The Cleveland Museum of Art

Collection Online as of March 29, 2024

Seated Harlequin

Seated Harlequin

1922
(German, 1889–1957)
Catalogue raisonné: Engels 59
Location: not on view

Description

Like several of his fellow Expressionists in Munich, Heinrich Campendonk believed that the natural world was a necessary antidote to a corrupt and ill society. This print portrays a horse, the recurring mystical figure of Der Blaue Reiter, along with a harlequin, a nude female in outline, a still life, and vegetation. By the 1920s, the harlequin was a ubiquitous personification of bohemian culture. Campendonk derived the hard outlines and broad, flat black planes from sources including African tribal art and Asian shadow puppetry, examples of “primitive” art forms that appealed greatly to the Expressionists’ search for authenticity.
  • Graphic Discontent: German Expressionism on Paper. The Cleveland Museum of Art (organizer) (January 14-May 27, 2018).
    Cross Section: Graphic Art in Germany after the First World War. The Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, OH (organizer) (October 10, 1989-January 7, 1990).
    Eastward from the Rhine: Romanticism to Abstraction, 1800-1925. The Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, OH (organizer) (June 12-September 9, 1984).
    German Expressionist Graphics. The Cleveland Museum of Art (organizer) (May 7-October 5, 1980).
    Year in Review: 1972. The Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, OH (organizer) (February 27-March 18, 1973).
  • {{cite web|title=Seated Harlequin|url=false|author=Heinrich Campendonk|year=1922|access-date=29 March 2024|publisher=Cleveland Museum of Art}}

Source URL:

https://www.clevelandart.org/art/1971.245