Ohne Titel X 1942

Karl Wiener made this drawing of a woman in 1943, a very dark one, in black and white chalk, with just a touch of red for her lips and a few blue stripes for her dress. The piece is ghostly, emerging from the darkness; I feel like he might have added layers of charcoal, rubbing it into the paper in circular motions. There is an amazing balance between what is defined and what is suggested. She’s like a phantom, a figure called up from the shadows of the war, maybe? I wonder about this woman, what she represents to him, the artist. Maybe she’s an actress, or a girlfriend, or just a woman he saw on the street. And I wonder, too, about all those other artists, then and now, trying to capture something about being alive during such troubled times. I like how the moon is like a little thought bubble coming from her head.