Otto Neumann: His Life and Work

One of the most versatile and original artists of the twentieth century, Otto Neumann created works of stark brutality, sumptuous beauty, and sleek simplicity in an array of media oils, watercolors, chalk, graphite, lithographs, woodcuts, and monotypes, among others. He lived through revolutionary changes in the art world of prewar and postwar Germany, and drew inspiration from his contemporaries and predecessors, as well as from sources literary and deeply personal. Today, Neumann is best known for his subtly hued woodcuts and monotypes of human, animal, and abstract forms, created in the last twenty-five years of his life. But, in addition to the range shown in these brilliant pieces, a critical part of the artist s evolution is displayed in his other, earlier works: his series of graphic illustrations based on Dante s Divine Comedy; his rich, colorful portraits in oil and watercolor; the frightening grotesques he created during Germany s calamitous late 1920s; his Cézanne-inspired, watercolor still lifes; and his linoleum prints based on Edvard Munch s creation myth, Alpha and Omega. Otto Neumann: His Life and Work brings to light the career of a significant, overlooked artist and places his work within the proper context of great twentieth-century art. Institutions Owning Works by Otto Neumann Art Institute of Chicago, Detroit Institute of Art, Goethe Institute, Museum of Modern Art New York, Portland Art Museum, Rose Art Museum, Tampa Museum of Art, Virginia Museum of Fine Art.