Drei Figuren in Landschaft 1920

Adolf Hölzel made this drawing, Drei Figuren in Landschaft, with coloured pencils sometime in his life. What's striking is how Hölzel builds up the image with layers of colored marks, letting the texture of the paper peek through. It's like he's thinking through the process, making visible the journey of the artwork's creation. There's something really compelling about the materiality here. The colors are muted yet vibrant, and the surface has this tactile quality that invites you in. Look at the lower figure, how the blues and greens blend and separate, creating a sense of depth and movement. It's these little moments that make the piece come alive. Hölzel was part of this moment in German art, I am reminded of folks like Kirchner and Heckel, where artists were trying to find new ways of seeing and representing the world. This piece feels like an experiment, an attempt to capture something fleeting and intangible. It's about the process as much as the final image, and that's what makes it so fascinating.