Karl Schmidt-Rottluff

Karl Schmidt-Rottluff (1884 – 1976) was a German painter and printmaker, who helped to form the Die Brücke group in Dresden in 1905. Originally an architect student, he turned to painting. Influenced by cubism and African art he first created rural landscapes and nudes, but after serving in World War I, with his nerves shattered, he turned to woodcut prints many of which were biblical subjects. Between 1905 and 1926 he created 650 works, of which over 450 were woodcuts. Rottluff was expelled from the Prussian Academy of Arts, and the Nazis seized over 600 of his works from public collections. Nevertheless hundreds of his woodcuts have been preserved and offer us intense and powerful insights into many Bible stories.