Head of a Woman, 1933

About the Work

In 1933, Karl Schmidt-Rottluff enclosed this work with his Christmas wishes to the Frankfurt art collector Carl Hagemann (1867–1940). The small-scale – but nonetheless intense – drawing depicts a woman raising her hand in what could be read as a holiday greeting. The artist reduced his subject’s body to simple forms. Whereas he portrayed her face in detail, lending it plasticity with crayon hatching in different colours, he represented her back as a two-dimensional, monochrome-yellow surface. It is as if the figure was being lit from behind by the sunlight in such a way as to cast a shadow over her face.

About the Acquisition

From 1900 onwards, the Frankfurt chemist and industrialist Carl Hagemann (1867‒1940) assembled one of the most important private collections of modern art. It included numerous paintings, drawings, watercolours and prints, especially by members of the artist group “Die Brücke”. After Carl Hagemann died in an accident during the Second World War, the then Städel director Ernst Holzinger arranged for Hagemann’s heirs to evacuate his collection with the museum’s collection. In gratitude, the family donated almost all of the works on paper to the Städel Museum in 1948. Further donations and permanent loans as well as purchases of paintings and watercolours from the Hagemann estate helped to compensate for the losses the museum had suffered in 1937 as part of the Nazi’s “Degenerate Art” campaign. Today, the Hagemann Collection forms the core of the Städel museum’s Expressionist collection.