Adolf Wissel

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Adolf Wissel (Velber, 19 April 1894 – Velber, 17 November 1973) was a German painter. He was one of the official artists of Nazism. His paintings, in a classical style, depict peasants and rural family life in the manner idealized by the Third Reich. His realist style is in the tradition of German academic painting but with some influences of expressionism.

Wissel was an extremely typical painter in the genre of Nazi Folk Art, the idea being that these paintings should show the simple, natural life of a farming family. The phrase 'union with the soil' best describes the subject of his art. Wissel was able to idealise farming life because the predominantly urban viewers of these works did not have a connection with it. Exhibitions of paintings of this genre were meant to show the peasants and working class that they were just as good as the wealthy, and that they too deserved a pleasant life. These paintings were part of the Nazi's 'blood and soil' campaign, designed to associate the ideas of health, family and motherhood with the country. Wissel painted many pictures such as these, but his work contains subtle distortions and accentuations seen in expressionism.