BERLIN (AP) — A Berlin museum is opening an exhibition based on research into expressionist painter Emil Nolde that chips away at the remnants of his image as a victim of the Nazi regime.

Nolde was among the prominent artists whose work was classed as "degenerate art" under Nazi rule.

But he was also a Nazi party member and, as the exhibition presented Thursday at the Hamburger Bahnhof museum shows, an anti-Semite and believer in Nazi ideology who held out hopes of winning the regime's recognition even after he was banned from exhibiting.

The show explores Nolde's elevation as an artistic pioneer and Nazi victim after World War II. It closes with "Breakers," which hung in Chancellor Angela Merkel's office until Merkel recently returned it to Berlin's museum authority.