Leuna Factory, 1928

Pipes, chimneys and boilers belonging to the industrial site of the Leuna Factory, which until 1945 was one of the leading chemical plants in Germany, provided the Austrian painter and graphic artist Otto Rudolf Schatz (1900–1961) with the motif for this work on paper. Overlaps, diagonals and chiaroscuro invest the composition with an objective-constructed yet dynamically condensed aspect. Schatz, who studied at the Vienna School of Arts and Crafts, was a highly gifted woodcutter. He devoted this ability to highlighting the socio-critical problems of his time. From 1924, especially, he focused on industrial depictions and motifs from the lives of the working classes, which were in keeping with his socio-political interests. The artist regularly showed his works at exhibitions of the artists’ association Hagenbund, of which he was a member from 1928 to 1938.

AK, 2023