Lot 347 D

Bruno Voigt was born in 1912 and began studying under Walter Klemm at Weimar's academy of fine art in 1929. Entirely committed to the direction in art known as the New Objectivity, his stylistic role models included Otto Dix, George Grosz and Karl Arnold. His artistic affinity with these contemporaries also becomes clear in the present work on paper. This work additionally illustrates Voigt's pacifist attitude, which led him to desert in 1941. In combination with the threatening-looking figure at the right edge of the picture, whose face is depicted as a grotesque mask, the shrill colours conjure up a nightmarish wartime scenario. It takes the form of a foreboding premonition of the societal and political shift that was taking place in Germany during those years. After the Nazis seized power, Voigt's works were denounced as degenerate. The young artist, who was also politically active, only narrowly managed to escape arrest by the SA and withdrew to the countryside in 1937. His inconspicuous life there enabled him to continue to create his art. Instead of political works, he then primarily created portraits and depictions of couples in the style of the New Objectivity.