Graue Stimmung c. 1923

Karl Wiener made this drawing using ink and watercolour. The wash of colour spreads like an ominous cloud, and out of this void emerges a scowling man. I wonder what Wiener was thinking when he made this work? Maybe he felt like an outsider. It’s like he’s saying, “I see you, I see through you.” I feel like this character in the painting is trapped. The ink outlines are sharp, giving definition to the planes of the face, but then the edges dissolve into the soft watercolour and the figure is swallowed up by a grey mood. You can see echoes of other artists in this work. The angularity of the face reminds me of Otto Dix or George Grosz, and the flat, almost cartoonish way of applying colour, like Alex Katz. Artists are in a constant dialogue, and even though Karl Wiener is no longer with us, his work speaks to us today.