Wols (A. O. Wolfgang Schulze). Painting. 1946-47

Wols (A. O. Wolfgang Schulze) Painting 1946-47

  • MoMA, Floor 5, 522 The Alfred H. Barr, Jr. Galleries

Following the outbreak of World War II, Wols, a German expatriate, was imprisoned in the South of France for over a year. Deprived of his camera—his preferred artistic tool—he began making drawings and watercolors, practices that he continued after his release and also expanded to include painting and printmaking. The hallucinatory, imagined worlds he depicted were frequently produced for literary collaborations with existentialist writers and poets, including Jean-Paul Sartre and René de Solier, whose prose seems a fitting match for Wols's anxious, compulsive line work.

Gallery label from Soldier, Spectre, Shaman: The Figure and the Second World War, October 24, 2015-March 20, 2016.
Medium
Oil on canvas
Dimensions
31 7/8 x 32" (81 x 81.1 cm)
Credit
Gift of D. and J. de Menil Fund
Object number
29.1956
Copyright
© 2021 Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York / ADAGP, Paris
Department
Painting and Sculpture

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