Sitzende und vier Badende I 1914 - 1918

Otto Mueller made this print, ‘Sitzende und vier Badende I’ with lithography; it’s all about the dance of marks and what happens when you let the process breathe. The texture here is amazing – you can almost feel the grit of the litho crayon on the stone. Look at how the black ink of the water is a scratchy contrast to the smooth, pale bodies of the bathers. I love the way Mueller doesn’t try to hide the process. In fact, he highlights it with visible hatching marks. It’s like he’s saying, ‘Hey, this is how it’s made, folks!’ The whole composition has a playful and improvisational feel. It makes me think of Paula Modersohn-Becker, another artist who was into the raw and honest depiction of the body and everyday life. It’s a conversation across time, a shared love of the imperfect and the real.