.jpg?w=1)
Lot Essay
Ralph Jentsch has confirmed the authenticity of this work.
The present work depicts four skeletal stick figures in an apocalyptic, uninhabitable landscape. In their hands, they hold shredded remains of flags and measly attempts at weaponry. Flames burst out of their eyes as they look to an area outside the composition, the figure in the back pointing to their next target. All around them, bands of stick figures rumble and brawl. In this devastated world, time and meaning have become obsolete. Ralph Jentsch has written of this motif, “The invention of the stick men in 1946 is the consequent development of the artist whose hope, that the world would become a better place after the end of World War II, was bitterly disappointed by the beginning of an even larger threat, the Cold War.”
The present work depicts four skeletal stick figures in an apocalyptic, uninhabitable landscape. In their hands, they hold shredded remains of flags and measly attempts at weaponry. Flames burst out of their eyes as they look to an area outside the composition, the figure in the back pointing to their next target. All around them, bands of stick figures rumble and brawl. In this devastated world, time and meaning have become obsolete. Ralph Jentsch has written of this motif, “The invention of the stick men in 1946 is the consequent development of the artist whose hope, that the world would become a better place after the end of World War II, was bitterly disappointed by the beginning of an even larger threat, the Cold War.”