This intentionally comical drawing of a serious subject exemplifies Oppenheim’s dark sense of humor. The quickly sketched composition depicts a line of three figures hanging by the neck above overturned stools; a fourth noosed figure remains precariously balanced on his stool while pointing to the gallows at his right, as if to explain the scene to the child standing before him. Oppenheim’s macabre sensibility finds different expression in her early watercolor Votive Picture (Strangling Angel), a vow against childbearing, and Anatomy of a Dead Woman, a representation of a flayed female figure mounted so that it can be rolled up like a map, both on view in this gallery.
Gallery label from Meret Oppenheim: My Exhibition, October 30, 2022–March 4, 2023
