Genre scene

Otto Hettner showed a group of shapely young women carrying water from a spring in tall jugs placed on their heads and supported by their hands. A mountain road leads among high rocky walls. The print was made in 1920 using the lithographic technique on thick ribbed paper. The print is the fifth proof, which testifies to the artist's intensive conceptual work. When designing this lithograph, the artist referred to the works of ancient art. He idealised the figures of women, modelling their hip bands on the clothes of the sculpture Venus de Milo, made by the artist from Rhodes between 150 and 125 BC, discovered in 1820 and exhibited in the Louvre. The figure of Venus was considered a model of ideal female beauty. Hettner's print and his other works probably came to the German City Museum in Szczecin when he was commissioned to design a fresco to decorate the museum. Otto Hettner was born in Dresden in 1875 and died there in 1931. He initially studied art in Karlsruhe at the Grand-Ducal Baden School of Art and continued his studies in Paris. From 1893 to 1895, he studied at the private Académie Julian and then worked in the French capital until 1903. He was a versatile artist, painter, sculptor and printmaker. He worked under the influence of the Neo-Impressionist painters, Théo van Rysselberg and Georges Seurat. In the field of sculpture, he was influenced by Auguste Rodin. From Paris, he moved to Fiesole near Florence. He worked there until 1911, undertaking study trips in Italy, France and Germany. He spent the next stage of his life designing monumental compositions in Berlin. He worked on the frescoes Deluge in 1915-1916 and Parnassus in 1917-1919, intended for the Szczecin Municipal Museum. In 1919, he moved to Dresden and took up a teaching post as a professor at the art academy. He spent the last years of his life in southern Europe as a landscape painter drawing on Paul Cézanne's experiences.

Ewa Gwiazdowska