Lot Essay
Meidner was slightly built and diffident; "Small in stature, I was very bashful. My features [were] delicate, benign, full of suppressed fire, and no-one took much notice of me" (Ludwig Meidner, 'Hymne auf den hellen Tag', in Im Nacken das Sternemeer, Leipzig, 1918, p. 56).
Meidner painted himself repeatedly; "in the studio mirror Meidner sees his own nocturnal face, strangely modelled by the gaslight. He is disgusted by himself; he hates himself; he makes faces at his mirror image and peers like a hunter in a blind at his own 'glacier-gleaming bald patch'. He is hunting himself. With implacable, grim precision he studies his own physiognomy...The pitiless relish with which he observes himself leads him on to paint, in self-mockery, a special self-portrait that confronts the world...Look! This is how I look - I, Ludwig Meidner." (C. S. Eliel, The Apocalyptic Landscapes of Ludwig Meidner, Los Angeles, 1989, p. 71).
Many of Meidner's self-portraits are now in museums, including the Hessisches Landesmuseum, Darmstadt and the Nationalgalerie, Berlin.
Meidner painted himself repeatedly; "in the studio mirror Meidner sees his own nocturnal face, strangely modelled by the gaslight. He is disgusted by himself; he hates himself; he makes faces at his mirror image and peers like a hunter in a blind at his own 'glacier-gleaming bald patch'. He is hunting himself. With implacable, grim precision he studies his own physiognomy...The pitiless relish with which he observes himself leads him on to paint, in self-mockery, a special self-portrait that confronts the world...Look! This is how I look - I, Ludwig Meidner." (C. S. Eliel, The Apocalyptic Landscapes of Ludwig Meidner, Los Angeles, 1989, p. 71).
Many of Meidner's self-portraits are now in museums, including the Hessisches Landesmuseum, Darmstadt and the Nationalgalerie, Berlin.