44

This paper explores the question of artistic models in Socialist countries, focusing on the plastic arts in the German Democratic Republic (GDR). Although the only declared model was Soviet art, East German artists working in Socialist realism showed little interest in that form. Rather, the realist models they chose came from outside of the Eastern bloc, namely Italy, France, and Mexico. However, from the 1960s onward, the marginalization of Socialist realism in the Socialist art world did not mean the end of these models nor of an international search for painting that showed political solidarity.