Max Slevogt’s “Visions” at Leicester’s New Walk Gallery

November 11, 2014 10:18 am Published by Christoper P Jones

I recently had the pleasure of visiting the New Walk Museum & Art Gallery in Leicester. Enjoying this very fine museum, and paying particular attention to the German Expressionist collection, a small number of ink cartoons by the German artist Max Slevogt caught my eye. The drawings were sketches for his “Visions” series of lithographs, produced during the WW1 in response to his commission as an official war artist.

Max Slevogt (1868 – 1932) was a German painter and illustrator, best known for his landscapes and portraiture in the Impressionist style. His “Visions” series is an attack on the absurd violence of the war. The sketch titled “The Suicide Machine” (plate 17) is particularly scathing: gentlemen in raincoats drop a coin into a street-side machine, which then shoots them dead. Four images from the collection are shown here.

 

Categorised in: Art history, Some thoughts

This post was written by Christoper P Jones