 8,722 artworks were shipped to military deposits in the U.S.
OMGUS regulated and censored the art world. The Information Control Division (ICD, the key structure in the political control of post-war German culture in the American zone) was in fact a non-violent version of the Reichskulturkammer (Reich Chamber of Culture). With its seven subdivisions (i.e. press, literature, radio, film, theatre, music, and art), the ICD neatly replaced the Reich Chamber of Culture. The ICD established through its various sections a system of licensed activity, with screening and vetting by Intelligence to exclude all politically undesirable people.
‘Free’ German artists producing ‘free German art’ after 1945
In the ideology of OMGUS, painting was conceived of as a strategic element in the campaign to politically re-educate the German people for a new democratic internationalism. Modern art allowed for the establishment of an easy continuity with the pre-Nazi modernist past, and it could serve as a springboard for the international projection of Germany as a new country interacting with its new Western partners.
‘Free’ artists producing ‘free art’ was one of the most powerful symbols of the new Germany, the answer to the politically controlled art of the Third Reich. Modern art linked Western Germany to Western Europe – separating the new West German aesthetic and politics from that of the Nazi era, the U.S.S.R., and East Germany – and suggested an ‘authentically’ German identity.
Left: Archbishop Makarios III, president of Cypres, poses while his portrait is painted by Paul Mathias Padua. Depicted in the ‘La Crosse Tribune’ (Wisconsin), 3 October 1965.
Right: the portrait of Makarios III by Padua shown on German television on 7 September 1965.
Shown on German television on 7 September 1965:
Left: Paul Mathias Padua, ‘Richard Strauss’ (Richard Georg Strauss, 1864 – 1949, leading German composer and conductor).
Middle: Paul Mathias Padua, ‘Gerhart Hauptmann’ (Gerhart Johann Robert Hauptmann, 1862 – 1946, German dramatist and novelist who received the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1912).
Right: Paul Mathias Padua, ‘Herbert von Karajan’ (Herbert von Karajan, 1908 – 1989), principal conductor of the Berlin Philharmonic for 35 years, generally regarded as one of the greatest conductors of the 20th century. Dominant figure in European classical music from the mid-1950s until his death.
Paul Mathias Padua, ‘Portrait of Alfried Krupp von Bohlen und Halbach, 1907 – 1925’). Located in the Villa Hügel, city of Essen. Photo 2019.
Detroit free Press (Michigan), 25 August 1981: ; ‘painter who created –Der Führer Speaks- died..’
New York Times, August 26, 1981: ‘Paul Padua, Artist, Is Dead. Known for Portrait of Hitler’.
Paul Mathas Padua, shown on German television on 7 September, 1965.
Paul Mathias Padua
Paul Mathias Padua (1903–1981) was a German painter who grew up in poor circumstances with his grandparents in Bavaria. When he was 15 years old he voluntarily joined the military during World War I. Later, he left the Art Academy already after eight days to focus on his artistic interests. He was largely self-taught, basing his studies on the work of Wilhelm Leibl and the artists of Leibl’s circle. Padua concentrated on traditional painting: portraits, still life’s, landscapes and flower bunches. He joined the Munich Artists’ Association in 1922, and in the same year he exhibited for the first time at the Munich Glaspalast. Numerous Glaspalast-exhibitions would follow, as well as prestigious prizes: the ‘Georg Schicht Preis’ in 1928, the ‘Albrecht Dürer Preis’ in 1930 and a travel bursary awarded by the City of Munich in 1931. His travelings brought him to West- and South Africa, Tunisia, Japan, China, Hongkong, Romania and Albania.
At the end of the 1920s/ beginning of the 1930s, Padua created a series of portraits of ‘Sarntaler Bauern’ (‘Farmers from the Sarntal’); the magazine ‘Das Bild’, April 1935, in which the exhibition ‘Kollektiv-Ausstellung der NS-Kulturgemeinde Berlin’ is described (with works by Ferdinand Spiegel and Josepf Thorak), writes about the ‘Rest eines königlichen, Germanischen Stammes’ in the region of Bolzano, the capital city of South Tyrol: the ‘Sarntalern’, descendants of the Goths, ‘die Gotensöhne’. In 1931/32 Padua met Leni Riefenstahl in the Sarntal, when she was creating the movie ‘Das Blaue Licht’ (‘The Blue Light’).
Later in 1937 and 1940, the City of Munich awarded Padua the Lenbachpreis. His success grew further in the 30s and came to a high point during the Nazi era. He also exhibited in Paris in 1932 and in London in 1935 and 1936. In June 1936 Padua participated in the exhibition ‘Heroische Kunst, NS Kulturgemeinde’, Munich. In 1938 he participated in the exhibition ‘Deutscher Bauern – Deutsches Land’ in Berlin (‘Ausstellung unter der Schirmherrschaft von Reichsbauernführer Reichsminister R. Walther Darré und Reichsleiter Alfred Rosenberg’); in the same year his works were shown at the exhibition ‘Kunstausstellung der NS-Gemeinschaft Kraft Durch Freude’, Kunstahlle, Hamburg. The once poor child now had contacts with important industrial families such as the Flicks, Krupps, Hortens, Siemens, Oetkers as well as with political leaders and kings.
Paul Padua had 27 paintings in the Great German Art Exhibitions. They were bought by Heinrich Himmler, Hitler, Joachim von Ribbentrop, Joseph Goebbels, Martin Bormann and other nazi institutions for prices of up to 30.000 Reichsmark.
The painting ‘Leda and the Swan’ created quite a scandal when it was exhibited in the GDK 1939 because of its salaciousness. Gauleiter and Minster Adolf Wagner strongly disapproved of the painting and Padua feared being sent to a concentration camp. However, his painting was bought by Hitler himself -for his spare bedroom in the Berghof- for 5.000 Reichsmark; Padua became famous and lived until 1981. As model, Padua bought for 25 Reichsmark a large swan from Mr. Hencke, the director of the Munich zoo. Later, at 3 October 1965, Padua wrote in the newspaper ‘La Cosse Tribune’ (Wisconsin): ‘The Americans conficated it (the painting) when they took the Obersalzberg retreat. I heard later that it had been auctioned off and have no idea today who has it’.
Besides the famous ‘Leda mit dem Schwan’ Padua painted two of the most well-known propaganda pictures of the National Socialists: ‘Der Führer Spricht’ (‘The Leader Speaks’, GDK 1940, room 15), a work commissioned by the ‘Intendant des Reichsrundfunks’, and ‘Der 10. May 1940’, GDK 1941, room 1. The 10th of May 1940 celebrates the German’s opening of the western offenses. The leader of the 15 men crossing the Rhine (to the French side) was depicted as someone who was beckoning the whole nation to follow him with an almost religious gesture; he was the leader, but also their comrade. Padua, engaged as a war artist as a part of the Propagandakompagnie, was wounded when he was painting this scene. Later he finished the painting in his atelier in Munich.
In 1944 Padua displayed ‘Der Urlauber’ (‘On Holiday’), at the exhibition ‘Deutsche Künstler und die SS’ in Breslau.
Paul Mathias Padua painted Benito Mussolini three times, he told Der Spiegel in an interview in 1965 (i.a. in 1937 and in 1945). In February 1945 Italian dictator Benito Mussolini sat for a Padua portrait. ‘When I finished the picture of Il Duce he looked long and hard at it, then at me. He told me it was the best portrait if himself he’d ever seen, but that he was afraid it was also his last… He was killed two months later’, Padua said in an interview with the ‘La Crosse Tribune’ (Wisconsin), on 3 October 1965.
Padua portrayed industrialists Friedrich Flick and Helmut Horten, Archbishop Makarios III, president of Cypres (depicted in the ‘La Crosse Tribune’, Wisconsin, 3 October 1965), Otto Hahn (winner of the Nobel Prize in Chemistry 1944), conductor Herbert von Karajan, composer and conductor Richard Strauss, composer Paul Lincke, dramatist and novelist Gerhart Hauptmann and the politicians Josef Ertl and Franz Josef Strauß.
After the war he held a succesfull show at Lilienfeld’s Galeries in New York and in September 1965 he opened an exhibition of his own works in the Munich ‘Galerie Schumacher’, the same gallery were he first cought Hitlers eye.
Paul Matias Padua died in 1981 in Rottach-Egern.
Several newspapers in the USA wrote about the death of Paul Mathias Padua. The New York Times, August 26, 1981: ‘Paul padua, Artist, Is Dead. Known for Portrait of Hitler’. The Detroit free Press (Michigan) of 25 August 1981 writes: ‘painter who created –Der Führer Speaks- died..’.
‘Der Urlauber’ by Padua, size 194 x 154 cm, is nowadays in the possession of the Deutsches Historisches Museum; the work was displayed at the exhibition ‘Artige Kunst, Kunst und Politik im Nationalsozialismus‘ (‘Compliant Art, Art and Politics in the National Socialist era’) held at Museum Situation Kunst, Bochum (November 2016 – April 2017), Kunsthalle Rostock, Rostock (April – June 2017) and at Kunstforum Ostdeutsche Galerie, Regensburg (July – October 2017); depicted in the exhibition catalogue.