On September 30, the Ludlow Racecourse in Shropshire, England will be host to a rather controversial auction.

Among the items for sale is a selection of watercolors painted by Adolf Hitler. The pictures, which are mostly of rural scenes, were all painted around 1908, when the future Führer was a struggling artist. They are expected to fetch more than £150,000 (or $238,000) - a disturbingly large sum.

The paintings were found in a large estate in the north of Austria by an unnamed lawyer who bought the property. When he moved in the paintings were just in a cupboard. Because many large well-known auction houses are Jewish owned, they refuse to deal with any art involving Hitler. In many European countries, such as France and Austria, they couldn't be sold by law as it counts as glorifying the Nazi leader. Ebay in those countries also won't accept anything to do with him. Mullocks Auctioneers were one of the few places that would accept the paintings.

Richard Westwood-Brookes, of Mullocks, talked of Hitler's life as a young artist: “His daily activity was to go out and paint- he was penniless.” The future German leader was rejected from art school in Vienna twice. “There's been a lot of research done into the rejections and some have labeled it as a turning point in history,” said Westwood-Brookes. “If he'd been given a place in the academy the most we'd have heard of Adolf Hitler would have been that he was a routine artist painting some nice landscapes.”
So the fact that these paintings are bad has a lot to answer for. (via the Telegraph)

Read more: http://newsfeed.time.com/2010/09/27/struggling-artist-adolf-hitlers-watercolors-on-sale/#ixzz14Voy1HFn