MUELLER 2023.216

Otto Mueller was originally commissioned to create this poster as a promotional image for an Expressionist exhibition that took place in Potsdam in the summer of 1921. The work combines text and image in a way that reflects the Expressionists’ ambition to dissolve the boundaries between fine art, graphic design and public culture. Mueller also employs the woodblock’s inherent roughness to striking effect here – the white form of the figure’s body stands out from an intense, contrasting darkness, while her stylised features recall the tribal masks of Africa and Oceania. Created around the time Mueller was living among the Sinti and Roma people in south-eastern Europe, the depiction of this nude seated figure may have been inspired by his idealisation of Sinti and Romani lifestyles as alternative and free-spirited.