Georg Tappert (1880-1957), Head, 1918 (1964)

Georg Tappert (1880 Berlin - 1957 Berlin), Head, 1918 (1964). Wietek 110. Estate print from 1964. Linocut on Japan, 17 cm x 24.5 cm (depiction), 24 cm x 31.5 cm (sheet size), marked lower left in lead as copy 4/10, with the estate stamp on the reverse and signed by the artist's wife, Anneliese Tappert.            
- slight crease in the upper margin, otherwise in excellent condition  



- Mental thunderstorm of war -


In the midst of the structures of a dissolving world a head forms, which is drawn into this dissolution. The eyes of the face are closed, so that the world appears as a dream face, as if the war, first greeted as an expressionistic beacon, now shakes the head and continues beyond the war.



About the artist

After studying at the Karlsruhe Art Academy from 1900 to 1903 and an interlude at the Burg Saaleck Art School, Georg Tappert returned to Berlin in 1905, where his works were exhibited by Paul Cassirer. From 1906 to 1908, Tappert lived in the Worpswede artists' colony and ran an art school there. His most important student was Wilhelm Morgner, who died during World War I and whose estate Tappert later worked on. In Worpswede he met Paula Modersohn-Becker, whose art inspired him. When Tappert returned to Berlin in 1910, his works were rejected by the Berlin Secession, and he and Max Pechstein founded the New Secession, which lasted until 1914 and included Franz Marc and Wassily Kandinsky, bringing together artists from the Brücke and the Blaue Reiter. In 1911, together with Käthe Kollwitz, he founded the "Juryfreie" exhibition in Berlin, and in 1918 he co-founded the "Novembergruppe" and the "Arbeitsrat für Kunst". In 1921 he was appointed professor at the Königliche Kunstschule. The Nazis removed him from his post in 1937 and in the same year removed many of his works from museums as 'degenerate'. Tappert withdrew into inner emigration, painting mainly landscapes. After the war, he devoted himself to rebuilding the Kunstgewerbeschule, which he merged with the Kunstgewerbeschule under Karl Hofer.