Rudolf Nehmer (1912-1983), Blessed Are The Merciful, 1948

Rudolf Nehmer (1912 Bobersberg - 1983 Dresden), Blessed are the merciful, 1948. Woodcut on yellowish wove paper, 18.8 cm x 14.8 cm (image), 45 cm x 30 cm (sheet size), signed “Rud.[olf] Nehmer” in pencil lower right and inscribed “Matth. 5,7” lower left.

- The wide sheet margin with slight traces of creasing and somewhat wavy, the depiction in excellent, colorful condition.

- The Vision of the Child's Eyes -

This woodcut is part of Nehmer's best-known 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 beatitude: Blessed are the merciful, for they shall obtain mercy (Mt 5:7).

The path of life leads through the darkness of the world, where a child finds rest in the bosom of a man who looks like Christ and follows him, while at the end of the path of life an old woman is lovingly supported by a young woman.

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.