Ludwig Hohlwein
Richard Strauss-Week, Munich 1910 23-28 June1910

On view:

Geffen Galleries

Lithograph poster for a 1910 Munich festival, showing a full-length woman in an ornate latticed costume holding a tall crowned staff, with bold German text

Artist or Maker: Ludwig Hohlwein
Germany, 1874-1949
Title: Richard Strauss-Week, Munich 1910 23-28 June
Place Made: Germany, Munich
Date Made: 1910
Medium: Lithograph
Dimensions: Image and sheet: 47 1/8 x 34 in. (119.7 x 86.36 cm)
Credit Line: Gift of the Robert Gore Rifkind Foundation, Beverly Hills, CA
Accession Number: M.2003.114.80
Classification: Prints
Collecting Area: Robert Gore Rifkind Center for German Expressionist Studies
Curatorial Notes: This poster announces a weeklong celebration of the German composer Richard Strauss with the imposing title figure from his opera Salomé (1905). Based on a translation of Oscar Wilde’s play of the same name, the opera was infamous for its overt eroticism and transgressive sexual themes, which included incest and necrophilia. In the climactic scene, the princess Salomé performs the Dance of the Seven Veils—essentially a striptease—for her stepfather, King Herod. In return, Salomé demands, and receives, the head of John the Baptist. The opera was banned in Vienna and London, and the New York Metropolitan Opera canceled it after only one performance. In this poster, artist Ludwig Hohlwein evokes the sexual suggestiveness of Salomé while also gesturing to the German identity of her creator. He imagines the character as a valkyrie-like warrior princess, her sexual bravado presented as strength and stoicism. The erotic element is most apparent in the figure’s dress, which is simultaneously revealing and concealing.

Hohlwein was one of Germany’s most important poster artists. He was a pioneer of the so-called Sachplakat (Object Poster), a style that involved a stripping down of the subject to its most essential visual elements to focus attention on the object presented. This simplification of form is paired with an amplification of contrasts and colors. Hohlwein remained a poster artist throughout his life, creating imagery for everything from travel destinations to dress shirts to pantyhose to the Munich Zoo. He also became an early and enthusiastic adherent of National Socialism and after 1933 turned his talents to making posters celebrating Nazi themes.

Erin Sullivan Maynes

2024
Copyright: © Artists Rights Society (ARS) New York / VG Bild-Kunst, Bonn

Ludwig Hohlwein
Richard Strauss-Week, Munich 1910 23-28 June1910

On view:

Geffen Galleries

Artist or Maker: Ludwig Hohlwein
Germany, 1874-1949
Title: Richard Strauss-Week, Munich 1910 23-28 June
Place Made: Germany, Munich
Date Made: 1910
Medium: Lithograph
Dimensions: Image and sheet: 47 1/8 x 34 in. (119.7 x 86.36 cm)
Credit Line: Gift of the Robert Gore Rifkind Foundation, Beverly Hills, CA
Accession Number: M.2003.114.80
Classification: Prints
Collecting Area: Robert Gore Rifkind Center for German Expressionist Studies
Curatorial Notes: This poster announces a weeklong celebration of the German composer Richard Strauss with the imposing title figure from his opera Salomé (1905). Based on a translation of Oscar Wilde’s play of the same name, the opera was infamous for its overt eroticism and transgressive sexual themes, which included incest and necrophilia. In the climactic scene, the princess Salomé performs the Dance of the Seven Veils—essentially a striptease—for her stepfather, King Herod. In return, Salomé demands, and receives, the head of John the Baptist. The opera was banned in Vienna and London, and the New York Metropolitan Opera canceled it after only one performance. In this poster, artist Ludwig Hohlwein evokes the sexual suggestiveness of Salomé while also gesturing to the German identity of her creator. He imagines the character as a valkyrie-like warrior princess, her sexual bravado presented as strength and stoicism. The erotic element is most apparent in the figure’s dress, which is simultaneously revealing and concealing.

Hohlwein was one of Germany’s most important poster artists. He was a pioneer of the so-called Sachplakat (Object Poster), a style that involved a stripping down of the subject to its most essential visual elements to focus attention on the object presented. This simplification of form is paired with an amplification of contrasts and colors. Hohlwein remained a poster artist throughout his life, creating imagery for everything from travel destinations to dress shirts to pantyhose to the Munich Zoo. He also became an early and enthusiastic adherent of National Socialism and after 1933 turned his talents to making posters celebrating Nazi themes.

Erin Sullivan Maynes

2024