Chronology of the European Avant Garde, 19001937 - British Library

1937
• National Unity Camp formed in Poland.
• Destruction of the Basque town of Guernica by the German
Condor Legion.
• The Great Terror in Soviet Union.
FRANCE
• Exposition Internationale des Arts et des Techniques dans la Vie
Moderne. Picasso's Guernica exhibited in the Spanish Pavilion.
• June-October Les maîtres de l’art independant, 1895-1937 at
the Petit Palais
• Breton L'amour fou.
• Jean-Louis Barrault produces Cervantes’ Numances (designs by
André Masson).
GERMANY
• ‘Entartete Kunst’ (‘Degenerate Art’) exhibition held in Munich,
showcasing avant-garde art considered ‘degenerate’ by the Nazis.
• Premiere of Carl Orff’s Carmina Burana in Frankfurt am Main;
the work is strongly condemned by leading Nazi critic Herbert
Gerigk.
GREAT BRITAIN
• Axis: a quarterly review of contemporary 'abstract' painting and
sculpture, edited by Myfanwy Evans, London.
SWITZERLAND
• 2 Jun Berg’s unfinished opera Lulu premiered in Zurich (Acts 1 &
2)
CZECHOSLOVAKIA
• May Opening of E.F. Burian´s exhibition of the Czechoslovak
avant-garde in Prague combining works by the Devětsil generation
with those of young artists who had exhibited at Burian´s D37
theatre and later formed the basis of Skupina 42.
• Zdeněk Pešánek´s kinetic and light sculptures are shown in the
Czechoslovak pavilion of the Exposition universelle in Paris.
• Nezval publishes his poem Absolutní hrobař (The absolute
grave-digger) with his own decalcomania.
• Štyrský and Toyen participate in the Tokyo Surrealist exhibition.
HUNGARY
• Kassák has jubilee concert for his 50th birthday at the Music
Academy
UKRAINE
• Mykhail Semenko reads his satirical poem “Nimechchyna”
[Germany] months before his arrest and execution by NKVD.
• Theatrical avant-gardist Les Kurbas is executed in the Solovki
concentration camp.
• Mykhailo Boichuk and his wife Sofia Nalepinska-Boichuk are
executed.
• Mike Johansen is executed in Kyiv.