Artist
Karl Schmidt-Rottluff 1884 – 1976

About the work
This woodcut with its characteristic, highly simplified shape is marked by a great emotionality, portraying as it does a tender, loving embrace. The two heads are large expanses of white shining bright against the black background. The composition of the faces is limited to angular, U-shaped noses whose sides simply bend over at their tops to form eyes. The lovers’ hair is rendered in an equally economical fashion, in thin white parallel lines for the woman’s long hair, and in zigzag lines on the forehead for the male head. The thin white outline around both heads makes the man’s neck appear plinth-like. The heads fuse together in their gentle caress in a monument to, or symbol of, love.

Catalog raisonné
Schapire H 264