Ernst Thoms (November 13, 1896 – May 11, 1983) was a German painter associated with the New Objectivity.
Thoms was born in Nienburg. He apprenticed as a painter from 1911 to 1914.Michalski 1994, p. 218. At the start of World War I in 1914, he entered military service. He was captured as a prisoner of war and held in England for five years ending in 1919.Schmied 1978, p. 130. In 1920, Thoms studied under Fritz Burger-Mühlfeld at the School of Arts and Crafts in Hanover. He found work as a stage-set painter at the Opera House in Hanover during 1924–25.
Like the other New Objectivity artists active in Hanover, Thoms worked in a style that was unsentimental but "often reveals moods of a lyrical and fairy-tale-like nature", according to Sergiusz Michalski.Michalski 1994, p. 136. In Attic (1926), Thoms presents prosaic subject matter in an undramatic way that nevertheless, with its openings into glimpsed spaces, suggests a mystery.Michalski 1994, p. 137.
Among the Hanover New Objectivity artists, Thoms was the only one who received any support from the Kestner-Society, which gave him a solo exhibition in 1926.Michalski 1994, pp. 136, 218. He was also the only one who gained exposure in Berlin, where he had a solo show in 1928 in the Galerie Neumann-Nierendorf.Michalski 1994, pp. 135–136. He joined the Hanover Secession in 1931.
Thoms was in military service during 1939–40. In 1943, Allied bombing destroyed his house and studio, causing a loss of many of his works. He was given a retrospective at the Hanover Kunstverein in 1957, and in 1964 was awarded the Grand Cross of Merit of the Lower-Saxony Order of Merit.
Thoms died in Wietzen in 1983.
Notes
References Michalski, Sergiusz (1994). New Objectivity. Cologne: Benedikt Taschen. Schmied, Wieland (1978). Neue Sachlichkeit and German Realism of the Twenties. London: Arts Council of Great Britain.