Trauernde am Strand (Mourners on a Beach)

Karl Schmidt-Rottluff, artist

1884–1976

Trauernde am Strand (Mourners on a Beach), 1914

Where object was made: Germany

Material/technique: woodcut; laid paper

Dimensions:
Sheet/Paper Dimensions (Height x Width): 615 x 515 mm
Sheet/Paper Dimensions (Height x Width): 20 5/16 x 20 1/4 in
Mat Dimensions (Height x Width): 24 x 32 in
Frame Dimensions (Height x Width x Depth): 24 3/4 x 32 3/4 x 1 1/2 in
Weight (Weight): 13 lbs

Credit line: Museum purchase: Letha Churchill Walker Memorial Art Fund

Accession number: 2004.0010

Not on display

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Exhibition Label:
“Machine in a Void: World War I & the Graphic Arts,” Mar-2010, Steve Goddard
Schmidt-Rottluff, a founding member of the German Expressionist group Brücke (Bridge), often spent the summers in north German coastal towns where he worked in seclusion. He spent the summer of 1914 in Hohwacht, facing the Baltic Sea, where he made several woodcuts of figures situated near the waterline, staring out to sea. This melancholic theme finds some precedent in the art of Norwegian artist Edvard Munch, as well as in the work of the earlier German artists associated with the Romantic Movement. There is some indication that Schmidt-Rottluff was expecting to be called up for military service during the summer of 1914, and works such as this may have as much to do with the artist’s meditation on families waiting for their sons to return from sea, and by extension, from war, as with the Northern traditions that they draw from. The choice of the word “mourners” in the title would seem to underscore this possibility. Schmidt-Rottluff was called for military service in 1915 and he served on the Eastern Front until 1918.