Small Town (Kleinstadt) (plate, loose leaf) from the periodical Das Kunstblatt, vol. 1, no. 5 (May 1917)
Walther Klemm
German, 1883–1957
1917
A drypoint print of a small town centered on a brooding church, in which Walther Klemm uses rough, incisive lines to convey the atmosphere and emotional weight of the place.
What strikes you is the cathedral’s looming, geometric mass set against a sky of restless, arcing hatchmarks, with thin, shadowy figures and curved tracks that give the scene a quietly tense, almost cinematic mood.
Produced for the 1917 periodical Das Kunstblatt, this intimate hand-pulled print reflects the early twentieth-century German interest in reviving printmaking and using expressive line to register modern anxieties and reframe ordinary urban and small-town life.
Medium
Drypoint
Dimensions
plate: 6 5/8 x 5 5/16" (16.8 x 13.5 cm); page: 11 x 8 7/16" (27.9 x 21.4 cm)
Classification
Department
Credit
Transferred from The Museum of Modern Art Library, New York
Accession
660.1949
Palette
Art Terms
Exhibitions
