82.79 Street in Wilmersdof

1913

Etching, sheet: 16 x 12" (40.5 x 30.1 cm); composition: 6 5/8 x 5 1/2" (16.7 x 14 cm)

Signed, lr: L. Meidner 1913; also signed in plate, ll: LM 1913

Print from Die Schaffenden portfolio, I. g. 4. Mappe

Provenance: Hauswedell Auction, Hamburg, May 1959

This view of a street in the Berlin district of Wilmersdorf is a characteristic example of Meidner’s hallucinatory graphic style. The buildings on the street give the impression of colliding with each other, as if toppled by an earthquake. The figures appear only as quick lines of movement as they rush down the street and toward the edge of the picture frame. Meidner’s intention was clearly the expression of psychic chaos. Meidner’s visionary, ecstatic aims were also evident in his writing about drawing at the time: “One must begin work with a pointed instrument, a ball-point pen, a sharp knife or hard crayon. As a graphic artist, don’t muck about “painterly” and bluff. Your stroke must break through from inner life. You must have a hellish wind in your nerves. You moon-crazy, your blood should be a boiling sea.”