C.1920. Woodcut on wove paper, 50 x 40.2 cm (block), 59 x 48.6 cm (sheet). Signed in pencil by the artist and inscribed ‘Gothein H’ by second hand (Gustav Schiefler?) at the lower margin of the sheet. Provenance: Gustav Schiefler Collection.
After meeting Ernst Ludwig Kirchner in Berlin in 1912, Werner Gothein became one of only two students at the Muim Institute "für modernen Unterricht in Malerei" (for the Modern Teaching of Painting - abbreviated MUIM), which Kirchner had founded the previous year together with Max Pechstein. The institute, which was advertised by a vignette by Kirchner in Herwarth Walden's magazine Der Sturm, as well as by a large-format woodcut poster by Kirchner, was apparently not successful. Nevertheless, Kirchner's influence was clearly evident in Gothein's early woodcuts.
