Art and Currency in 1920s Germany

New Series of Weimar Banknotes Now On View

A piece of paper money showing a figure in a red jester’s outfit baking items in the shape of owls and monkeys. The room has a fireplace, shelves with animal-shaped items, and a sack on the floor. Text at the bottom is in German.

Günther Clausen, 1-Mark Note, Kneitlingen, Germany, 1921. Ink on paper. Yale University Art Gallery, Transfer from the Yale University Library, Numismatic Collection, 2001

Engraving and printing practices of the 20th century are the focus of the Art and Currency installation in the numismatics gallery. One particular highlight of the display is the emergency currency, or Notgeld, issued by regional governments in Germany during the final years of World War I and the interwar period. The rotation, updated in February 2025, now features notes from Kneitlingen, Germany.

These banknotes quickly became more about form than function. Specifically, Notgeld allowed independent territories throughout the Weimar Republic to express their own histories, folktales, political frustrations, and cultural critiques through art. The currency circulated imagery by some of the period’s most avant-garde artistic movements, including Dadaism, Neue Sachlichkeit (New Objectivity), and Post-Expressionism. Amid the hyperinflation of 1920s Germany, Notgeld came to be issued in higher and higher denominations: a single note could be valued at trillions of marks.

Art and Currency is on view in the Bela Lyon Pratt Gallery of Numismatics through March 2026.

Browse the banknotes in the installation