Ergebung, Ottilie W. Roederstein
Ottilie W. Roederstein
Ergebung
de
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This work consists of multiple parts

Ottilie W. Roederstein

Ergebung, 1918


Dimensions
55 x 46 cm
Physical Description
tempera on canvas
Inventory Number
2566
Acquisition
Acquired in 2022
Status
See Parts

Texts

About the Work

World War I had a deep impact on Roederstein and her partner. The artist had to give up her studio in Paris and was largely cut off from her friends there, as well as from the French art market. Ever fewer commissions came her way from within Germany, forcing her to rely on customers in Switzerland. Yet the lack of portrait requests also gave her the freedom to devote herself to new pictorial subjects. In this period, she carried out several non-commissioned works depicting figures in pain, sorrow or melancholy—striking testimonies to a society traumatized by war and suffering. Roederstein rendered her model’s prominent facial features in dark, woodcut-like lines. And by simplifying and flattening the representation of the body and background, she drew all the more attention to the heaviness of spirit concentrated in the face. This emotional state—which is also mirrored in the choice of sombre, dissonant shades of colour—is the work’s main theme.

Owing to the scarcity of painting materials and general financial constraints associated with the war, for Surrender Roederstein reused the canvas of a previously executed painting. The latter today forms the verso and, rotated 180 degrees, depicts a peasant woman wearing a scarf.

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Last update

02.12.2024