GROSSPIETSCH, Curt Die Witwe ['The Widow'] [Berlin: c.1930].
Pen and ink on board, 12 x 15cm (image), 41.5 x 31.5 (framed); showing an old woman in a garden with flowers, in front of a house.
Grosspietsch was a graphic artist and pupil of Otto Dix, who worked in Dresden during the inter-war years. He became a member of the artist group Die Schaffenden, and in 1924 joined the Dresden Art Association. Like Otto Dix, he was demoted to a landscapist during the Nazi era and only exhibited flower paintings. His watercolor Jongleurinnen was confiscated from the Staatliche Gemäldegalerie in 1937 as part of the “ Degenerate Art ” campaign and listed as destroyed by a Nazi inventory. Since open resistance was no longer possible, Großpietsch, as a consultant at the Kunstkammer in Dresden, tried to protect colleagues from persecution by making incriminating files disappear.
A visceral and haunting original artwork.
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