The Cleveland Museum of Art

Collection Online as of March 29, 2024

Figure in the Street at Night (recto); Portrait of a Woman (verso)

Figure in the Street at Night (recto); Portrait of a Woman (verso)

1913
Location: not on view

Description

Ludwig Meidner was not formally associated with an Expressionist group, but this scene of explosive light above a deserted street encapsulates the urban anxiety conveyed in the work of many of his contemporaries. The striking patterns of black and white drawn in ink are reminiscent of the cut surfaces of a woodcut. The back (verso) of the drawing features a lively portrait of a young woman. The artist once advised that in making a portrait one should “dig like a mole down into the mysterious deep of the pupils and into the white of the eye and don’t let your pen stop until the soul of that one opposite you is welded to yours in a covenant of pathos.”
  • D. Thomas Bergen, NY and London
    [Karl & Faber, Munich, 19-20 Oct. 1965, p. 188, no. 1572]; [Galerie Stangl, Munich (letter from Isolde Neumann of Karl & Faber in departmental file)]; D. Thomas Bergen, NY and London (exhibition catalog of his collection); [Christie's, London, 2 Dec. 1980, p. 23, no. 220 (photocopy in deparmental file)]; [Margo Schab Inc., New York]
  • Cleveland Museum of Art. Images of the Mind. Cleveland, Ohio: Cleveland Museum of Art, 1987. Reproduced: [p. 30]
  • Graphic Discontent: German Expressionism on Paper. The Cleveland Museum of Art (organizer) (January 14-May 27, 2018).
    The German Tradition. The Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, OH (organizer) (April 27-June 27, 1993).
    Ludwig Meidner. Mathildenhohe Darmstadt, Darmstadt, Germany (organizer) (September 15-December 1, 1991).
    Images of the Mind. The Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, OH (organizer) (July 7-August 30, 1987).
    Eastward from the Rhine: Romanticism to Abstraction, 1800-1925. The Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, OH (organizer) (June 12-September 9, 1984).
    The Year in Review for 1982. The Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, OH (organizer) (January 5-February 6, 1983).
  • {{cite web|title=Figure in the Street at Night (recto); Portrait of a Woman (verso)|url=false|author=Ludwig Meidner|year=1913|access-date=29 March 2024|publisher=Cleveland Museum of Art}}

Source URL:

https://www.clevelandart.org/art/1982.14