Rudolf Nehmer (1912-1983), Birds Under The Sky, 1948

Rudolf Nehmer (1912 Bobersberg - 1983 Dresden), The birds under the sky, 1948. Woodcut on yellowish wove paper, 11 cm x 18 cm (depiction), 43 cm x 30 cm (sheet size), signed “Rud.[olf] Nehmer” in pencil lower right and inscribed “Matth. 6,26” lower left.

- The wide sheet margin slightly bumped in places, minimal traces of creasing, the image in excellent, colorful condition.

- The Sunbird -

This woodcut is part of Nehmer's most famous series, his pictorial interpretation of the Sermon on the Mount (Matth. 5,1-7,29), created shortly after the end of World War II. The print illustrates the verse: Look at the birds of the air: they do not sow, they do not reap, they do not gather into barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not much more than they? (Matth. 6,26).

In a pensive posture, the man looks thoughtfully and fascinated at the bird in the sky, which appears there like the Holy Spirit. Rays seem to emanate from the bird, filling the fenced-in meadow, which looks like a new garden of paradise. Although the man, who represents man as such, is sitting on the other side of the fence, he is still filled with the Holy Spirit.

About the artist

Rudolf Nehmer studied from 1932 to 1934 in Dresden at the private art academy founded by Ernst Oskar Simonson-Castelli under Woldemar Winkler and, after a brief interlude at the art academy, was a student in Willy Kriegel's studio until 1936. After his first one-man show in 1935 at the Kühl Art Exhibition in Dresden, which was progressive until the Nazi era, Nehmer was represented at the major German art exhibitions in the following years. In 1938 he stayed in Worpswede. From 1941 he was a soldier on the Western Front and in Denmark, returning to Dresden from British captivity in 1945. After the war, he had his first solo exhibition in 1945. Nehmer was a co-founder of the artists' association 'Das Ufer - Gruppe 1947' and in 1951 a founding member of the artists' cooperative 'Kunst und Zeit'. He had numerous solo and group exhibitions in the GDR, culminating in a retrospective at the Galerie Neuer Meister on the occasion of his 60th birthday.