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Collections

Margarete Hamerschlag
The Masque of the Red Death1924

On view:
BCAM 3rd Floor, Danse Macabre: Death in Print from Dürer to Dix
Woodcut print on cream paper, densely packed scene of masked and costumed figures with bold black outlines, hatched textures, and exaggerated facial features
Black and white woodcut or etching with dense cross-hatched marks; a swirling dark void dominates the center, surrounded at the bottom by a crowd of anguished faces rendered in stark contrast, with a reclining figure at upper right and a village landscape visible at top left.
Woodcut print in black and white depicting a standing figure in dark robes flanked by two skeletal figures with outstretched hands; a radiating sun or halo motif appears in the upper right, with heavily textured crosshatched background.
Woodblock print in high-contrast black and white depicting several standing figures in elaborate headdresses and patterned garments, with floral motifs scattered across dark robes; bold gouged lines and dense black areas surround a central masked figure flanked by attendants.
Woodcut print in black and white; a large abstracted face with hollow eyes and jagged mouth dominates the left, rendered in dense vertical grain lines; at lower center a prone figure with crossed arms; at right, a standing cloaked figure surrounded by a cluster of mask-like faces with bold, simplified features; high-contrast composition with rough, expressive cutting.

Margarete Hamerschlag, Untitled, 1924, Los Angeles County Museum of Art, The Robert Gore Rifkind Center for German Expressionist Studies, Gift of Robert Gore Rifkind, photo © Museum Associates/LACMA

Artist or Maker
Margarete Hamerschlag
1902 - 1958
Title
The Masque of the Red Death
Place Made
Austria, Vienna
Date Made
1924
Medium
Printed material and five woodcuts on handmade oatmeal paper
Dimensions
Overall: 15 7/8 x 12 1/8 in. (40.32 x 30.8 cm)
Credit Line
The Robert Gore Rifkind Center for German Expressionist Studies, Gift of Robert Gore Rifkind
Accession Number
AC1992.165.175.1-.5
Classification
Books
Collecting Area
Robert Gore Rifkind Center for German Expressionist Studies
Selected Bibliography

  • Davis, Bruce. German Expressionist Prints and Drawings: The Robert Gore Rifkind Center for German Expressionist Studies. Los Angeles, CA: Los Angeles County Museum of Art, 1989; Munich, Germany: Prestel, 1989.

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