Sometimes fairy tales really do come true. On first hearing, the story of the seventeenth-century canvas of Judith beheading Holofernes that was discovered in the attic of a house in Toulouse in 2014 sounded like a work of fiction, especially once it became known that eminent scholars were prepared to argue that the painting was by Caravaggio. 

These two excellent exhibitions, both with highly informative catalogues, explore with a new openness the relationship between Expressionism and National Socialism. As part of Escape into Art? at the Brücke-Museum, which investigates the period up to 1945, the neighbouring Kunsthaus Dahlem examines the rehabilitation of the Brücke artists in the post-war era.(1) It is the first time that these two institutions have joined forces, which is symbolic of a new wider approach.