Allegorical scene

Willi Geiger's graphic Mourning a Soldier was executed in 1914 using lithographic technique and printed on paper imitating Japanese one. It belongs to a series of compositions Unseren Helden 1914 dedicated to soldiers who died at the beginning of the First World War. It depicts mourning for a killed soldier, similar to compositions showing mourning for Christ. The body, shown sideways, is falling inert and is supported by four people surrounding it. These are three women reminiscent of the three biblical Maries and a uniformed companion of the slain, modelled on the figure of St John the Evangelist. That way, the war hero was compared to the suffering Christ and the scene took on a universal, timeless character.Willi Geiger was born in 1878 in Schönbrunn near Landshut and died in 1971 in Munich. He studied at the School of Arts and Crafts in Munich and then at the Academy of Art, where he studied with Franz von Stuck from 1902 to 1905. The works of the Symbolists, his friendship with the Expressionists Jules Pascin, Rudolf Levy, who came from Szczecin, Hans Purrmann, and a study trip to Spain influenced his work. His artistic specialisation was made possible by a one-year scholarship, the Villa Romana Prize, thanks to which he improved his skills in Florence, working with Ernst Barlach. He was a painter, graphic artist and teacher. He worked in Berlin, Munich and Leipzig. He lectured at the School of Arts and Crafts in Munich, after the Second World War at the Academy of Fine Arts in Munich, and at the State Academy of Graphic Arts and Book Crafts in Leipzig in 1928-1933. He was close to the style of New Objectivity and Surrealism. He undertook the design of ex libris and illustrations, working in etching and lithographic techniques.

Ewa Gwiazdowska