Soldat im irrenhaus.

Previous title, replaced October 2024: A soldier in a lunatic asylum. Lithograph by Conrad Felixmüller, 1918.

[Weimar] : [Gustav-Kiepenheuer Verlag], [1919]

1 print : lithograph ; image 33.5 x 27 cm

Felixmüller 18 Soldat im Irrenhaus/ II. FM. Lithographie. The letter held by the patient bears the lettering: "Abs. Felixmüller Res. Laz", i.e. sender Felixmüller, at the address "Residenz Laz" (meaning Lazaret)

[Edition of 100 impressions as published in Die Schaffenden].

Wellcome Collection 46958i

Friedrich W. Heckmanns, Conrad Felixmüller: Das druckgraphische Werk 1912 bis 1976 im Kunstmuseum Düsseldorf Schenkung Titus Felixmüller und Luca Felixmüller, Düsseldorf : Kunstmuseum Düsseldorf, 1986, no. 91

Gerhart Söhn, Conrad Felixmüller: das graphische Werk 1912-1974, Düsseldorf 1987, no. 150A

P. Barth, Conrad Felixmüller: die Dresdner Jahre 1923-1933, Düsseldorf: Galerie Remmert u. Barth, 1987, p. 36

'Militär-Krankenwärter Felixmüller XI, Arnsdorf', Menschen, 15 May 1918, vol. 1, no. 3

Shulamith Behr and Amanda Wadsley, Conrad Felixmüller 1897-1977: between politics and the studio, Leicester 1994, catalogue of works by Daniel Koep, no. 64 (impression from Los Angeles County Museum of Art, The Robert Gore Rifkind Center for German Expressionist Studies)

"Around 1917 Felixmüller developed an increasingly dynamic pictorial space, divided up into facets as if exploding ... In works depicting Felixmüller's vision of life at the end of World War I, fragmented angles, sharp-edged distorted forms and the meshing of foreground and background evoke the impression of torment, disturbance and conflict" (The dictionary of art, New York 1996, vol 10, pp. 868-869), all of which may be applied to the present work

Work produced after the artist's four-week service as a hospital orderly in the Arnsdorf lunatic asylum which had been taken over as a military hospital (Barth, loc. cit.) The experience was described by Felixmüller in Menschen, loc. cit., and quoted in the following later sources: C. Felixmüller, 'Conrad Felixmüller: von ihm, über ihn', ed. by G. Söhn, Düsseldorf 1977, pp. 15-20; Barth, loc. cit.; and Schrei in die Welt, Berlin 1988, pp. 116-120

The title has been taken from wording on the object.

Purchased from Sotheby's, London, 9 December 1999, lot 230.