Small Sheep and Doll, 1934

Rudolf Wacker (1893–1939) is regarded as the most important representative of New Objectivity in Austria. The painting shows a naked, damaged doll with splayed legs and torso lying back on the floor. Nastily pointed, bent metal wires stick out of her shoulders and hips. The breasts, knee-length stockings and patent-leather shoes suggest sexual connotations, as does the thorny cactus jutting erectly beside her. Next to the doll is a small toy sheep, with which Wacker hints in macabre fashion at a Baroque shepherdess’ scene. Moreover, he adds his own lithograph in the background: the depiction shows a scene of squatting men in the Tomsk prisoner of war camp in Siberia. Throughout his life, the traumatic events he endured during his Russian captivity in World War I remained with him. The atrocities he experienced, the groups of men in the army and in the camp occupied Wacker in terms of their impact on sexuality and everyday relations between men and women.

AK, 2019