Otto Mueller

During the era of Nazi rule, Mueller was proclaimed to be a “degenerate” artist, and many works by him were removed from German art institutions. Acquired by the Kupferstich-Kabinett shortly after the end of World War II, this drawing attests to the museum’s attempt to fill in the gaps that had opened in its collection as a result of the Nazi seizures. The vividly colored work depicts three female bathers in a verdant landscape, rendered in Mueller’s intentionally schematic and two-dimensional style. It exemplifies the artist’s lifelong interest in idyllic pastoral settings, where the perfect unity of humanity and nature could be achieved.

Otto Mueller
German, 1874–1930
Three Nudes in the Forest, ca. 1920
Watercolor, colored chalks, and graphite pencil
Kupferstich-Kabinett, Staatliche Kunstsammlungen Dresden, INV. NO. C 1946-3
© Kupferstich-Kabinett, Staatliche Kunstsammlungen Dresden
Photo: Herbert Boswank