Alfred Kubin
The Department Store. 1922. Color lithographic reproduction on textured cream wove paper. Signed, lower right. 10 3/8" x 13 5/8" (26.4 x 34.6 cm). Printed by Max Jaffe and published by the Rikola Verlag/Verlag Neuer Graphik, Vienna, 1922. In 1920, three years prior to opening his original Neue Galerie in Vienna (for which the New York museum is named), Galerie St. Etienne founder Otto Kallir served as the artistic director of the publisher Rikola Verlag. Under his affiliated enterprise the Verlag Neuer Graphik, Kallir worked closely with then-contemporary artists including Max Beckmann, Oskar Kokoschka and Oskar Laske. His favorite collaborator was Alfred Kubin, whose lambent ink drawings, tinged with only the subtlest touches of watercolor, explored the peculiar undercurrents of everyday experiences. Kubin challenged Kallir to publish accurate color reproductions of his work (then a difficult feat), and was delighted that "The Department Store" could scarcely be distinguished from the original. Raabe 176.
