Female Semi-Nude, 1930

The preferred themes in the oeuvre of Viktor Planckh (1904–1941) were portraits, landscapes and nudes. In his works of the 1920s, he began to approach the style of New Objectivity. This Female Semi-Nude is sitting next to a small table with a vase and a bouquet of flowers. While the woman’s upper body is naked, her rather feeble-looking hand seems to be pulling a white cloth over her shoulder and the rest of her body. Her smooth, porcelain-like skin stands out clearly against the patterned curtain. Planckh presented his model, wearing a short blonde hairstyle, not as a seductress but as an already saturated, introverted figure with half-closed eyes. Planckh’s paintings in the style of New Objectivity are characterized by sober and clear compositions which, coupled with his exact and graphic manner of painting, allow beholders to experience a cool, distanced reality.

AK, 2021