Liebespaar II 1921 - 1922

Otto Mueller made this lithograph, "Liebespaar II", sometime in the first decades of the 20th century, likely using a greasy crayon on a stone slab. The resulting image has a wonderful immediacy to it. Mueller's marks aren't fussy or overworked. Take a look at the woman's face, the eyes especially. They're built up from a few bold, confident strokes, the shading rough but effective. The same goes for the background. It looks like a dense thicket, rendered with a kind of shorthand that suggests rather than describes. I love how Mueller embraces the raw physicality of lithography. The grainy texture of the stone is still visible, reminding us that this isn't just an image, but a physical object born from a process. It reminds me a little of Paula Modersohn-Becker, she was working at a similar time, also looking for an essential, honest way to depict the human form. They both understood that art is never really finished, just abandoned!