Hitler watercolors to go on display in Italy

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Bergamo, Italy (dpa) - Question: What unites Pablo Picasso, Andy Warhol and Adolf Hitler? Answer: An art exhibition in northern Italy.

Entitled "War is Over 1945-2005", the exhibition opening at Bergamo's Museum of Modern and Contemporary Art on October 15 offers visitors an international collection of drawings, paintings and posters united by the common theme of freedom in Europe in the post World War II era.

From Warhol's stylised image of Vladimir Lenin to Picasso's "Grande baigneuse au livre", the exhibition seeks to show visitors that "freedom is a gift that needs to be conquered", one of its curators, Giacinto Di Pietrantonio, said Thursday.

The curiosity element is provided by two watercolours painted by Nazi dictator Adolf Hitler during his youth days in Vienna.

The paintings - one showing a view of parliament in Vienna and another of St. Peter's Cathedral in Munich - were found after the war by an Italian collector and first went on display in Florence in 1984.

"Hitler's watercolours are an important historical document, though they have little artistic value," Di Pietrantonio told Deutsche Presse-Agentur dpa.

According to biographies, Hitler moved to Vienna at the age of 18 hoping to became an artist. He made a living as a painter copying scenes from postcards and selling his paintings to merchants but was twice rejected by Vienna's school of art.

Asked to rate Der Fuhrer's artistic qualities, he said: "Hitler's works didn't add or change anything to the artistic scene of the period. There were hundreds of street painters like him at the time. Having said that, it would have been much better had he remained a painter".

The "War is Over" exhibition, which runs until the end of February 2006, also features works by, among others, Paul Klee, Francis Bacon, Giorgio De Chirico, Yoko Ono and John Lennon.

Information is available at www.gamec.it.