In a divided Germany after World War II, artists in both East and West reacted to the war's political legacies by reviving pre-war artistic traditions. Newly energized, these traditions - including expressionism, abstraction and realism - gave birth to a wide range of powerful and meaningful contemporary artworks during the Cold War years.This substantial and profusely illustrated book, with sixteen important essays by major art historians and cultural critics, is the first comprehensive look at the full extent of post-war Germant art. It includes work in a variety of mediums by Georg Baselitz, Willi Baumeister, Bernd and Hilla Becher, Joseph Beuys, Hermann Glockner, Hannah Hoch, Jorg Immendorff, Anselm Kiefer, Blinky Palermo, A. R. Penck, Sigmar Polke, Gerhard Richter, Werner Tubke and many others."The Art of the Two Germanys" is the catalogue for a groundbreaking international exhibition that reveals for the first time the contribution of both Germanys to the growth of contemporary art.

Stephanie Barron is senior curator of modern art at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art and an expert on twentieth-century German art. Sabine Eckmann is director and chief curator of the Mildred Lane Kemper Art Museum at Washington University. Eckhart Gillen is an art historian and curator for Kulturprojekte Berlin.