Rudolf Nehmer (1912-1983), Greed, 1948

Rudolf Nehmer (1912 Bobersberg - 1983 Dresden), Greed, 1948. Woodcut on yellowish wove paper, 12.5 cm x 17.5 cm (image), 45 cm x 30.5 cm (sheet size), signed “Rud.[olf] Nehmer” in pencil lower right and inscribed “Matth. 6,19” lower left.

- The wide sheet margin slightly bumped in places and with minimal traces of creasing, the image in excellent, colorful condition.

- The Poverty of Wealth -

This woodcut is part of Nehmer's best-known series, his pictorial interpretation of the Sermon on the Mount (Matth. 5:1-7:29), created shortly after the end of World War II. The print illustrates the verse: Do not lay up for yourselves treasures on earth, where moths and rust consume and where thieves break through and steal (Matt. 6:19).

The hands seem parched from greedy grasping, while the gaze looks beyond the image with eyes wide in panic. An allusion to the supposedly ever-present danger of being robbed. Wealth is not possessed, it possesses the owner.

About the artist

Rudolf Nehmer studied from 1932 to 1934 in Dresden at the private art academy founded by Ernst Oskar Simonson-Castelli under Woldemar Winkler and, after a brief interlude at the art academy, was a student in Willy Kriegel's studio until 1936. After his first one-man show in 1935 at the Kühl Art Exhibition in Dresden, which was progressive until the Nazi era, Nehmer was represented at the major German art exhibitions in the following years. In 1938 he stayed in Worpswede. From 1941 he was a soldier on the Western Front and in Denmark, returning to Dresden from British captivity in 1945. After the war, he had his first solo exhibition in 1945. Nehmer was a co-founder of the artists' association 'Das Ufer - Gruppe 1947' and in 1951 a founding member of the artists' cooperative 'Kunst und Zeit'. He had numerous solo and group exhibitions in the GDR, culminating in a retrospective at the Galerie Neuer Meister on the occasion of his 60th birthday.