Hinrichtung (Summary Execution)

Georg Scholz, artist

1890–1945

Hinrichtung (Summary Execution), 1921

Where object was made: Germany

Material/technique: laid paper; lithograph

Dimensions:
Image Dimensions Height/Width (Height x Width): 217 x 330 mm
Image Dimensions Height/Width (Height x Width): 8 9/16 x 13 in
Sheet/Paper Dimensions (Height x Width): 325 x 489 mm
Sheet/Paper Dimensions (Height x Width): 12 13/16 x 19 1/4 in
Mat Dimensions (Height x Width): 20 x 25 in

Credit line: Museum purchase: Letha Churchill Walker Fund

Accession number: 2007.0114

Not on display

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Label texts

Exhibition Label:
"Machine in a Void: World War I & the Graphic Arts," Mar-2010, Steve Goddard
Georg Scholz became deeply politicized, joining the German Communist party and the Novembergruppe (November Group, referencing the 1918 November Revolution in Germany), and participating in the first international DADA Fair in Berlin in 1920. Scholz was also a leading figure of the 1920s artistic movement in Germany known as Neue Sachlichkeit (New Objectivity). New Objectivity evolved in Germany in direct opposition to the urgent emotionalism of Expressionism. This precisely rendered, caricatural, and gruesome image is from this early, stridently political period of Scholz’s career. It shows a scene in which a smug and wealthy capitalist appears as the master of ceremonies at a covert execution to which the church is also party, bringing to mind the torture and execution of the Spartakist/communist activists Rosa Luxembourg and Karl Liebknecht, who were abducted and murdered in January 1919.

See also in this exhibition Scholz's woodcut Gestalt Mit Tod (Figure with Death), done only a few years earlier, in 1919, in a very different and more expressionist style.