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Tod und Paar (Death and the Couple) from Totentanz (Dance of Death)

Tod und Paar (Death and the Couple) from Totentanz (Dance of Death)

Artist: Lovis Corinth (German, 1858-1925)
Publisher: Euphorion Verlag, Berlin
Date: 1921 (published 1922)
Dimensions:
(Sheet) H: 14 1/4 in. (36.2 cm); W: 9 7/8 in. (25.1 cm);
(Image) H: 9 1/2 in. (24.1 cm); W: 7 in. (17.8 cm)
Medium: Soft-ground etching on cream wove paper.
Classification: Prints
Credit Line: Gift of Barbara Sunderman Hoerner
Object number: 2004.68
Label Text:
Lovis Corinth, one of the most successful artists in Germany in the early 20th century, was called the latter-day Rubens. After suffering a stroke in 1911 that caused paralysis in his left side, his style became more expressionistic, even violent at times. In Totentanz (Dance of Death), a set of five etchings, he modernizes a theme explored by German printmakers since the Renaissance: the inevitability of death. In this gloomily atmospheric print, a couple (Corinth’s close friends the etcher Hermann Struck and his wife Mally) together confront Death, dressed in a high hat and holding an hourglass. The Strucks hold hands, seeming to strengthen one another as they stare into Death’s hollow eyes.


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