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ONLINECOLLECTION

Small Sheep with Doll, 1934

Leopold Museum,
Vienna
Oil on wood
24×31 cm

Artists

  • Rudolf Wacker

    (Bregenz 1893–1939 Bregenz)

Unfortunately not on display at the moment
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.

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Object data

Artist/author
  • Rudolf Wacker
Title
Small Sheep with Doll
Date
1934
Art movement
New Objectivity
Category
Painting
Material​/technique
Oil on wood
Dimensions
24×31 cm
Signature
Signed and dated lower right: R. Wacker 34
Credit line of the permanent loan
Oesterreichische Nationalbank
Keywords

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Provenance

Provenance research
Leopold Museum i

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