Seated Girl with Red Garter

Max Pechstein, 1914

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Artist: Max Pechstein (German, 1881–1955)
Medium: Black conté crayon, heighened with pink pastel or gouache on Japan paper
Size: 17 7/8 × 11 3/4 in. (45.4 × 29.8 cm) (sight)
Museum: Minneapolis Institute of Art
Rights: Public Domain Mark

This drawing, dated 1914, was executed on the eve of World War I. Pechstein had recently parted ways with Die Brücke (The Bridge, 1905-13), one of Germany’s most influential associations of avant-garde artists, being dismissed after choosing to exhibit at the Berlin Secession. He had become interested in Oceanic art and began drawing sculptures at the Völkerkundemuseum in Berlin, before travleing with his wife to the Palau islands in the South Pacific, a German colony at the time. With the outbreak of the World War I in 1914, they returned home and he enlisted in the German army. A number of black chalk figure drawings by Pechstein date to this turbulant year.

Text: Minneapolis Institute of Art (Mia), CC BY 4.0.