Otto Neumann, Standing Nude Men, 1951, Woodcut, 17 x 12.25 in. |
Fidelity to the Human Form September - October 2002
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Otto Neumann, Standing Nude Men, 1951, Woodcut, 17 x 12.25 in. |
Fidelity to the Human Form September - October 2002
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| Otto Neumann (1895-1975)
was a German painter and printmaker whose life and career incorporated
the evolution from German expressionism through biomorphic surrealism and
to the total abstraction of the human form.
Trained by academic portraitists, the artist soon became attracted to the work of Kokoschka and painted dynamic and often extremely colorful portraits. He abandoned both portraits and oil painting to pursue his increasing interests in the human condition, with woodcuts, linoleum prints, and graphite drawings of mythological and literary based subjects. After World War II, his forms became increasingly abstract, though the human figure in an undefined background remained his exclusive subject until the end of a long, active, and prolific career. Despite personal tragedy and ill health, Neumann had managed to continue to evolve as an artist. Rather than living in the past, as so many of his contemporaries of the pre-war generation had done, he had never ceased to experiment as an artist. His subjects, style, and technical processes had changed several times, and we can see Neumann's participation in the evolution of 20th-century art through the representative works in this exhibition. |
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