This past summer I went with colleagues from MoMA on a research trip to Germany to learn about art in the German Democratic Republic (GDR). MoMA’s website post: notes on modern and contemporary art from around the globe recently published an essay I wrote on artist and industrial designer Karl Heinz-Adler. Adler died this past November after a long career. He used abstract, geometric forms in both his fine art and design work–even during the GDR, with its official policy of Socialist Realism. Only in the past few years has his art received wide recognition. I consider Adler’s career and working approach under the changing political conditions in Germany in the essay.

Karl-Heinz Adler, who died in November 2018, used an abstract geometric approach in both his design and his fine art practices. This essay explores the different reception that Adler received with these two bodies of work in the German Democratic Republic (1949-90), where the official artistic style was Socialist Realism. Given state control and the resistance to alternative aesthetic forms, it is remarkable that Adler’s abstract geometries found their way into the everyday life of East German citizens.

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