Oil on panel
Signed upper left. 70 x 60 cm (27,5 x 23,6 in)

PROVENANCE: Private collection Southern Germany.

What is so unusual about this portrait of a child is its composition. The momentary posture of the boy holding up his bread in order to keep it from the cat, is accompanied by a two-dimensional painting style that almost thwarts this spontaneous gesture. Erna Dinklage turned to New Objectivity in the 1920s, in order to give her painting a direction in line with the then dominating Zeitgeist. Important works originate from these days that were coined by her close friendship with Oskar Maria Graf and Georg Schrimpf. In the art of German Modernism children portraits do not make for an individual part. Otto Dix depicted his children just the way they were, with all their childlike behavior, part of this naivete of perspective can also be found in our painting by Erna Dinklage, who fully engaged in childishness and thus depicted the playful independent world of her son without any euphemism. [KD].