Peter Butler

Casting Vote, 1906

The Vienna Arts Committee meets in final session.

'Talentless daubs', one pronounces.

'But with raw energy, a peculiar aggression', says the chairman, who has the casting vote.

The letter arrives. His normally cold blue eyes brighten. It is the start of Adolf Hitler's career as one of the century's most controversial landscape artists

rising
behind the thatcher
a fireball