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On light grey paper. Signed on the lower right and numbered on the lower left “IV/XXX”.
Sheet 3 of the portfolio “Otto Mueller. Publisher J. B. Neumann. Berlin. Graphisches Kabinett” Berlin 1922 (XXX numbered copies).
Compare the painting of a similar composition from 1921, “Self-portrait with Woman (Irene Altmann) and Exotic Flower,” by Lüttichau/Pirsig 203.
His relationship with Irene Altmann, a student at the Breslau Academy 28 years his junior, proved problematic, not least for religious reasons. Otto Mueller attempted to cope with his “unhappy passion” in a series of double portraits like this one, as well as full-length and allegorically distorted ones. The mask over Irene’s head, with its wide-open eyes in shock, indicates the precariousness of the situation. It is significant that Irene here bears the features of Maschka, whom he divorced that year but with whom he met again and again.
Item Id. 76670
