Untitled 1944

This caricature, created around 1941 by the collective Kukryniksy, depicts a high-ranking Nazi officer captured in Paris. Just imagine them wielding their tools—charcoal, ink, gouache on paper—to make this vitriolic image. That startled, bulging-eyed expression says it all! Stripped of his military regalia and dressed in a bourgeois woman's clothing, with hands up in the air, we can only imagine what the artists might have been thinking. The artists use sharp lines and contrasting shades of grey to portray the downfall and ridicule of a Nazi officer. You can almost sense their delight in exaggerating the figure's features. It's almost like they’re thumbing their noses at him. By rendering him as an almost clownish figure, they are making a powerful political statement through the act of satire. This piece is part of a larger tradition of political cartoons, a visual form that relies on distortion and humor to convey a pointed message, and it’s easy to see how artists build on each other’s energy and wit, even across different times and places.