how many paintings by adolf hitler are in existance?

Answer 1

The total number is likely around two hundred - - - what is little known is Hitler earned a living wage painting from approximately 1905 through 1914 when he went off to war. These were often postcard sized painting sold mainly to furniture stores as part of their wares or to tourists visiting Munich. What is scarcely understood is that Hitler had the potentilal to be a 'commercial' artist but while that concept thrived in England and America, it was an unknown notion in Vienna at the turn of the century. When Hitler applied to the University he was rejected no so much for his lack of talent, but because as a Middle Class Child, it was thought that he would be unable to support himself as an artist. In Vienna artists were typically sons & daughters of the upper clases, their parents could always support them while they 'struggled.' The University did not encourage the poorer sorts to do so, figuring that the State would end up supporting them; Austria had pension & welfare systems even then and actually Adolf had a pension from his diseased father. Adolfs worst failing as an artists were faces & hands but his paitings of buildings & street scenes were 'fine' and actually during the First World War he even dabbled in near-impressionistic pieces that were actually quite good. No matter how much one hates Hitler it still should be said that if others had encouraged him to pursue life as an artist the world would have been better off...

Links and snippets of longer article (s)
http://www.fpp.co.uk/Hitler/artist/Price/WashingtonPost210402a.html
""""""-----." There are a couple of prominent Hitler art collectors in Britain and elsewhere (Florence's Uffizi Gallery owns 18 Hitlers, and several Japanese collectors have a few Hitlers, though most Japanese concentrate on Nazi uniforms, which reenactors like to wear), but most of the best collections are in this country.
But prices jump markedly if the offering is something from Hitler's own hand, if it is a vision from the dictator's mind, a glimpse into the artist who might have been, into the reality that might have followed, if only the young painter had risen above his art school rejection and persisted in the career he had chosen as a boy, the path that had so outraged his father, the identity that Hitler would cling to throughout his life. Adolf Hitler, artist.
IN a corner house on a quiet street in Bowie, Charles Snyder Jr., a retired Air Force major (Korea, Vietnam), and his business partner, Chase Haddock, man the mice on a bank of computers that are always on, always scouring eBay for bids and buys. Snyder, dressed in shorts and madras plaid shirt, is surrounded by a bewildering forest of clutter: floor-to-ceiling tchotchkes; precarious piles of books and maps; plastic tubs and cruddy old suitcases, all packed with photos, magazine covers, original war documents; shelves stuffed three-deep with military uniforms, swords, guns, decorations from the French Revolution to Korea; entire newspaper photo archives; and, tucked away in crevices known only to the proprietor, 16 works of art by Hitler. It's all for sale, all priced to move. At the moment, Snyder has 1,600 items up for auction on eBay.

Hitler once said he painted more than 1,000 pieces while living in Vienna from 1909 to 1914. A U.S. government report once put Hitler's total output at closer to 3,000 works. No good accounting of the pieces has been made. Collectors around the world consider any group of 20 or more Hitlers to be a fair-size collection. Snyder has bought and sold more than 100 pieces, at prices mostly in the $5,000 to $10,000 range.

Snyder has been a collector since 1962. "It's a disease and you can't stop," he says. At 70, he is, like many collectors, old enough to remember the war. It was indeed World War II stuff that first got him hooked on the collectibles biz -- uniforms, weapons, Eva Braun's tea service, Nazi autographs, swastika cuff links, Hitler's silver, Hitler's desk ornaments, and then, finally, Hitler's art. At one point a few years ago, Snyder owned 40 Hitlers. He's down to 11 watercolors, a bunch of postcards and one large oil, a dark portrait of a cathedral under a mottled brown sky. It is signed "Adolf Hitler" and dated 1936.

"He was kind of busy then," Snyder says. The oil hangs just inside his front door, next to autographed photos of Gerald Ford and Ronald Reagan. Don't be distracted by the homey look: Everything is for sale. He wants $35,000 for the oil.


http://www.news.com.au/story/0,10117,17974057-23109,00.html
""""TWENTY-one watercolours and sketches by Adolf Hitler are to be auctioned in Britain after 70 years in a suitcase in a Belgian attic, London's Sunday Telegraph newspaper reported.

The collection was apparently produced between 1916 and 1918 when the young Hitler was a corporal during the Great War.
The works are to be auctioned at Jefferys in Lostwithiel, southwest England, and are expected to fetch up to £100,000 ($A238,000), the newspaper reported.

Among the watercolour landscapes are one of a church on the edge of town and another a hastily-erected barracks in pastel shades. They show little trace of the war raging around the scenes.""""

http://www.snyderstreasures.net/pages/hartworks.htm
""""We have just listed five original Hitler artworks, four are from the Vienna Period, and one is a very rare 1916 dated World War I Period painting. All five are pictured and described in Treasure Trove: The Looting of the Third Reich, and three are listed in Price's Adolf Hitler: The Unknown Artist. The specific paintings are: A15 -- A23 -- A24 -- A31 and A35."""

Peace ----------------------

Answer 2

Hitler often claimed to be something of a frustrated artist, and art was certainly one of his major interests throughout his life. He probably sold several thousand paintings and postcards during his stay in Vienna, some of which turn up even today. Hitler himself made no great claims to greatness as a painter (architecture was something else....). There was a thriving market for his paintings during the Third Reich — and even today, there are eager collectors.

The best book on the matter is Frederic Spotts' Hitler and the Power of Aesthetics, which takes Hitler's artistic side seriously. Spotts comments: "He had a modicum of talent —— at least in sketching buildings —— but what technique he learned he picked up on his own. Like most amateurs, he began by painting simple landscapes. With neither innate originality nor professional training, he went on to imitate the watercolours and prints of the south German school and the postcard scenes —— everyday urban views —— that were popular at the time..... Moreover, he had to paint the sort of thing that an unknown and untalented amateur might be able to sell, and that was inexpensive reproductions of familiar places" (p. 125). Spotts' book also has color reproductions of four of Hitler's paintings.

Answer 3

A few I suppose, but consistently bad

Answer 4

Don't know, don't care.