Two Dancing Figures, ca. 1913

About the Work

This woodcut shows two dancing nudes, a woman and a man. The artist has framed them so tightly that their hands come up against the edges of the composition to the right and left. As in the two small-scale drawings by Rohlfs (Städel Museum, Inv. No. 16177, 16178), the figures seem almost to be pushing their way out of the picture. The artist depicted them with similarly curved outlines in two colours and without internal structure, as a result of which the bodies look purely two-dimensional. Along with their size and square format, the distinct graphic structure of the three works lends them the character of tiles or glass windows.

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.